Epistle.
Galatians iv. 22-31.
Brethren:
It is written that Abraham had two sons: the one by a bond woman, and the other by a free-woman: but he that was by the bond-woman was born according to the flesh: but he by the free-woman was by the promise. Which things are said by an allegory: for these are the two testaments: the one indeed on Mount Sina which bringeth forth unto bondage, which is Agar: for Sina is a mountain in Arabia, which hath an affinity to that which now is Jerusalem, and is in bondage with her children. But that Jerusalem which is above, is free: which is our mother. For it is written: "Rejoice, thou barren, that bearest not: break forth and cry out, thou that travailest not; for many are the children of the desolate, more than of her that hath a husband"; now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise. But as then he, that was born according to the flesh, persecuted him that was according to the spirit: so also now. But what saith the Scripture? "Cast out the bond woman and her son: for the son of the bond-woman shall not be heir with the son of the free-woman." Therefore, brethren, we are not the children of the bond-woman, but of the free: by the freedom wherewith Christ has made us free.
Gospel.
St. John vi. 1-15.
At that time:
Jesus went over the sea of Galilee, which is that of Tiberias: and a great multitude followed him, because they saw the miracles which he did on them that were infirm. And Jesus went up into a mountain, and there he sat with his disciples. Now the pasch, the festival day of the Jews, was near at hand. When Jesus therefore had lifted up his eyes, and seen that a very great multitude cometh to him, he said to Philip: Whence shall we buy bread that these may eat? And this he said to try him, for he himself knew what he would do. Philip answered him: Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one may take a little. One of his disciples, Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, saith to him: There is a boy here that hath five barley loaves, and two fishes; but what are these among so many? Then Jesus said: Make the men sit down. Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, in number about five thousand. And Jesus took the loaves: and when he had given thanks he distributed to them that were sat down. In like manner also of the fishes as much as they would. And when they were filled, he said to his disciples: Gather up the fragments that remain, lest they be lost. So they gathered up, and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves, which remained over and above to them that had eaten. Then those men, when they had seen what a miracle Jesus had done, said: This is the prophet indeed that is to come into the world. When Jesus, therefore, perceived that they would come and take him by force and make him king, he fled again into the mountain himself alone.

Sermon LIII.
The Happiness Of True Penance.

Rejoice Jerusalem.
—Introit of the Mass for the Day.

This is called "LÆtare, or rejoicing Sunday." It may surprise you, dear brethren, to be told that this is a day of rejoicing; you will be amazed, no doubt, that, in the midst of the rigorous Lenten fast, when men should bewail their sins and do penance for them, and sounds of mirth and joy are hushed, the church should bid us rejoice. Yet thus she does to-day. In mid-Lent even she would have her children rejoice, would have them forget for the moment penance and turn their hearts to thoughts of gladness, that, by so doing, she may teach them that the rigors of this season, the self-denial and curbing of the flesh she imposes on us, is undergone that we may realize more fully the spirit of her teaching—that we may, in truth, preserve, or get back if we have lost it, that interior joy, that spiritual jubilation which is the portion of every one who serves Christ as he should be served.

Our religion is one of joy, because we are Christ's and he is ours; and what more can we ask, or what greater can be bestowed upon us, than the having of Christ; Christ, at once perfect man and true God; Christ, whose life is the model of our lives, whose grace is the source of all joy; Christ, to have whom is to have a brother, and, at the same time, the eternal God; the God by whose word were made all things that are, who knows no limit to his power, who has in himself all perfections that man can desire or conceive of; a brother—a man like ourselves, with a human heart like our own, with affections like those of other men; a brother burning with tender love for us, knowing our weakness, knowing our wants and ready to succor us; a man who was himself tempted, who has himself suffered the miseries of this life, who, in a word, was made like to us in all save sin. This is whom we have when we have Christ, and should we not rejoice at having such a one?

We should and do rejoice; our hearts are always full of gladness when we are in God's grace, and Christ is ours and we are his; and this is what the church wishes for all her children—the friendship and the love of God. She ever has Christ herself, and so is never sad; though she may mourn with him suffering, still there is joy behind all her sorrow.

If she puts on sombre garments, if she calls man to penance, if she fasts and covers her head with ashes, she is still glad in the depths of her heart. She is calling you and me to share the gladness, to get it back if we have lost it by mortal sin; she is bidding you and me to keep that gladness by chastising our bodies; she is warning us that we may lose God's grace, as, alas! too many before us have lost it, unless we are vigilant.

Dear brethren, listen to the church's voice to-day; come, all of you, come and share her joy. If you are not in God's grace do not let another day go by without making your peace with God. Oh! how much you are losing, and for what? For some trifling satisfaction which cannot bring true happiness; some mean gratification of your lower nature; for sin you are letting slip by the offer of God's friendship and the joy of a good conscience. Do you want to die as you are living? If you do not, repent of your sins to-day; before you leave this church promise God that you will sin no more; that you will be in fact what you are in name—a Christian.

Sermon LIV.
Liberty Of Spirit.

By the freedom wherewith Christ has made us free.

These, my dear brethren, are the concluding words of the Epistle read at Mass to-day. They ought to be of unusual interest to us, for they speak of a matter which we all care very much about; which some care so much about that they are willing to fight for it, and to die for its sake.

If you have listened to these words of St. Paul, which I have just read, you know what this is of which I speak, and for which we all care so much. It is freedom or, as we often call it, liberty. Many, as I just said, will even die, if need be, rather than abandon it; and indeed thousands, nay millions, have actually done so. Man feels that he must have it. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness he claims as his right.

Especially do people nowadays ask for liberty, and insist on having it. The child is no sooner out of his mother's arms than he wants and tries in all things to have his own way. Obedience is a lesson that he seldom willingly learns. He thinks that when he is a man he can do as he pleases; and he does not see why he should not even now. Sometimes he succeeds in having his own way, in spite of his parents; he runs away from school and, when a little older, from church; he passes his life among such companions as he chooses, who help him to get the liberty which they think they have themselves got, by defying all the laws of God and of man.

But is this really liberty which these foolish children, and young men and women more foolish than children, think they have got by trampling on all law? No; a thousand times no! It is to true liberty only as the shadow to the substance, as they find to their cost before they have travelled very far on this road. They have but escaped from a light and easy yoke to take on their necks one far heavier and more grievous, and which becomes more and more so every day. They have left the service of the kind and good Master to whom they belonged and entered into that of a hard and cruel tyrant instead. He has filled them with base and beastly passions, and made them slaves to these passions. They are given over, body and soul, to impurity, gluttony, or drunkenness, or it may be to a mean and miserable greed for money. At last, perhaps, they try to turn back and shake themselves free from these accursed lusts, which have fastened on them, and are draining the very life-blood from their souls; but it seems that they cannot do so. They set out to do as they pleased, and how has it ended? In their being bound, hand and foot, in the slavery of sin.

But what was their mistake? Were they altogether wrong in wishing for liberty? Is the desire for freedom, which is implanted in us, all a delusion? Are we never to do as we desire, but always to have a restraint and a yoke upon us?

No, my brethren, the idea of liberty is not a mistake. We are right in wishing for liberty, hoping for it, and trying to secure it in the right way. But the mistake these foolish people of whom I have spoken make is in going the wrong way in the search for it: in looking for it in the wrong place.

Where, then, is liberty to be found? I will tell you; and you may be surprised at what I say, for it does not sound as if it could be true; but it is true, nevertheless. True liberty, then, is in the service of God. Those who serve God best are the freest men on earth.

But how can this be? I answer, It can and must be very easily and very plainly. For those who serve God best of all—that is, the saints in heaven—always do just what they like, and enjoy doing it most perfectly. They have got rid of all the hindrances that, more or less, prevent every one here below from doing what he wishes.

And, of course, those who try to walk in the path of the saints here on earth also have much of this freedom. The more they learn to do God's will the more they love it; and so they are always doing more and more what they like, and more and more easily all the time; and that is just what liberty is: to do what you like, and to do it without pain or difficulty.

The servants of God, then, have their liberty, because they have got free from sin, which is the only obstacle to it. And this freedom from sin is the gift of Christ, it is the fruit of his Passion; it is, then, the liberty which he has given us. It is ours if we wish it. Try, then, my dear brethren, in this holy season of Lent, when his graces are so abundantly poured out, to gain that freedom which they will surely give us, that "freedom wherewith. Christ has made us free."

Sermon LV.
The Lust Of The Eyes.

Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness,
but rather reprove them.
For the things that are done by them in secret,
it is a shame even to speak of.
—Ephesians v. 11, 12.

Some weeks ago, my dear brethren, we had occasion to speak of the horrible and filthy vice of impurity, which is every day dragging into hell thousands of souls with the mark of the cross of Christ on them, and washed in vain with his Precious Blood. As was said then, many Christians do not seem to realize the enormity of sins against the Sixth Commandment—at least those of thought and of the tongue; to which may be added those coming from the use of the other senses, especially that of sight.

An immodest imagination or desire, wilfully entertained or enjoyed, is a mortal sin, and gives the soul so harboring it instantly into the power of the devil. Let us hope that no one having the Catholic faith will doubt this, or think it too strict a doctrine; for it is the unanimous consent of all the teaching authority in the church from the beginning, amply supported also by Holy Scripture. What shall we say, then, of wilful and deliberate gazing at immodest pictures, or of reading matter directly calculated to inflame impure passions, and certain to have its effect?

Now, I hardly need to say that a city like this is full of these temptations coming through the eyes into the heart. The good and pure instinctively avoid them, and scarcely know that they exist; accustomed to watch the slightest movements of their souls to evil, and instantly to repress them, they shrink with horror from those filthy words and pictures on which others eagerly gaze. They know that, as the Apostle says, it is a shame to speak of these things, a greater shame to write or to read of them, a greater shame yet to expose them to sight, to incite temptation by them, and thus to destroy the souls for which Christ died.

I say that the good and pure are not likely to be caught in this net of Satan; by this I mean those who have been warned of the evil, who understand its danger, and from well-formed habits of virtue set themselves resolutely against it. But there are others who are good and pure—in their baptismal innocence, perhaps; young, at any rate, and unused to sin, at least of this kind—who are not forewarned and forearmed like those of maturer years, who, seeing bad pictures in papers sold even at stores otherwise of good repute, and kept, perhaps, by Catholics, do not fully understand how bad they are, and are led to look at them with pleasure, to learn evil which they knew not of, and thus to contract habits of sin which they will never overcome.

Now, what does our Lord say of those who thus put temptation in the way of the young and innocent? You all know his words: "He that shall scandalize one of these little ones who believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone should be hanged about his neck, and that he should be drowned in the depth of the sea." Strong words these, but they are those of the Divine Wisdom, and beyond correction by human lips. Yes, it is better to die, better even to die in the state of sin, than to add such a sin as this to our number.

Let us beware, then, not in any way, however indirect, to give sanction or encouragement to this work of the devil in our midst. "Have no fellowship with these works of darkness, but rather reprove them." Do not buy or even take up for a moment the indecent papers or books now unfortunately so common among us; still more, do not sell them; do not allow them to be in the house; do not suffer your children to look at or read them; do not frequent places where they are to be had. Set your faces resolutely, for the honor of God and the Catholic name, as well as for your own souls sake, against this plague of immodest literature, which has assumed such fearful proportions and become so bold and unblushing in these days in which we live. Think nothing to be light or of little moment in this matter; mortal sin is much easier in it than you may believe.