Epistle.
Ephesians v. 1-9.

Brethren:
Be ye followers of God, as most dear children. And walk in love as Christ also hath loved us, and hath delivered himself for us an oblation and a sacrifice to God for an odor of sweetness. But fornication and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not so much as be named among you, as becometh saints: nor obscenity, nor foolish talking, nor scurrility, which is to no purpose: but rather giving of thanks. For know ye this, and understand that no fornicator, nor unclean, nor covetous person which is a serving of idols hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no man deceive you with vain words. For because of these things cometh the anger of God upon the children of unbelief. Be ye not therefore partakers with them. For you were heretofore darkness, but now light in the Lord. Walk ye as children of the light: for the fruit of the light is in all goodness, and justice, and truth.

Gospel.
St. Luke xi. 14-28.

At that time: Jesus was casting out a devil, and the same was dumb; and when he had cast out the devil, the dumb spoke; and the multitude admired: but some of them said: He casteth out devils in Beelzebub, the prince of the devils. And others tempting, asked of him a sign from heaven. But he, seeing their thoughts, said to them: Every kingdom divided against itself shall be brought to desolation, and a house upon a house shall fall. And if Satan also be divided against himself, how shall his kingdom stand? because you say, that in Beelzebub I cast out devils. Now if I cast out devils in Beelzebub, in whom do your children cast them out? Therefore they shall be your judges. But if I, in the finger of God, cast out devils, doubtless the kingdom of God is come upon you. When a strong man armed keepeth his court, those things which he possesseth are in peace. But if a stronger than he come upon him and overcome him, he will take away all his armor wherein he trusted, and will distribute his spoils. He that is not with me, is against me: and he that gathereth not with me, scattereth. When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through places without water, seeking rest: and not finding, he saith: I will return into my house whence I came out. And when he is come, he findeth it swept and garnished. Then he goeth and taketh with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and entering in they dwell there. And the last state of that man becometh worse than the first. And it came to pass, as he spoke these things, a certain woman from the crowd lifting up her voice, said to him: Blessed is the womb that bore thee, and the paps that gave thee suck. But he said: Yea, rather, blessed are they who hear the word of God and keep it.

Sermon XLVII.

Every kingdom divided against itself
shall be brought to desolation.
—St. Luke xi. 17.

We can see at once how true the sentence just read is; for if the head of a kingdom were to rise against the members, the king against his ministers, the people against both king and government, and the army and navy against their proper commanders—if all this should take place, then I say that kingdom would certainly be brought to desolation, and any enemy could easily come along and take possession of it. Now, dear brethren, the Christian family is a little kingdom. The father and mother are the king and queen, the older and more experienced members of the family are the counsellors, the children the subjects of that kingdom. The Christian family ought to be most closely united, and this for many reasons. Each member has been baptized with the same baptism, been sanctified by the same Holy Spirit. They have all been pardoned for their sins through the same Precious Blood, do all eat of the same spiritual food, the Body and Blood of Christ. Then, to come to natural reasons, they are bound together by the tie of blood, by the tie of parental and filial affection; they live together, pray together, rejoice together, suffer together. So there is every reason why the Christian family should be united; and if it is to fulfil its mission properly it must be united, or it will be brought to desolation. O my dear friends! how many of these little kingdoms which should go to make up the grand empire of Jesus Christ upon earth fall away from their allegiance to him, and all because they are divided against themselves. We see a father, for instance, given over to habits of drunkenness; he comes home either in a dull, heavy stupor or else in a perfect fury of rage; he worries his wife, scares his children, disgraces himself; all his family shrink from him. There you see at once the head divided against the members. Or there is in the family a cross, ill-tempered, scolding wife, and, as the Scripture says, "there is no anger above the anger of a woman: it will be more agreeable to abide with a lion and a dragon than to dwell with a wicked woman. As the climbing of a sandy way is to the feet of the aged, so is a wife full of tongue to a quiet man." Such a woman would divide any family; she destroys the unity thereof just as much as the drunken husband. What, also, must be thought of interfering relations, cousins, aunts, uncles, and last, but not least, mothers-in-law? How often do they make mischief and destroy the kingdom of the Christian family! So, too, rebellious children, quarrelsome brothers and sisters—they all destroy peace, they all help to divide the kingdom, they all help to bring it to desolation; and in the end, instead of a fair kingdom, strong and united, nothing remains but a wretched scene of strife and contention, and in comes the devil and takes possession of everything. Now, my dear friends, when by your drunkenness, your crossness, your mischief-making and party-spirit, by your rebellion against parental authority, you divide the kingdom of your family, not only you yourselves will suffer, not only will you and your family have to endure spiritual injury and perhaps loss of salvation, but the great kingdom of Christ, now militant here on earth, and one day to be triumphant in heaven, suffers also. Who make up the church on earth? Individuals, families. Who are to fill the ranks of the heavenly kingdom? The same. Oh! then, if you are divided against yourselves, if you are brought to desolation, you are part of the devil's kingdom on earth, and will form part of his empire of sin and death in hell. For God's sake, brethren, stop this evil war. Stop these things which make the family miserable. Have peace in your homes. Let men see that the peace of Christ and the union of Christ dwell there. Correct your faults; curb your tongues and your tempers; be obedient. Remember, the first words the priest says when he comes to your homes on a sick-call are these: "Peace be to this house and all that dwell therein." Try to profit by that benediction. Try always to have the peace of God, which passeth all knowledge, and then shall your kingdom stand.

Rev. Algernon A. Brown.

"Are you going to make your Easter duty?" This is an important question just now, my dear brethren. You should put it to yourselves, and your answer should be: "Yes, certainly." The church commands it; and you know very well that he who will not hear the church is to be held as a heathen and a publican; that he who despises the church despises our Lord, and he who despises the Lord despises his Father who is in heaven. Surely you will not make yourselves guilty of this frightful sin of contempt; surely you do not wish to be held as a heathen. But knowing, as you do, the precept of the church binding at this time, how can you expect, if you do not fulfil it, to escape from the consequences of your disobedience, as expressed in the words of our Lord which I have just recited?

To go against the church in one of her commands is to spurn her authority altogether. It is strange that people should make, of their own wits or fancy, distinctions between the precepts of the church, when the church makes and acknowledges no such distinctions. The authority in all cases is the same, and, therefore, the commands are all equally binding. Yet how many Catholics who would scruple to eat meat on Friday or miss Mass on Sunday think nothing at all of breaking, without reason, the fast and abstinence of Lent, and give no heed whatever to the obligation of going to confession and communion in Easter-time! It really looks, to judge from their conduct, as if this Easter duty was not on an equal footing with the other commands of the church; as if the church did not mean what she prescribes. Now, the truth of it is, to this precept is attached a more severe sanction than to any other. The church makes any Catholic who violates it liable to excommunication, and deprivation of burial in consecrated ground. So you see the obligation is very strict and the church is terribly in earnest about it, if you are not.

To take matters in your own hands, as so many Catholics do on this point, and call little what she calls great, and slight an order that she is so anxious about, is to be a heathen, or, at any rate, a Protestant; it is to set your private judgment above her authority; it is to despise God, who commands through her. If you would only take this view of it—and this is the true view to take—you would think more than once before you would say: "O pshaw! any other time will do. Once a year? All right; I find it more convenient to go at Christmas." No, any other time will not do; once a year will not do, unless it be just now at this time. Christmas is a glorious feast, and Christmas-tide a joyful season, but it is not the season prescribed by the church for your annual communion; and, heathen that you are, your convenience is not the main point to be considered. The question is: has the church power from God to command me, and what does the church command?

Oh! then, my brethren, let not the penances, the prayers, the instructions, the special graces of this holy season go to naught and be of no avail; but rather let them lead you up to the end for which they are intended—that is, to bring you to repentance for past sins, amendment for the future, to restore you to the friendship of your God, and strengthen you, for further battling in life, with the bread of heaven, his most precious Body and Blood.

Sermon XLIX.

He saith: I will return into my house
whence I came out.
—St. Luke xi. 24.

The warning which our Lord gives us in this Gospel is certainly a most terrible one, my brethren, but it may not seem plain to whom it is addressed; who they are who, now and at all times, are in danger of having the devil come back to them in this way of which he speaks. For nowadays, thank God! it is not very often that we find people who are really possessed by the devil, in the proper sense of the word.

But, in a more general sense of it, there are plenty of people who are possessed by the devil. They are those who are in a state of mortal sin. In them Satan has regained the possession from which he was driven out in holy baptism—that is, the soul which was his at least by original, if not by actual, sin. And he is in them as a dumb devil, like the one which the Gospel tells us that our Lord cast out; that is, he makes the people dumb whom he possesses, by keeping them from telling their sins and getting rid of them by confession.

But the dumb devil is often cast out, particularly at times of special grace and help from God, like this holy season of Lent through which we are now passing, or at the time of a mission or of a jubilee. At such times you will always find people, who have been away from the sacraments for years, coming back to them and making an effort to amend their lives and save their souls.

Now, this is very unpleasant to the devil, who has counted on these people as his own. He has a special liking for the souls which have been his so long. So when he is driven out of them he does not simply go off on other business, as we might expect; but he always has an eye on his old home. He says to himself, when he finds that he does not get along so well elsewhere: "I will return into my house whence I came out. I will see if I cannot get in again."

So he comes back to his old house, to the soul which has been his, and too often he finds it pretty easy to get in again. He finds it, in fact, "swept and garnished," as our Lord says, and all ready for his reception. So, of course, he goes in and takes his old place. The soul, which has escaped from sin by a good confession, relapses into it again.

What a pity this is! And yet how common it is! How many, how very many, there are who a month or so after a mission, or some other occasion when you would think they would really be converted in good earnest, are back again in their old sins just the same as if they had never confessed them at all!

It seems strange, perhaps. And yet it is not so strange when you come to think of it. The reason is not very hard to find. It is just the one that our Lord gives: it is that the house of the soul, from which the devil has been driven, is empty, "swept and garnished." Nothing has been put there in the place of the vices and bad habits that were there before.

There is no habit of prayer; there is no remembrance of the good resolutions that were made at confession; there is no attempt to avoid the occasion of sin; and, above all, there is no grace coming from the sacraments. That is the great mistake these converted sinners have made. They have promised at confession to go every month for the future; but they have not kept that promise. Now, it is perfect folly and madness for one who has been in the habits of sin to hope to persevere by saying a few short prayers and going to confession once a year. Such a way of going on leaves the soul empty of grace, and without anything to prevent its enemy from coming in.

If you want to persevere after a good confession, go every month to the sacraments. This is not a practice of piety; it is only common prudence. This is the means which God has appointed in his church to fill the soul with grace, and leave no room for the devil in his old home from which he has once been driven away.