Epistle. Brethren: Gospel. At that time: Sermon CXL.Behold I have told it to you beforehand. Once in a venerable manor-house, at the head of the carved oak stairway, stood an old clock. About half a minute before it struck it made a curious, buzzing, whirring sound. Then all the children of the house said, "Ah! the old clock is warning"; and upstairs they ran to see the clock strike. The clock told them beforehand what it was going to do. Now, brethren, there is a clock that has gone on warning and striking for many a century, and that clock is called "the Church's Year." It was wound up last Advent, and since then it has struck Christmas, it has struck Epiphany, it has struck St. Paul's Day, it has struck Easter, Pentecost, Assumption, All Saints and All Souls. To-day it has nearly run down; it is warning for next Sunday, when it will strike Advent again. The Church, next Sunday, will bring you face to face with judgment. To-day she warns you that the great season of Advent is coming once more; that the old year is passing, that the new one is about to begin. So, then, brethren, before the clock strikes for judgment, before time is dead, while life and grace and opportunities still remain, take up your stand before the old clock; look at the hours depicted on the dial, and ask yourself how you spent last year, how you would be prepared if judgment should come to you a week hence. Listen! How merrily that chime rings. You heard it about a year ago. It was the Church clock striking Christmas. Where were you then? Some of you, we know, were where you should be—at holy Mass, receiving Holy Communion at the altar-rail. You heard the organ pealing and the choir singing Adeste fideles; you saw the little Infant Jesus in the crib, and the bright evergreens decking the church, and felt in your hearts that indeed there was peace on earth. Happy you if it was thus. Then the hour of Epiphany struck! What gifts had you to bring to the manger-bed? Had you the gold of Christian charity to present? Had you the incense of faith and the myrrh of sweet and fragrant hope? Ah! it is to be feared that some knelt not at the manger-bed of Jesus, but on the brink of hell: forgetting God, scandalizing their neighbor, damning their own souls. On the "Feast of Light" (as the Epiphany is sometimes called) some were kneeling at the shrine of the world and '"holding the candle to the devil." Didn't you hear the pendulum of the old clock ticking, ticking, and seeming to say, as it swung: "Behold! I have told you beforehand! Behold! I have told you beforehand!" Why, then, did you not do penance? Then came Lent; and on the first Sunday of that holy time the clock warned loud and clear for Easter. A voice almost seemed to be heard shouting in your ears: "Easter-duty! Easter-duty! 'Time and tide wait for no man!'" And so at last the clock struck. Easter had passed. You had been "told beforehand." You did not heed, and thus, oh! listen heaven, and listen hell, another Easter-duty was missed, and another mortal sin committed. To-day, dear friends, the Church clock warns you again. The Church herself cries to you to cast "off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light." Give ear, then, while there is yet life and hope. Have you been negligent? "Better late than never"; now is the time to mend. Rev. Algernon A. Brown. Sermon CXLI.That you may walk worthy of God. "Brethren," says St. Paul, in the Epistle of this Sunday, "we cease not to pray for you, … that you may walk worthy of God." These words may, no doubt, be understood to mean that we should live in such a way as to be worthy to receive God in his Real Presence at the time of Holy Communion, and by his grace at all times; and, finally, to receive him, and to be received by him, in his eternal kingdom of glory. But there is another sense, perhaps a more natural one, and certainly a more special one, in which we may understand them. This sense is, that we should live in a way worthy of, and suitable to, the dignity and the favor which he has conferred upon us, in making or considering us worthy, as the apostle goes on to say, "to be partakers of the lot of the saints in light"—that is in bringing us into, and making us members of, his one, true, and Holy Catholic Church. In other words, that we should behave in such a way as to be creditable to him and to his holy church, to which we belong. Now, this is a point the importance of which cannot be overrated, and which we are too apt to forget. We lose sight of the fact that the honor of God and of his church has been placed in our hands, and confided to our charge; so that every sin which we commit, besides its own proper malice, has the malice of an indignity to the holy state to which we have been called. For this reason, a sin committed by a Catholic is always greater than the same sin committed by any one else; not only on account of the greater grace and clearer light which he has received, but also because God is more specially robbed of his honor by it. You all see this plainly enough when it is a question of a sin committed by one who has been called to the ecclesiastical or religious state. If a priest or a religious is guilty of any offence, though it be but a small one, you are scandalized by it, not only because he ought to have been better able to avoid it, but also because it dishonors God's choice of him to be a special image in this world of his divine goodness. But you forget that you also, merely because you are Catholics, dishonor God, and bring him and his holy religion into contempt by the sins which you commit. It is plain enough, however, that you do, though in a somewhat less degree than those whom he has more specially chosen. And other people do not forget it, though you may. "Look at those Catholics," the world outside is continually saying; "they may belong to the true church, but they do not do much honor to it. See how they drink, lie, and swear. If that is all the good it does one to be a Catholic, I would rather take my chance of saving my soul somewhere else than be reckoned among such people." Now, it is all very true that such talk as this is unjust and unfair, and that the very persons who say such things may really be much worse, at least considering their temptations, than those whom they find fault with. But still they have a right to find fault that those whom God has brought into the true church are not evidently as much better as they ought to be, than those whom he has not; and you cannot altogether blame them for finding fault with him rather than with yourselves, and saying that this Catholic Church of his is rather a poor instrument to save the world with. Remember then, my brethren, that a bad Catholic is a disgrace to his church, and a dishonor to Almighty God, who founded it. A story is told of a man who, when drunk, would deny that he was a Catholic; he had the right feeling on this point, though he committed a greater sin to save a less one. Imitate him, not in denying your faith, but in taking care not to disgrace it; for God will surely require of you an account, not only of your sins, but also of the dishonor which they have brought on the holy name by which you are called. Sermon CXLII.As lightning cometh out of the east, These words of our Lord, my dear brethren, refer principally to the general judgment, which will come suddenly upon all, at least all of those who shall be alive at the time when it shall occur. And he could not have used a more striking comparison to show how sudden it will be; how it will take every one unawares, even of those who will be expecting it. You know that when you watch the flashes of lightning in a thunder-storm, though you are expecting them all the time, yet each one takes you by surprise; you hardly know that it has come till it has gone; you do not so much see it as remember it. So it will be at the last and awful day; all at once, without any warning, the heavens will open, and God will come suddenly, not this time in mercy, but in justice; not to save the world, but to judge it; there will be no time even for an act of contrition, but as every one is then found, so will he be for all eternity. Probably you and I will not be in this world at the time of the general judgment; it is most likely that we shall die before it comes. We shall rise from our graves and be present at it, but we shall have been already judged; so that it will not be by it that we shall be saved or lost. But that judgment which we shall have gone through will perhaps also have come on us suddenly; as suddenly as the one on the last day. For it will come on us the instant that our souls leave the body; the moment after we die we shall appear before the throne of God to receive the sentence of eternal salvation or condemnation. So it may surprise us at any moment; for we may suddenly die. There is not one of us here who has any certainty that he may not before to-day's sun sets, nay, even this very hour or minute, even before he can draw another breath, be standing before that terrible judgment seat, and receiving that sentence from which there is no appeal. How often do we hear of people suddenly struck down by death without a moment's warning; people who were promising themselves, as you no doubt are promising yourselves, many more days to live. They did not do anything, so far as we can see, to deserve such a sudden blow; they were living lives no worse and no better than those of others around them. "Those eighteen," says our Lord, "upon whom the tower fell in Siloe, and slew them; think you that they also were debtors—that is to say, sinners—above all the men that dwelt in Jerusalem?" No, God calls us suddenly in this way to show that he is the owner of our lives, that he has made no promise to give any one of us a single moment beyond those which he has already given. But sudden death is not, we may say, any special visitation of God. It is natural, not wonderful. If you could see the way in which your own bodies are made, you would wonder not so much that people die suddenly, but rather that they should die in any other way. It is not more surprising that one should die suddenly than that a watch should suddenly stop. The body is in many ways a more delicate thing than a watch; and in its most delicate parts the slightest thing out of order may be fatal. So we continue to live rather by the special care which our Lord takes to preserve our lives, than by any hold which our souls have on our bodies. But you will say, "After all, father, very few really do die suddenly, compared to those who have time to prepare." Well, it is true that there are not many who pass instantly from full health into the shadow of death; but if there were only one in a million, is it not a terrible risk for one who is not prepared? And, besides, in another way it is not true. For almost all die sooner than they expect. All think, even when they have some fatal illness, that they will have more time than is really to be given them. Death, when it actually comes, is a surprise; for every one, perhaps, the coming of the Son of Man is at the last like the lightning; every one expects it, but not just then; every one looks for a few moments more. When you think of these things, my dear brethren, there is only one reasonable resolution for you to make. It is to live in such a way that you may be ready to die at any instant; to be like those wise virgins of whom the Gospel of to-day's feast, the feast of the glorious martyr St. Catherine, tells us, who had oil in their lamps when the cry came at midnight: "Behold the bridegroom cometh, go ye forth to meet him." To have the grace of God, which is represented by that oil, always in the lamp of your soul; to be always in the state of grace, never in that of sin; for most assuredly that cry will come to each one of you, and sooner than you think; and woe be to you if you are not prepared when it shall sound in your ears! |