Chapter III. Love Wounded by Sin
It is said of one of the first fathers of the Oratory, the companion of St. Philip, that he used to prefer those writers on grace who made most of God's sovereignty and least of man's free-will. This remark reveals to us his whole character. It is not so much an expression of his being a faithful disciple of St. Thomas in the particular theological question alluded to, as a disclosure of his peculiar spiritual life, and the bent of his devotion. He had a ruling passion which was more to him than the intrinsic merits of the controversy. He had got a habit of taking God's side in every thing, and of always looking at things from God's point of view. And this is exactly what I am venturing to recommend to you.
A false doctrine is odious, because it is untrue; it is odious also because it gives scandal, or backens devotion, or injures souls. On all these grounds good men hate it. But those who love God with a very tender and delicate love do not think of it so much in these respects, as because God's honor is wounded by it. God's honor is their first thought. They range themselves at once on God's side. So again, a good man is overwhelmed by an unjust persecution or a cruel calumny. These men are not without the most tender sympathy and the most generous self-sacrifice for the sufferer. But their first thought, their strongest thought, their abiding thought, is the. wound inflicted on God's honor by the persecution of His servant, and of the sin almost necessarily committed by the persecutors. So in cases of spiritual destitution, or of great public sins, or of important political changes, or of local calamities, or of Catholic triumphs, or of getting souls out of purgatory, these men by an instantaneous instinct feel and find where God's glory is touched, and are at once so absorbed in it, that they often seem unaffectionate or ungenerous, or uncordial in sorrowing and rejoicing with others; though it is not really so in their hearts.
Now, this taking God's side on every occasion may easily be formed in us as a habit, by time, prayer, and quiet assiduity in devotion; and surely it is a considerable help to us in loving and serving God. It is a great thing gradually to grow in the conviction that there is no real sorrow in the world but sin; that we have no real enemy but sin; and that warfare with sin, in others as well as in ourselves, in prayer as well as in action, is just the one work we have to do, and is just the one work which is worth doing. And it is this conviction which comes of our always taking God's side, and which when it has once come causes us to persevere all the more steadfastly in taking that side. As creatures, we are in our proper place when we are taking the side of our Creator, defending His interests, protecting His majesty, advancing His glory. There is happiness in the darkest lot, peace in the wildest trouble, when we are thus engaged.
But God is not our Creator only; He is our Father also. Oh that we all felt the importance of this! The man who serves God as bis Creator, is a very difrerent character from the man who serves Him as his Father. We do not serve God out of love, because we have not a loving idea of God. We are dry, cold, grudging, with Him, because we will persist in looking at Him only as our Lawgiver, or Master, or Sovereign, or Judge. Far more persons would try to go on to perfection, far more would persevere in it, there would be a far less wide gulf between saints and common Catholics, if only we were all agreed to serve God as our Father, and to look upon Him as our Father. It is astonishing what an amount of jealous and unkindly feeling there is even among good people toward God, His sovereignty and His majesty. It is at the root of all the unhappiness and want of comfort in religious duties. It brings with it all sorts of temptations against the faith, and starts all manner of scruples in the mind, which hamper the tenderness of devotion, and freeze the gay spirit of loving mortification. Why, it is the very sunshine of life to believe and feel at every turn that God is our Father, and is acting to us out of a Father's love and in a Father's way!
See what pains God has been pleased to take to prevent this unkindly view of Him on the part of His children. He has committed all judgment to the Son. It is our dear Lord, as man, who is to judge us at the last. Our very last appeal is to His sacred Human Heart. When God invites His rebellious people to return to Him, by the mouth of Jeremias, He sums up all their sins, and then pleads so compassionately, rather for Himself than with them;1 " Therefore, at the least, from this time call to me, Thou art my Father." The apostle sums up the whole work of the Gospel in this very thing, that we have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry Abba, Father; and when our Lord teaches us to pray, it is by the name of Father that He bids us call on God. Nay, He has provided one of the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost, that of Piety, for the express purpose of enabling us to exercise, even in an heroic degree, a really filial tenderness toward God. This gift is defined to be an habitual disposition which the Holy Ghost infuses into the soul to excite in us a filial affection toward God, and St. Thomas tells us,* that works done to God as our Father, are more meritorious than works done to Him as our Creator, because the motive is more excellent. Of what importance saintly men considered this sweet filial feeling toward God, is shown very remarkably by an observation which Cardinal Bellarmine made when he visited France. He said he was struck with the devout piety of the French, in this sense of the word piety, and that the people seemed to him in consequence better Catholics than the Italians. So at least he is quoted by Lallemant.
St. Paul, not content with the passage already cited from the Epistle to the Romans,! repeats almost the same words to the Galatians.J He speaks as if, under the old dispensation, God had not, so to say, succeeded in persuading the Jews to look upon Him as their Father, and that, therefore, " when the fulness of time was come, God sent His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, that He might redeem them who were
♦ 2. 2daa. q. 12L t viii. 15. t Cap. iv.
under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because you are sons, God hath sent the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, saying, Abba, Father. Therefore, now he is not a servant, but a son." Yet even in the Old Testament, who does not remember the pathetic language of Israel? " Thou art our Father, and Abraham has not known us, and Israel hath been ignorant of us; Thou, O Lord, art our Father, our Redeemer; from everlasting is Thy Name."*
Lancisius, in his Treatise on the Presence of God,f gives a number of acts of love, addressing God as " My most holy Lord and dearest Father," and at the end he puts into the mouth of an objector this question, " Why in these interior acts of love do you add the name of Father? " He replies that it is for four reasons. First, because it is desirable that such acts of love should be elicited from the soul, not merely by the affections of humility and religion implied in the title of Lord, but by an affectionate filial feeling toward Him. Secondly, because of the greater merit thus acquired, according to the doctrine of St. Thomas quoted above. " It is more excellent," says the angelic doctor, "to worship God as our Father, than to worship Him as our Creator and Lord." And St. Leo J says, " Great is the sacrament of this privilege, and this gift exceeds all gifts, that God should call man son, and that man should call God Father." Thirdly, because the remembrance that God is our Father excites confidence in us; and it is on this account, says Tertullian, St. Cyprian, and St. Chrysosp isatas Uiii. 16. t ii. 66. I Serra. vi. de Nativ.
torn, that the Lord's prayer begins, Our Father; for, to quote St. Thomas * again, " confidence is chief! y excited in us by considering God's love toward us, whereby He wishes us good things, and on which account we call Him Father." Fourthly, "we call Him Father," says St. Augustine, "that by the kind name of Father we may win His favor, and by tha I appellation move Him to grant what we are asking."
There is a very beautiful passage in the revelations of St. Gertrude,! showing how acceptable with God are titles of reverent yet familiar endearment. Our Lord told her that as often as any one says to God, my Love or my Sweetest, or, my best Beloved, and the like, with a devout intention, he receives a pledge, of his salvation, in virtue of which, if he perseveres, he shall receive in heaven a special privilege of the same sort as the special grace which St. John the Evangelist, the beloved disciple, had on earth.
Now, if we fully feel that God is our Father, if our daily way of thinking of God, and of approaching Him, is as our most dear Father, it must soon come to pass that there will be nothing on earth half so dear to us as His majesty and honor. We should feel as if it belonged to us, and was really our own, and we should take up any offence against it as warmly as we should now take up an injustice toward ourselves. But it is sin which offends Him; and therefore it would be sin which we should feel to be our one enemy, our only care, our' single misery on earth, whether it were in ourselves or in others. Yes; other men's sins would cease to be matters of
*2. 2d£e.q.8R. fl.3.c.9.
indifference to us, because they are offences against the Majesty of God. We should fully enter into that constant cry of St. Philip, — Only let there be no sin! only let there be no sin!
When we are full of this view of God, not a day goes by without our detecting something fatherly in Him which we never observed before. Prayer changes, and sacraments accomplish greater things than heretofore. Every thing about us alters by degrees. Duties grow into privileges; penances brighten up into pleasures; pains soften the heart with a delicious humility, and sorrows are heavenly presences. Work becomes rest, and weariness of limb and brain almost touches on the sweet languor of contemplation. It is as if earth were making itself into heaven; and at the commonest sights and sounds something tingles in our hearts as if God were just on the point of speaking or appearing. What another thing is life when we have found out our Father; and if we work, it is beneath His eye, and if we play, it is in the light and encouragement of His smile. Earth's sunshine is heaven's radiance, and the stars of night as if the beginnings of the Beatific Vision; so soft, so sweet, so gentle, so reposeful, so almost infinite have all things become, because we have found our Father in our God.
When we love God, we rejoice that He is God, that He is so good and perfect as He is. We call this feeling the love of complacency. We transfer His joy to ourselves; we rejoice in it as if it were our own, simply because we love Him. Jacob would not believe in Joseph's glory, but* seeing him, he fell upon his neck, and embracing him, he said, Now shall I die with joy, because I have seen thy face,- and leave thee alive. But this is not the only office of love. Tf it makes us happy because the Object of our love is happy, by transferring His happiness into our hearts, and so making His interests our own, the same love will equally make us sorrowful, because the Object of our love is wronged and oppressed, by transferring His injury to ourselves, and placing His wrongs in our hearts, as if they were rather ours than His. What I mean is this, that to sorrow over the sins of others is no far-fetched devotion, or subtle refinement of religious feeling; but that it follows inevitably upon the love of God. Where there is no such sorrow for sin, either in ourselves or others, there is no love of God; and in proportion to the amount of love will the degree of sorrow be. What was it that made our Blessed Lady's dolors more intolerable than all the tortures of the martyrs, but that her love exceeded all the martyrs' love? Thus, if God is wronged and outraged, we take the wrong into our hearts, and it wounds us by means of the love we have for Him.
Nay, as sympathy and compassion are feelings more easily excited in us than those of complacency, it seems as if God wished to cultivate what theologians call the love of condolence, even more than of complacency. This is one reason why devotion to the Passion is the great popular devotion of the whole Church. It may also be a reason why our Lord was •Gen. xlvi.
pleased to suffer so much more than He need have done, and with so many unnecessary touching circumstances, that to condole with Him in His Passion might be all the easier, and so He might have more of our poor love. Neither does it require any rare amount of love to feel this sacred compassion. The women of Jerusalem were no saints, yet they wept over Him in the way of the Cross. Job's friends were the meanest-hearted of men, yet even compassion mastered their pompous dryness and unamiable pedantry. What we want of all things is our hearts softening, and sorrow softens them sooner and more effectually than joy.
I have no hope we shall get any further loves into our heart if we do not first domesticate this love of condolence there. We do not find such great fault with a man who does not joy in another's joy, as we do with him who grieves not with another's grief. Sympathy belongs to our position in the world and there is hope for the most sinful heart, if it only keeps its quick and affectionate sympathies. Out of all evil comes good; and so from sin and the Passion of our dear Lord, as from two perennial fountains, flows this blessed love of condolence in our hearts. And see what this love can do! Mary's compassion is said, in a certain sense, to have co-operated with our Blessed Lord's Passion in the saving of the world. How many instances we have on record of God showing mercy to sinners, just because they kept up some trifling tender memory of His loving Passion! We must grieve with him now, if we would rejoice with Him hereafter. I wish you would reflect on this. I do not think you keep it in mind as you ought, or appreciate its value. St. Francis of Sales says, that the ardent desire of our Saviour to enter our souls by this dolorous love is inexplicable. Here then, is a sweet way of loving Him, a sweet way of giving Him greater glory. You will not refuse Him when it is so easy. I am sure you love Him. I am sure you wish to love Him more. I will not believe that it is not so. Dear Lord! who can help loving Him? Is there such a thing as a heart that does not love Him? But it is not our business now to go in search of such strange things, or to see if such dreadful wonders exist upon the earth. We love Him; blessed be His grace for that! There was his old Passion eighteen hundred years ago; there is His daily passion now, and His nightly agony, because sin abounds. Cruel sin! cruel sinners! But He shall take refuge with us; only listen at your hearts, and hear what He says. Is it not clear?* Open to Me, My sister, My love, My dove, My undefiled; for My head is full of dew, and My locks of the drops of the nights!
But you may say, sorrowing for other men's sins is all very well for saints; we know the saints have done so; but it is a thing rather to be admired than imitated; it is above us; it would be an injudicious practice in us; we do not half sorrow for our own sins yet; we must not go so quick; we must learn a little more of that first. Alas! do not make such an objection as this. Let me take you on your owu ground. You have not, you say, half enough sorrow for your own sins. There is nothing you regret so * Cant. v. 2.
much as this, nothing which seems to you more uncomfortable and unpromising in your spiritual life. But why have you not more sorrow? Because you look more at sin as it affects the interests of your own soul than as it affects the interests of God. I do not naean to say you are not to look at it in that way — God forbid. You must do the one, but you must not leave the other undone. Now, if you look at sin simply as it regards your own reward and punishment, it is clear you will never get an adequate hatred of sin; for your punishment is far from being the chief evil of sin. Its chief evil is its outrage of the majesty of God; and if you could see it in this light, you would have a much keener sorrow for your own sins than you have. But, then, in order to see it in this light, you must learn to look with an eye of sorrow on the sins of others; for there you have no interests of your own, there you are contemplating simply the injured glory of our Heavenly Father. And thus, in order to sorrow more deeply and more effectually for your own sins, you must mourn for God's dear sake over the sins of others. And this is the practice which I wish now to recommend to you as embodying the spirit of the Confraternity: — sorrowing for the sins of others, and making reparation to God's injured glory for them.
I say this practice embodies the spirit of the Confraternity, because the reasons for grieving over other men's sins are the same reasons given before for belonging to the Confraternity. We sorrow for other men's sins, because God's glory is injured by them, because the fruit of our dear Lord's Passion is spoiled or wasted, and because souls are damaged and lost thereby. You see the same three things come over and over again; and you must not be weary of my repeating them so often. But, when I use the word sorrow, you must not misunderstand me; I am not putting before you any thing melancholy, or disagreeable. Far from it. The sorrow I speak of is one of the greatest pleasures in life, enough to lighten a heavy heart, rather than to depress a light one. Hear how the Eternal Father vouchsafed to explain this to His beloved daughter, St. Catherine of Siena. After speaking to her * of the five kinds of tears men shed, he speaks f of a state of the soul at once blessed and yet sorrowing. " It is blessed, indeed, from its sensible union with Me, wherein it tastes the Divine Love. Its sorrow arises from its view of the offences which are committed against Me, who am the Eternal Goodness, whom it beholds and tastes in its knowledge of itself and of Me. Neither does this hinder its state of union with Me; for the tears which it sheds are of great sweetness, proceeding from its knowledge of itself in its love of its neighbor. For it finds the plaintiveness of love in My mercy, and the sorrow of love in the miseries of its neighbors. So it weeps with those that weep, and joys with those that joy; for the soul rejoices when My servants pay honor and glory to My name." And again, $ "This unafflicting pain, arising from my being offended, and from the misfortunes of its neighbors, is founded on a most real charity, and fattens the soul. Nay, a man rejoices and exults in this pain, because it is a most2 convincing proof that I am in his soul by a very special grace."
Thus it has been that the Saints who have received the most eminent gift of tears, have also been inundated above others with spiritual joy. The old biographer of St. John Climacus tells us, that words cannot express the ravishing effects which his gift of tears produced in his soul; and the Saint himself, in the seventh step of his Ladder of Perfection, says, that " they who have received the gift of tears spend every day of their lives as a spiritual feast." Truly there is no bitterness in the tears of those who love; and what can there be but peace and joy in tears which are a gift of Him who is the love and jubilee, as St. Augustine calls Him, of the Father and the Son?
But I shall make myself more clear by giving you instances of this sorrow for all sins against the glory of God, from the saints themselves; and you will thus see how sweet and easy the practice is. God made the following revelation to the same St. Catherine.3 " I am greatly pleased, my dearest daughter, with this desire of enduring every pain and toil, even till death, for the salvation of souls. For the more a man endures, the more he shows his love of Me; and loving Me, he knows more of My truth; and the more he knows of Me, the more he feels the pain and intolerable grief of all sin against Me. You asked to take the punishment of other people's faults upon yourself, and you did not perceive that in asking that, you were all the while asking love, light, and knowledge of the truth; for, as I have already said, the greater love is, the greater is the pain; so, as love grows, sorrow will also grow." St. Mary Magdalene of Pazzi went into a rapture one day when she was meditating on the words of the Gospel: " There came forth blood and water." " She saw," sa}rs her confessor, " a great multitude of souls in the side of Jesus, shining like gems on a royal crown; and she said: ' So our souls, beautified by Blood, become the crown of the Word, because of the manifestation of the Word which they make before the rest of creation; and He glories in this, as a king glories in his royal crown.' She saw t-he souls who entered into this loving cavern of the Wounded Side, expressing two affections. First, they transformed themselves into blood by love, and then into water by sorrow. 'But God takes more pleasure in a soul which, in this life at least, transforms itself by sorrow, than in one that transforms itself by love; though I know, O Word! that the sorrow which a soul feels at seeing Thee offended can only arise from the love it bears to Thee, which in itself is more perfect than sorrow. Yet by the way of sorrow the soul is better exercised in the love of its neighbour, because thereby the zeal for his salvation masters it in a more lively manner. There is another reason, too, why in this life the exercise of sorrow pleases God more than the exercise of love, because the former is a sort of martyrdom, by which souls resemble Him hanging on the Cross, and their sorrow is compassion for His great pains, and as it were tears of love for His Passion. And when this sorrow rises to the point of affliction, it cleanses the soul from its sins. Love is certainly more delectable;
but, as we are in this world to be cleansed, it is rather the time for sorrowing and suffering for the love of our God; and so it is that God takes more complacency in sorrow than in love.' " On another occasion, after communion, our Lord told the same saint to mourn like a turtle-dove, and to compassionate Him because He was so little known and loved by His creatures.
Indeed this is the very office which nuns have to fill in the Church of God. There are none of them, no matter how they may be occupied with education or other external work, who have not this burden laid upon them by the mere fact of their religious profession. A number of pious and amiable ladies living together in peace and harmony, going through the daily routine of spiritual exercises prescribed by the letter of their rule, and engaged in the education of youth, without any recognition of a supernatural end, or any practical feeling that they are pledged to Jesus more than others are, — these are not nuns, however picturesque their habit may seem, and however respectable the individuals may be. It is pleasant, indeed, that ladies should have such a retreat from the world, where so much frivolitj' and temptation are kept at arm's length. But such retreats are not convents. Convents are quite other sort of places; and a lady retired from the world does not become simply on that account a mystical spouse of Jesus Christ. There is necessarily, b}* the vow of poverty, if by nothing else, an expiatory character in nuns. They have to mourn us turtle-doves. It is not they who are so much sheltered from the world, as Jesus, who is sheltered by them from the wicked world, in the cloister of their hearts. Their spirit must be one of loving sorrow, of sweet reparation, of holy languishing over the wrongs of their heavenly Spouse. They have wedded His interests, and must grieve and be glad with Him. He has given them His glory to nurse. The world is their cross, and they must carry it. They may not be indifferent to its sins; they are set apart to mourn over them. Never, where this spirit is wanting, will be found the royal heart of mortification the blessed heights of mental prayer, the awe-inspiring yet gladdening and refreshing atmosphere of the really supernatural life. Neither time, nor country, nor occupation, can dispense the spouses of Jesus Christ from their office of turtle-doves of the Sacred Heart. They must realize in a constant spirit of reparation and oblation, the sentiments which were habitual to the Blessed Paul of the Cross. He' lamented and deplored, with bitter tears, the ingratitude of men who corresponded so coldly to the unbounded goodness of God, and he would repeat: " What! a God made man! A God crucified! A God dead! A God hidden under the sacramental species! Who? A God? " And then he would be for some time silent in a sort of ecstatic stupor, and then again would exclaim, " Oh burning charity! Oh passionate love! Who? And for whom? Oh ungrateful creatures! How is it that you love not God? I would that it were possible to set all the world on fire with love. Ah for a little strength to go out into the open fields preaching my dear crucified Jesus, our good Father dying upon the cross for us sinners! "
If this be true of nuns, then it is so important that it should be always foremost in their thoughts. If they have an expiatory character, it must obviously be the chief thing about them. The success of their school must be a very secondary affair, and so also must be the number of their novices, and the architecture of their convents, and their exemptions from episcopal rule. Now, when nuns set to work and praise themselves under cover of praising their holy community, or their holy rule, or their holy founder, when they are full of pity for people living in the world, eloquent on dangers and snares from which they are delivered, and loud in self-gratulation on the grace of their vocations, I cannot avoid, perhaps in a spirit of contradiction, arguing thus: — These good nuns must take a low view of what Jesus requires of His spouses, or they would be more frightened about their own short-comings; I suspect our Lord does not fare over well in that community, and that the interior life of it is sadly shallow. Self-praise is apt to be the besetting sin of nuns; and they should sometimes remind themselves that a publican in the world needs less pity than a Pharisee in the cloister. An occasional week's meditation on the awful and adorable purity of God would accomplish this end with especial benediction. If a good soul were to see all at once what it has pledged itself to in the way both of perfection and of suffering by religious profession, perhaps without a miracle it could not endure the vision, and live. Ah! the lively, spiritual prattle about convent joys and convent privileges must come either from a very young novice, or a sadly inexperienced nun. It is never heard in those delightful houses where all breathes of the supernatural, of abasement, of tranquillity, of God, where the veiy air rebukes proud thoughts, and from which we cany away a precious disesteem oi self without the conceited bitterness of self-reproach.
Still more remarkable is the proof of the power over the Sacred Heart of this practice of sorrowing for ths sins of others, which we find in the life of St. Mary Magdalene of Pazzi. It is full of the most encouraging sweetness and soothing consolation for ourselves, for, in our measure and degree, how easy it is for us to follow her footsteps, though far behind, in this holy practice! When she was a little girl, only eight years old, she heard one person abuse another in such a way as to commit a sin thereby. She was so shocked by this offence to God, that she could not sleep all the night after, for weeping over the outrage committed against the majesty of God. Sixteen years elapsed, and the saint probably had forgotten all about it; when God, in a revelation, told her that in consequence of that act of sorrow for another's sin, there was prepared for her a special glory, which He represented to her under the figure of a glorious flame-colored garment. He who forgetteth not the cup of cold water, can still less forget these interior acts of loving sorrow or of sorrowing love. What a treasure is here for us, if our love would only be wakeful and watch for the opportunities!
St. Bonaventure says of St. Francis, that he filled the groves with his moanings, and everywhere shed tears and beat his breast, as he murmured in his talk with God, or at times called out with clamorous cries, begging mercy for sin. " Nay," says the seraphic doctor, " when he saw souls, redeemed with the Precious Blood of Jesus Christ, polluted by any stain of sin, he wept over them with such tenderness of compassion, that it seemed as though, motherlike, he was every day bringing them to the birth in Christ. The glory of God, the interests of Jesus, the love of souls, so run and blend into one with the blessed patriarch of Assisi, that the three motives do duty for each other. He begins with one, and ends with another; for, in good truth, of them it may most reverently be said, " And these three are one."
St. Lawrence Justinian, the patriarch of Venice, says,4 " He cannot help sorrowing for other people's sins, who sorrows truly for his own. A healthy limb on the body, that helps not the others when they are sick, occupies its place in vain. These members, likewise, of the Church, who see their brethren's sin and do not weep over it, or compassionate the ruin of their souls, are useless members. When our Redeemer wept over the city that was to perish, He considered it the more to be deplored as it knew not itself its deplorable condition. As many, therefore, as are set on fire by the torch of love, weep over other men's sins as if they were their own. Yet no one worthily deplores the sins of others, who by voluntary falls neglects his own. We must at least cease to sin wilfully if we desire to mourn over the falls of others." St. Augustine says,f " We mourn over the sins of others, we suffer violence, we are tormented in our minds." St. Chrysostom says, that Moses was raised above the people because he habitually deplored the sins of others. " He," says the same holy Doctor, " who sorrows for other men's sins, has the tenderness of an apostle, and is an imitator of that blessed one, who said, ' Who is weak, and I am not weak? who is offended, and I burn not?'" "Who," says St. Austin,* " is not angry when he sees men renouncing the world, not in deeds but in words? who is not angry when he sees the brethren plotting against each other, and breaking faith with each other, faith which has been pledged in the sacraments of God? Who can count up all the evils whereby men provoke the Body of Christ, which liveth inwardly in the Spirit of Christ, and which groans like the grain upon the threshing-floor? Scarcely do we see those who thus groan, who are thus angry (with the sins of others,) for hardly do we see any grain when the threshing-floor is swept. It was because he saw none who were thus angered, that he says, ' The zeal of Thine house hath eaten me;' and again, when he saw many sinning, he said, ' A fainting hath taken hold of me, because of the wicked who forsake Thy law; ' and again, ' I saw the fools, and I wasted away.' "
In a similar strain, Lancisius quotes St. Chromatius of Aquileia, whom St. Jerome calls most holy and most learned. " Do you wish to know what the pious grief of saints is like? Hear what is said of the prophet Samuel, who mourned for King Saul, even to the day of his death. Jeremias, also, when he bewailed the sins of the people, says, ' My eyes have poured out floods, of water over the contrition of my people.' *lu fsalin xxx.
And again: ' Who will give water to my head, and a fountain of tears to my eyes? ' Daniel, also, was affected with sorrow and heaviness for the sins of the people, as he himself testifies, saying, 4 In those days I, Daniel, mourned the days of three weeks. I ate no desirable bread, and neither flesh nor wine entered into my mouth, neither was I anointed with ointment.' The Apostle mourned with a like sorrow over some of the Corinthians, saying, 'Lest when I come God humble me among you, and I mourn many of them that have sinned before, and have not done penance.' This is the kind of grief which the Lord recompenses with the consolation of perpetual joy, as Isaias says,5 ' That He will appoint to the mourners of Sion a crown for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and a garment of praise for the spirit of grief.' " f
Now, have we thought sufficiently of this? We live in a land where we see God offended every day and every hour. We see souls perishing for want of faith: we hear blasphemies on all sides: " truths are diminished among the children of men." Does all this grieve us? Have we felt it as personal calamity? Or have we shut ourselves selfishly up in our own hearts, thanking God, with an unamiable gratitude, that we at least have the true faith and the living sacraments, and looking on all the rest as a doomed multitude, who are no concern to us one way or another? If you have no tie to the souls of all these, and indeed you have, for Christ shed His Precious Blood for them as well as you, at least you have a tie to the glory of God; and can you feel that you really love God, in your own sense of the word love, if you do not keenly feel His dishonor? But it is not to upbraid you that I write— God forbid! for, see how warmly you have corresponded all along to the spirit of our Confraternity; it is rather to explain to you and urge upon you the practices which will cultivate that sweet spirit more and more. Hear, then, what God said to St. Catherine of Siena: * "It is with reason that you, My elect, are in bitter grief of heart because of the offences I am continually receiving from men, and out of compassion for their culpable ignorance, by which they gravely sin against Me, to the damage, nay, to the condemnation of their own souls. This I gratefully accept from you, and it is My wish that you should act so." See also what was the experience of the B. Angela of Foligno in this matter. Before her death, she made a sort of devout will, in which she bequeathed certain admonitions to her spiritual children, and this is one: " I tell you that my soul has received more from God when I mourned for the sins of others, than when I grieved for my own. The world makes light of what I say, that a man can deplore his neighbor's sins as much as his own, yea, more than his own, because it seems to be contrary to nature; but the charity which does so is not of this world."
When St. Ignatius was living in the house of John Pascal, at Barcelona, and was spending the night in prayer, he was seen raised to some height above the ground, and the whole room illuminated with the brightness which proceeded from his face, while he6 kept repeating over and over again these words: " O my Lord, my heart, my beloved! Oh, if men did but know Thee, they would never sin! " Thus it is said of Father Peter Faber, the companion of St. Ignatius, that he had an abiding sadness of mind because he was touched to the quick by the sight of men sin-ning. As St. Augustine says:7 " This is the persecution which all suffer who desire to live piously in Christ, according to the true and biting sentence of the apostle. For what persecutes the life of the good more sharply than the life of the wicked, not because it forces the good to imitate what displeases them, but because it compels them to grieve over the life they behold? For, in the sight of a pious man, an evil liver, though he does not oblige him to consent to his sin, yet tortures him with the sight and sorrow of it." Thus it is said of the B. Clare of Montefalco, in her life, that when she heard of any one in mortal sin, she turned at once to the crucifix, and weeping inconsolably, and sighing from the bottom of her heart, she said, " Ah, then, and is all lost, so far as this soul is concerned, which my Lord suffered for it?" And then, unable to bear the thought, she prostrated herself upon the ground, and prayed for the conversion of the sinner.
Oh that there were such a heart in us that we could make these dispositions our own! Oh that we felt sin to be indeed the one solitary evil of the world! Oh that the hunger and thirst after the glory of our most dear Lord were consuming us all the day long I Yet how soon these feelings come, if only we set ourselves in earnest to seek them, and to ask them of God. What does He want but to be loved — loved always, loved everywhere; and how, then, if we ask this love of Him, can He refuse it to us? Why not turn all our prayers into one, and pray early and late for more love of God? But you may say, In what ways are we to practise this sorrow for the sins of others?
We should strive in our meditations to see how God ought to be served and glorified by His creatures. We should put before ourselves His infinite perfections and attributes, His beauty and loveliness in Himself. We should picture to ourselves the perfect obedience with which His will is done in Heaven, and try to unite ourselves with the interior dispositions of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and all the hierarchies and choirs of angels. We should count up the benefits and blessings which in His infinite love He has bestowed upon His creatures, and especially in the four great wonders of mercy, Creation, the Incarnation, the Holy Eucharist, and the Beatific Vision. Then, when we have worked this well into our minds, we shall see what sin really is, how terrible it is to offend so great a majesty, how base beyond words to tell to wound so unutterable a love. We shall then hardly be able to leave the house and follow our worldly occupations, without finding food for this sorrow over sin. At every step almost we shall be called upon to make acts of reparation to the injured glory of God. The amount of the world's forgetfulness of God will strike us every day as more and more astonishing. So far from getting used to it, the more the beauty and the tenderness of God's majesty grow into us, the more will the hatefulness of sin come upon us with all the startling force of novelty. The sort of common consent by which men ignore God, His rights, His claims, and His interests, will seem to us almost more hideous than overt acts of sin. Life will become a burden, the world feel as a strange and unhomelike place, and a blessed weariness will come over us, which will find no repose but upon the sweet and satisfying thought of God.
Another method of practising this sorrow for sin is the one suggested by St. Bernard to Pope Eugenius:8 " Lift up the eyes of your reflection, and behold the nations. Are they not rather dry for the fire than white for the harvest? How much is there that looks like fruit, which yet, on nearer inspection, is but briers? Nay, not even briers, but old and knotted trees, bearing only such mast and acorns as the swine can eat." Take the map of the world; look first at Asia, where our Lord was born and suffered. Look at Turkey, Persia, Tartary, China, Japan, and the vast continent of India: how few Christians are to be found in the whole extent! Fearful systems of idolatry, the foul creed of Mohammed, communities bearing the name of Christ, yet in truth denying it in heresy and schism, — these exercise an almost unlimited sway over those beautiful regions, and only here and there is there one to be found who calls on the saving Name of Jesus, and worships His Precious Blood. Yet there was man created, and Eden planted; there was the home of the chosen people; there the Son of God taught and suffered; there the apostles preached, and Athanasius, Basil, Gregory, and Chrysostom upheld the faith, and trampled upon heresy. As to Japan and China, their very soil is soaked with the blood of our dear Lord's martyrs. Yet how scanty the harvest of His glory.
Look along the Mediterranean shores of Africa, where once above four hundred bishops had their thrones, and then into the vast regions of the Moors, the Hottentots, and Caffres! On how many leagues of country the sun shines where none call on Jesus, or know of His blessed Cross! America is better, and so also is Australia; for thanks to the Spaniards and the Irish, there is the knowledge of the Gospel there. Yet how many tribes are still unconverted, and how many millions of heretics bear the Christian name in vain! Look, too, how heresy has eaten into the fair fields of Europe! Russia, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Scotland, En-gland, are all more or less its prey, and multitudes are daily passing into perdition within the sound of the true Gospel, and within reach of the holy sacraments! This was the picture that St. Lawrence Justinian looked upon when he wrote his treatise on the Complaint of Christian Perfection. This was the picture God Himself beheld when He complained so bitterly to St. Catherine of Siena that priests and prelates cared not for His glory, and in their idleness and self-seeking trod His dear interests under foot. Oh what a field is there here for acts of love! Think of the day when the compassionate Creator looked over His own beautiful creation, virgin and undefiled, and blessed it because it was all so good. Think of the day when, to bring back that primal benediction, nay, to give it a new and better benediction, Jesus hung upon the Cross on Calvary. • And this is the result! — this is the sinner's recompense to God! As our thoughts wander on, and our eyes rest on the colored provinces of Mohammedans, heathens, and heretics, do we not feel drawn to offer to God all the acts of adoration which the angels have made this day in heaven, in reparation for the glory these poor outcasts have not given Him? Another while we resort to the merits of Jesus Himself, to the heroic virtues of His ever-blessed Mother, to the apostles, martyrs, virgins, doctors, confessors, that we may supply with loving intention the praise that should arise to the Divine Majesty from all these tribes and nations.
- Another practice is suggested by F. Balthazar Alvarez, St. Theresa's confessor. It is to journey over the world in spirit, and visit the many churches and tabernacles where the Blessed Sacrament is reserved, and so few come in to visit the Love of our souls. " The streets," says he, " are full, but the churches are empty. Crowds are eagerly intent on their own interests, and so few come to commune with Jesus about His! " St. Alphonso, also, with his usual thoughtful sweetness, suggests to us how many churches there are where Jesus is obliged to dwell in filth, disorder, and neglect, and where from week's end to week's end no one comes to visit Him. With what childlike acts of love, ever varying, yet ever tender, may we not pour out our hearts before Him in all these deserted sanctuaries! Can we not muse on Jesus thus abandoned till our hearts grow hot, and the tears come into our eyes; and oh how acceptable to Him is this little offering of heartfelt sorrow! He loves to be remembered, as all lovers do; and nothing is little in His sight which is done for the love of Him, for His love transmutes and magnifies it all.
I do not say that you should faint at the bare name of sin, as saints have done: such things require a special grace and great heights of love. But some little you can do in reparation and in sorrow for the sin of the world, and out of that little, be it ever so little, God will have great glory, and we shall comfort one another's hearts.
Yet, as I said before, we must not forget to sorrow for our own sins also, and to sorrow for them chiefly as offences against a God so infinitely good and loving. "If we grieve and sorrow for our sins," says St. Chrysostom, " we lessen the magnitude of our sin; what was great we make small, nay, oftentimes we do away with it altogether." And St. Basil, commenting on those words, " Thou has turned my weeping into joy," says, " It is not every one into whose soul God infuses joy, but into his who has deplored his sin with vehement grief, and with assiduous lamentation, as if he wept for himself dead; for such weeping turns to joy at last." " We ought to bear our sins in mind," says St. Chrysostom again, " for not only do we extinguish them by so doing, but we become gentler and more indulgent toward others, and we serve God with greater tenderness, having from that memory of our sins a better insight into His inestimable goodness." Scripture tells us, " Be not without fear of a forgiven sin: "9
and, indeed, such a fear will be the best security against another fall. Some saints tell us that if we knew by divine revelation that our sins were forgiven, we should still sorrow for them, as David did when such a revelation was vouchsafed him, and St. Paul, who was confirmed in grace; for such a sorrow is continually feeding our love of God. St. Udo mentions a most interesting thing in his life of St. Gerard, who used to feel after his conversion the greatest compunction for the most trifling defects, just as St. Jerome tells us of St. Paula. Now God made known to St. Gerard that the grave sins of his past life were remitted to him, because of this holy sorrow for venial faults committed since his conversion. Yet in this sorrow we must not be excessive; we must consider our sins more in the general than in the particular, and, above all, as was revealed to St. Catherine, it should be rather a recollection of the Precious Blood, and a pondering of the Divine Mercy, than a dry study of our sins, according to the advice of St. Bernard: "I advise you, my friends, occasionally to draw back from the annoying and anxious scrutiny of your ways, and to go out upon the wider and serener paths of the Divine benefits. Sorrow for sin is indeed necessary, but it should not be continual. We should interpolate it with the more joyous thought of God's compassion. We must mingle honey with our wormwood, or else its bitterness will not be healthy."
Life is but a very little while, compared with eternity; and throughout eternity we shall be infinitely happy, and yet have but one occupation — to give glory to God. We shall literally have nothing else to do. 7
And this single task will contain in itself such treas ures of bliss, that there will be nothing left that we can desire. Why not begin this work on earth? Why not try even now to fall in love with that dear glory of God which will be our joy and worship in the life to come? The character of God's goodness is to be communicative. He is always communicating Himself to His creatures, in nature, in grace, in glory. We must copy this example. There is such a thing as a selfish goodness, thinking only about our own selves and our own souls. Indeed, this does seem a great matter, when you see so many thousands round about us who hardly realize that they have souls at all. Yet it is dangerous to dwell exclusively on this. And who can have the Precious Blood, and know what it is, and feel what it does, and yet not long to pass it on to other souls? I would we could alwa}rs do all things for the sole glory of God; but this can hardly be. Yet we may all do, without effort, much more than we have done, if we will only try to sorrow over sin, over the sins of the whole world, because our Blessed Lord God is so deeply offended by them.
Neither is this devotion without immense blessings to our own souls. What hinders us most, when we have once set to work to serve God in good earnest, is not so much sin as worldliness and self-love. Now see how both these miseries, which so hang about us, keep us down, and adulterate all the good we do; see how both of them are kept in check by this devotion. The characteristic of the world is that it ignores sin. Things are right or wrong as it pleases, and according to its own canons; but as to a secret stain upon the immortal soul because the invisible God is offended, this it will not hear of for a moment. It is reckoned a doctrine to unman people, an idle bugbear, a priestly superstition. A man who sees every thing as sin or not sin, who seeks everywhere the secret glory of the hidden Creator, who follows unearthly standards, and uses unearthly weights and measures, who strives to do the commonest actions from supernatural motives, and who can love what he does not see, until he loses the power of loving, or at least of loving vehemently, what he does see, can hardly be possessed either by the spirit of worldliness or of self-love. His life is a protest against the world, and also against himself. Yet this is only a description of what a man would soon become who took up this devotion. He who looks long and lovingly on God will soon cease to see any loveliness in himself; and thus this practice would deliver him from the two greatest enemies he has in the spiritual life.
We should find also that this devotion would give us great power with God. Answers to prayers would begin to come more thickly upon us than before. Our words would have a weight beyond themselves, or beyond our talents, reasoning, or eloquence. What is worth any thing which God has not blessed? Spiritual power is the only real power; and it follows different rules from other power. When St. Vincent of Paul founded his Congregation of the mission, Father Condren, the superior of the French Oratory, and one of the most spiritual men of his day, said to him, " Ah! my father! I recognize that this is the work of God, and that the spirit of Jesus is upon it, and that it will succeed, for all the men are of low birth, and none of them of learning. This is the sort of weapon to which God gives power." See on what unworldly principles his judgment was formed. St. Philip made out that all power was in detachment from the world; and the work of St. Ignatius may be summoned up in one word, that he proved this to the world — this very thing, that detachment is its master. So do you take up this devotion to God's offended glory, and you will see by many a sensible proof that God is with you in other more abundant and more effectual ways than he has been heretofore.
And, lastly, if you wish to press on toward the prize of Christian perfection, and to become a saint, listen to this story, listen to what happens to a man who has done no more than this, hindered two mortal sins from being consummated in outward acts. St. Paphnutius had dwelt in the desert for many a long year, and by weary penances had toiled for his sanctification. At last a strange thought came into his mind, and he ventured to express it in prayer to God. He desired to know to whom on the earth he was equal in sanctity. He asked it in simplicity and true humility, and God vouchsafed to speak to him. He told him he was now equal to a certain piper in an Egyptian village that He named. At once the saint set forth to seek him. When he came to the village he asked for the piper, and was told he was piping in the tavern for the amusement of those who were drinking there. Strange! thought St. Paphnutius. However, he sought the piper out, led him aside, and spoke to him of his spiritual state. What good works had he done? Good works! rejoined the piper; I know of nothing good that I have ever done; but once, when I was a robber, I saved from violence a virgin consecrated to God; and once, also, I gave money to a poor woman, who, out of poverty, was offering herself to sin. And then Paphnutius understood how God had given to that piper graces equal to his own, because for his Maker's glory he had in his rough robber- days hindered two mortal sins.
But we cannot better illustrate how this sorrow for other men's sins may be effective, as well as affective, that is, may be expressed in deeds as well as feelings, than by giving the practices recommended by a spiritual writer * for the days of the carnival. He entitles them, Devotions which are often performed by souls loving God, on the days of the Carnival, and at other times when worldly men usually sin against God more than usual.
To abstain at that season with more than com - mon care from some particular fault which ordinarily besets us.
To increase our time of prayer by adding at least half an hour to it.
To read longer than usual, say for an hour, some spiritual book, not one which will feed curiosity, but one which will excite pious affections toward God, such as the Confessions of St. Augustine, the Imitation of Christ, and the Lives of the Saints.
To afflict our bodies with some new penance, or to prolong some customary penance beyond its usual time.10
To visit the Blessed Sacrament more frequently on these days; and when we have finished our usual devotions, to excite in ourselves a feeling of compassion for our offended God, just as we visit our friends to console them and show our love to them in times of sorrow; also to shed tears, or at least to weep in our hearts, for the sins of this season, especially for the sins of those who either by reason of their condition, or of the many benefits they have received from God, ought the more scrupulously to abstain from offending Him.
Every time the clock strikes, to make a brief but affectionate act of sorrow for the sins of the season: this may be done, in any way, walking, or at meals, &c.
At least three times in the day, with a most profound genuflexion, and with great feeling, to adore the Divine Majesty toward the four quarters of the world, in which God is at this time being so grievously offended, desiring in some sort of way to compensate by this loving adoration, for the sins which are then being committed in those regions, grieving for them, and asking for their remission and for the conversion of sinners, and for that end offering up the Precious Blood and merits of Jesus Christ, which are most dear to God and most profitable to sinners. It was thus St. Mary Magdalene of Pazzi obtained the conversion of many sinners.
To do our ordinary good works on these days more perfectly, diligently, and fervently, especially those which relate to the immediate worship of God. For, as at these seasons worldly men and the servants of the devil are more diligent and fervent in offending God, it is but right that souls loving God should be at least in the same proportion more diligent and fervent in well-doing and in divine worship.
To make an additional communion in order to appease God, and to worship Him by our loving reparation.
As God is especially offended on these days by excesses in eating and drinking, to mortify our appetite somewhat more than usual either in quantity or quality.
As God is also especially offended at such times by immodest conversations, to agree with some pious friend to meet and spend a short time daily in spiritual conference, simply to give pleasure and consolation to our good God.
As men are especiall}- guilty at such times of sinful idleness, to take more than common care about the spending of our time, so that apart from innocent and proper recreation, no part of it should pass in idleness and inutility, but rather to be more industrious than usual.
Those who are under any vows should on these days renew them with fresh acts of love to God, a devotion suggested to us by our Lord's fixing the Thursday before Quinquagesima for espousing St. Catherine of Siena.
In England the place of the Carnival would be of course supplied by the days following the three feasts of Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost. There are none whose work lies among souls who do not know by painful experience the horrors of these three seasons among us; and it is so difficult to speak strongly against cheap excursions, rail way -trips, and such like miseries, that no remedy seems left but prayer and reparation. To pray for rain on such days sounds ill-natured, yet it may hinder multitudes of sins. Many a ruin of modesty and innocence dates from a cheap trip, and many a soul has been shipwrecked on the harmless river between London Bridge and Rosherville.
There are three very beautiful revelations by which God has been pleased to make known how acceptable to His Divine Majesty is this reparation at the Carnival. One is to the Blessed Henry Suso, the Dominican; the other two to St. Gertrude. I will quote one of these last, as embodying the spirit which I am anxious this treatise should convey. It is from the fourth book of her Insinuations of Divine Piety.
At the time of the Carnival, the Lord Jesus appeared to her sitting upon the throne of His Glory, and St. John the Evangelist was sitting at our Lord's feet, writing. The saint asked him what he was writing. Our Lord answered for him. lam having every one of the devotions your congregation offered to Me yesterday, and all those they are going to offer these next two days, carefully noted down in this paper. And when I, to whom the Father has committed all judgment, shall faithfully render to every one after his death, " good " measure for all the labors of his pious works, and shall add moreover the measure " pressed down " of My most salutary Passion and Death, whereby all man's merit is marvellously ennobled, I will take them with this paper to the Father, that He also, out of the omnipotence of His paternal kindness, may superadd to them His measure " shaken together and running over," for these benefits kindly done to Me in this persecution by which worldly men on these days harass Me. For, as none are equal to Me in faithfulness, much less can I omit to recompense My benefactors, seeing that even King David, who all his life through never omitted to heap kindnesses on his benefactors, yet, when he came to die, and committed his kingdom to Solomon, said to him, " Thou shalt show favor to the sons of Berzellai, the Galaadite, and they shall eat at thy table, for they came to meet me when I fled from the face of thy brother Absalom." A kindness shown to men in the time of adversity is more acceptable than in the time of prosperity; so I the more gratefully accept this fidelity which is shown to Me when the world is especially persecuting Me with sin.
The Blessed John, sitting and writing, seemed sometimes to dip his pen into an inkhorn which he held in his hand, and out of it to write black letters, and sometimes he dipped it into the loving Wound of the Side of Jesus, which stood open before him, and out of that he wrote red letters. Again, he touched up the red letters, partly with black and partly with gold. And the saint understood that by the black letters were indicated those works which the religious did from custom, as the fast which they commonly begin on this Monday. By the red letters were expressed those works which were done in memory of the Passion of Jesus Christ, with a special intention for the emendation of the Church. As to the red letters partly blackened and partly gilded, she understood that by those partly blackened were meant works done in memory of our Lord's Passion, to obtain for ourselves the grace of God, and other gifts concerning our own salvation. Those works, on the contrary, which were done purely for the glory of God, in union with Christ's Passion, and for the salvation of all men, renouncing all merit, reward, and favor, siinpl}'' to give praise and show love to God, were expressed by the red letters, partially gilded. For although the foregoing works obtain from God a copious remuneration, those which are done purely for the love of God's praise are of much greater merit and dignity, and confer upon a man an infinitely greater augmentation of eternal bliss.
She then perceived that after every two paragraphs there was a vacant place, and she asked our Lord what that denoted. He replied: " As it is your custom to serve Me at this season with devout desires and prayers in memory of My Passion, I have first the thoughts and then the words, by which you serve Me, carefully written down, every one of them. The vacant place means this, that the works which you do, you are not accustomed to do, like the thoughts and words, in memory of My Passion." The saint rejoined: "And how, O most loving God! can we laudably do this?" Our Lord replied: " By keeping all fasts, vigils, and other regular observances in union with My Passion. And whensoever you refrain yourself in seeing, hearing, speaking, and the like, always offer it to Me in union with that love whereby I refrained all My senses in My Passion. With one glance I could have terri-fied all My adversaries, with one word I could have convicted of falsehood all who contradicted Me; yet was I like a sheep led to the slaughter, with My head humbly bowed down, and My eyes fixed upon the ground; and before My judge I open not My mouth for so much as one word of excuse from the false charges laid against Me." The saint answers: " Teach me, O best of teachers, at least one thing which I may do especially in memory of Thy Passion." Our Lord replied: " Take, then, this practice, to pray with your arms extended, thus expressing the form of My Passion to God the Father, for the emendation of the Universal Church, in union with that love wherewith I stretched out My hands upon the Cross." And she said: "And as this is not a common devotion, should I seek out secret places to practise it in? " And our Lord answered: " This custom of seeking out secret places pleases Me well, and is a fresh adornment to the work, as the gem adorns the necklace. Yet," He added, " if any one should bring this devotion of praying with extended arms into common use, he need fear no contradiction, and he will pay Me the same honor as one pays a king who solemnly enthrones him."
What is it, then, for which I am pleading? Only for this: that you should not altogether cut yourselves off from the glory of God, as if it was no concern of yours, and that you and He were not in partnership! This is really all. God is going to give you His glory for your own in heaven to all eternity. Surely you cannot altogether disclaim connection with it now: surely its interests very much concern you; its success must be your success, and its failure your failure too. You cannot stand aloof from the cause of Jesus on earth, and even keep up a sort of armed neutrality with God, when you desire as soon as ever you die, without so much as tasting the sharpness of purgatory, to be locked in His closest embrace of unutterable love for evermore. Yet this is the plain English of the lives of most Catholics. And can any thing be more unreasonable, more ungenerous, more mean! And you wonder we have not converted England! Verily we do not look like a people who have come to kindle a fire upon the earth, nor to be pining because it is not kindled. Ah, Jesus! these are Thy worst wounds. I think lightly of the ruddy scars of Thy hands and feet, of the bruised knee and the galled shoulder, of the thousand-wounded head and the wide-open heart. But these wounds! — the wounds of coldness, neglect, unpraying selfishness! — the wounds of the few that were once fervid and now are tepid, of the multitudes that never were fervent, and so cannot even claim the odious honors of tepidity! — the wounds wherewith Thou wert wounded in the house of Thy friends! — these are the wounds to be wiped with our tears, and softened with the oil of our affectionate compassion. Blessed Lord! I can hardly believe Thou art what I know Thou art, when I see Thy people wound Thee thus! And my own wretched heart! It, too, lets me into sad secrets about man's capability of coldness, and his infinity of ingratitude. Alas! the concluding chapters of the four Gospels, — they read like a bitter jest upon the faithful! And then, we live as if we would petulantly say, " Well, we cannot help it. If Jesus chose to do and to be all this, it is his own affair: we only wanted absolution; we only wanted a machine to be saved by
— a locomotive into heaven — the cheapest and roughest that would do the work, and land us at the terminus. You devout people in reality stand in the way of religion. It may be hard for us to define enthusiasm; but you surely are enthusiasts. What we mean is, you are all heart and no head. Mere heat will not do instead of talent. Earnestness is not theology. There are other things to be done in life besides going to mass and confession. How can we have confidence in people who let themselves be run away with by religious fervor? All this incarnation of a God, this romance of a Gospel, these unnecessary sufferings, this prodigal bloodshedding, this exuberance of humiliations, this service of love, this condolence of amorous sorrow; to say the truth, it is irksome to us; we are not at home in it at all; the thing might have been done otherwise; it was a matter of debtor and creditor; every one is not a poet; every one cannot take to the romantic. Really there must be a mistake in the matter. God is very good, and His love is very well in its way. Of course He loves us, and of course we love Him. But really, by a little practical common sense, and a few wholesome reasonable precepts, and a strictly conscientious discharge of our relative duties, might we not put this tremendous mythology of Christian love, with all possible respect, a little on one side, and go to heaven by a plain, beaten, sober, moderate path, more accordant to our character as men, and to our dignity as British subjects? If ' the Anglo-Saxon race really fell in Adam,' why obviously we must take the consequences. Still, let the mistake be repaired in that quiet, orderly way, and with that proper exhibition of sound sense which are so dear to English-men."
Well! if it must be so, I can only think of those bold words of St. Mary Magdalene of Pazzi: " O Jesus! Thou hast made a fool of Thyself through love."
O poor desolate glory of God! Thou art a foundling upon the earth! No one will claim thee, or acknowledge kindred with thee, or give thee a home. Cold as the world is, and pitiless the pelting of incessant sin, thou liest crying at our doors, and men heed thee not. Poor homeless glory! earth was meant for thee once as much as heaven, but there have been robbers abroad, and it is no safe travelling for thee along our roads now. But there are some few of us still who have pledged ourselves to Heaven, that from this hour we will take thee to our own homes, as John took Mary; " henceforth our substance is thy substance, and all that we have is thine."
Footnotes
Chapter 4 of 11