Epistle.
Ephesians iv. 1-6.
Brethren:
As a prisoner in the Lord, I beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation in which you are called, with all humility and mildness, with patience, supporting one another in charity, careful to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. One body and one Spirit: as you are called in one hope of your vocation. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in us all, who is blessed for ever and ever.
Gospel.
St. Matthew xxii. 35-46.
At that time the Pharisees came nigh to Jesus: and one of them, a doctor of the law, asked him, tempting him: Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said to him: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. And the second is like to this: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On, these two commandments dependeth the whole law and the prophets. And the Pharisees being gathered together, Jesus asked them saying: What think you of Christ? Whose son is he? They say to him: David's. He saith to them: How then doth David in spirit call him Lord, saying: "The Lord said to my Lord: Sit on my right hand, until I make thy enemies thy footstool"? If David then called him Lord, how is he his son? And no man was able to answer him a word: neither durst any man from that day forth ask him any more questions.
Sermon CXXIX.
Prayer For Sinners.
And the other is like unto this:
Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
—St. Matthew. xxii. 39.
How great must be the dignity of human nature, my brethren, since, as we learn by this day's Gospel, our Lord couples the love of his fellow-men with the love of his own sovereign and divine self! Perhaps if we appreciated the native worth of human nature we should be a trifle more patient with its faults. I mean, of course, other people's faults, for with our own faults we are all too patient.
The practical lesson conveyed by the commandment, "Love thy neighbor as thyself," is that it is our duty to love sinners and to pray for them. To love good people is easy enough, and we think a man a kind of a monster who has not at least one or two dear friends whose virtues have won his love. But it takes a good Christian to love what at first sight seems so hateful—a drunkard, a libertine, an apostate, a bully, a thief. To have an actual, practical affection for such persons, even when one is related to them, seems quite a special thing—a peculiar vocation, a side-path in the spiritual life, and not by any means the common business and regular vocation of every-day Christians. Yet a moment's thought shows that it is, without any doubt, our Lord's blessed will that we should have a special affection for just such hardened sinners. Are they not men, and are they not purchased by the Blood of Christ?
How much we mistake our duty in reference to such poor wretches! When you say of one, "Oh! he is a most worthless creature," how surprised you would be if you could hear a whisper coming from his guardian angel: "Jesus Christ thought him worth dying for." And when you say of another, "Oh! I can't bear him; I can't stay a moment in his company," how surprised you would be to hear, "And I, an angel of God, I gladly keep him company day and night." Surely, brethren, there is something worth loving, heartily loving, in a soul that our Lord would die for, and to whom God would give a bright angel as a constant companion. We are like men going through a picture-gallery: we admire only the brilliant and unmistakable beauties displayed there—here a gorgeous sunset, there a fine battle-scene, and again a ship tossing upon the waves. But one of better taste than common, without forgetting all these, will be able to detect the work of a great master, though faded with the lapse of many years and covered all over with dust. So it is with the poor sinner's soul: it is the work of a great master. And what though it be all stained and spotted with mortal sin; is there no such thing as true repentance? Are there no fountains of living waters in the sacraments in which it may be washed whiter than snow? Are there no gems of divine grace with which it may be decked out as a bride waiting for the bridegroom?
Prayer for the conversion of sinners should be far more practised than it is. Why, brethren, look around you in this great city, and if you can count the stars of heaven or the sands of the sea-shore you can count the men and women in mortal sin; and, alas! very many of them belong to our religion. Nay, look about in your own families. How seldom will a family be found where there is not at least one member living openly at enmity with God! Now, just here, in the midst of the worst wickedness, are many thousands of devout servants of God, and in every family one or two souls whose very names might be Faithful and True. And God arranges this mingling of good and evil, that the good souls by their prayers may save the bad ones from eternal death; just as in southern countries men plant eucalyptus-trees in low, marshy places, for the eucalyptus, with its fragrant leaves, counteracts the poisonous vapors of the swamp.
If, therefore, you pray for yourself you do well; but do not forget that, if you are a true Christian, the poor sinner is your other self. And if you pray for the souls in purgatory, do not forget that there are many souls about you who are always in danger of hell, and unless many prayers are offered for them they are likely enough to be lost for ever.
Sermon CXXX.
The Christian Vocation.
I beseech you to walk worthy of your vocation
in which you are called.
—Epistle of the Day.
In the Gospel our Lord says that the perfect love of God and of our neighbor fulfils all the law and the commands of God through the prophets. At another time he said: "Be ye perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect." It is plain that every Christian has a vocation—that is, is called to a Christ like, a God like life. Something more is expected of him because he has received infused light to know by divine grace how to do more. In general, we call that a higher, a more exalted spiritual state. Now, there are degrees even in this depending upon the particular grace it pleases God to give to one person or another.
One star differeth from another star in brightness and glory, and so shall the glory of the Christians differ in heaven, according to the perfection to which they have brought their souls while in this school-time of the world-life. Over and above what are called strict Christian laws, which one must obey or lose heaven, there are certain principles of Christianity called Evangelical counsels—namely, poverty, chastity, and obedience. Some folks fancy these counsels apply only to monks, nuns, and priests. That is a great mistake. Monks, nuns, and priests receive grace and are bound by their vocation to practise these counsels in a high degree, and yet not even all these in the same manner. A secular priest, for instance, is not called to practise poverty in the same manner as a priest of a religious order, although he or even a layman living in the world may practise that counsel, as he may the other counsels, too, just as perfectly as any monk ever heard of. All depends on the grace one has. His vocation and his responsibility and his position in heaven all hang on his fidelity to grace.
All Christians should practise the counsel of poverty. Yes, both rich and poor. The spirit of poverty is detachment from created things. One's heart must not be set on them. One must not love riches for their own sake. One must feel obliged to share with the poor. One must not despise the poor, but love them for Christ's sake. One must give a good deal for religious purposes. One must keep his baptismal vows to renounce the devil and all his pomps. One must, therefore, deny himself in many things that savor of the pride of riches, even if he is rich. Why? Not because he is a monk, nun, or priest, but because he is a Christian.
Every Christian must practise the counsel of chastity. Heaven help us! In these degraded times, to judge by the fashionable indecencies sanctioned by so-called society people—the horrible abuses of the holy state of marriage, the filthy accounts appearing every day in the newspapers—one would think that even the Sixth Commandment was abolished. Now I need not enter into particulars, but you know, without further argument or illustration, that every Christian man, woman, and child would be unworthy the name if they did not, almost every day, make many sacrifices and struggles against temptation—all of which mean practising the counsel of the Christian perfection of chastity.
So also of obedience. One must obey the Ten Commandments and the laws of the church. Oh! yes. And have we not also to obey the special decrees of the Holy Father, of our bishop, and of our pastor? What sort of a Christian is he who is his own shepherd, or one who is always "standing up for his own rights," as they say, submitting just within law and only when he cannot help himself? And does Christian humility mean nothing in act? That is a narrow road of obedience and a long one, as you all know; and blessed is he who joyfully walks therein. Instead of wanting to shirk these counsels, and put all upon the shoulders of religious, every one ought to be praying hard that God will, of his divine bounty, give us, too, men and women living in the world, more and more grace to practise all that our worldly condition will allow us to do, convinced by faith that he is most truly happy here, as he will certainly be hereafter, who is filled with high Christian aspirations, striving to "walk worthy of his vocation" and realize in himself the picture of a perfect Christ-like life.
As a prisoner in the Lord,
I beseech you that you walk
worthy of the vocation in which you are called.
—Ephesians iv. 1.
Brethren, has it ever occurred to you that each one of us has a vocation in this life? I refer not to our Christian vocation, which we all have in common, but to the particular state of life to which each one of us has been called. It is not an uncommon error for people to think that priests and nuns are the only privileged mortals who are called by God to some special work, and that to their vocation alone God has attached peculiar and extraordinary graces.
This is an error we must correct. We have all, thank God, the vocation to be Christians and the call to be saints, but we have, moreover, our own special calling, suitable to our character and disposition; and our common Christian vocation, and in a great measure our eternal salvation, depends on our fulfilling worthily the particular vocation in which we are called.
Some of us God has called to be priests, to serve continually at his altar. Some to be fathers of families, and others to remain single all their life. Some he has called to the higher professions, and others to the hard but manly toil of every-day life. But to all these vocations, to all these different states of life, he has attached certain duties, peculiar obligations, which must be met and fulfilled.
The great danger, brethren, that we have to avoid is the common and stupid error of those who hold that their every-day vocation has nothing to do with this Sunday calling; that there is little, if any, connection between their own special calling and their general calling to be Christians; who maintain that as business men they can and must act in their own business-like way, banishing God from their hearts and his law from their lives, at least during their hours of business.
This error, stupid as it is, is not so uncommon as one might at first imagine. Take a few practical cases. How many are there who, when they examine their conscience, ever think of questioning themselves upon the duties of their position in life? How many fathers of families, listening to these words to-day, question themselves daily as to how they govern those whom God has put under their charge; how they watch and provide for the spiritual and temporal welfare of those whom they are called upon to support? How many young men ever think of asking themselves how they have fulfilled the obligations they are under to parents, now perhaps unable to take care of themselves? How many business-men question themselves as to the honesty or propriety of this or that mode of action they have been following? Alas! they are few indeed. And this is the practical outcome of not recognizing the close connection there is between our every-day calling and our Christian vocation. As every vocation, brethren, has its duties and its difficulties, so every calling has its special helps and graces. God saw each one of us from all eternity—just as we are to-day, with all the weaknesses of our character, with all the difficulties that surround us, and all the temptations with which we have to contend. He foresaw all these things and provided for them, regulating his helps and graces according to our wants, and directing all things towards our final destiny. His grace is always sufficient for us, and as long as we remain in his friendship there is no vocation or calling so difficult or trying but what can be cheerfully and manfully borne and worked towards our soul's salvation. The lot of some is certainly not an easy one, but God always fits the back for the burden.
The practical question I would have you ask yourselves to-day, brethren, is this: Granted that I have a vocation in this life; granted that Providence has placed me in a position that involves duties and obligations to God, my neighbor, or myself; how am I fulfilling these obligations? How am I walking in the vocation in which I am called? Worthily or unworthily—that is the all-important question for me to answer to-day to the satisfaction of my conscience, as I will have to answer it one day to Almighty God.
Am I the father or mother of a family? If so, do I discharge the duties of my calling? Do I make my home pleasant and agreeable for my children? Do I supply them with suitable home amusements? Do I furnish them proper reading matter, or do I allow them to waste their time and ruin their souls with the vile penny literature of the day? Do I oblige them to come to Mass and approach the sacraments, while I neglect these duties myself? Or am I a business-man who deals squarely and honestly with my neighbors, never on the alert to take advantage of the ignorant and weak? Am I in the employment of others, and, if so, do I fulfil my calling worthily by doing all that strict justice or Christian charity requires of me? Or am I just to men who work for me? These are some of the questions regarding your vocations that I would have you ask yourselves to-day.
Brethren, when we come to render our account to God, be sure of this: he will not trouble us with the question as to whether we have been experts in our respective professions, whether we have been successful business-men or skilled mechanics; no, but whether we have been just and honorable, whether we have walked worthily in the vocations to which we have been called. Walk then, brethren, worthy of your vocation, worthy of the church which has reared you, worthy of the hope that is in you, worthy of the name you bear, that of Christ, who has redeemed you. Imitate him, live as he lived, and suffer in your calling the things he suffered. Then the prayer of our patron St. Paul will not be in vain, and we will walk worthy of the vocation in which we are called.
