Chapter VIII. The Sure Way of Likeness to the Sacred Heart

Take up My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly of heart, and you shall find rest for your souls. S. MATT. si. 29.

I HAVE spoken of the conformity which all must attain to the Sacred Heart of our Lord Jesus Christ. To be united with God we must be conformed to the image of His Son; for if we be not conformed to the image of His Son, united with God we cannot be; and if we be not united with God, we cannot be saved. This was our last subject. I then pointed out, — from the words of S. Paul, where he says, ' We all, beholding, as with open face, the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image, from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord,'1 — that through the whole of our life, from our earliest consciousness to our latest moments, there must be a perpetual change — a transformation, always advancing, from the great deformity in which all are born

1 2 Cor. iii. 18.

to perfect and final conformity to the likeness of Jesus Christ. We saw also that, for those who have fallen from their baptismal innocence, the transformation must begin in a reformation, that what has been defaced and destroyed must be begun over again. It must be reformed, and this does not only signify corrected, but the form which they had before must be reproduced in the soul; and lastly, that those who are reformed must be conformed to the mind of Christ, and that conformation signifies the full and perfect likeness, so far as we can attain it in this world, to the perfection of our Divine Lord.

We have now to consider the means whereby we may attain that full conformity. Those means are twofold: they are either on God's part, or they are on our part. On God's part they are, first, the revelation of His glory, as S. Paul calls it; that is to say, the image of God in the Face of Jesus Christ, or the full perfection of sanctity, of purity, of truth, and of humility, strange as the word may seem, for by the Incarnation God has assumed even lowliness into His perfections. Again, God perfects His servants, first, by the sanctifying grace of His Holy Spirit; secondly, by His holy Sacraments; thirdly, by the discipline of His Providence; and lastly, by the crosses and chastisements which He lays upon them, and by these means He conforms them to the image of His Son.

But it is not my purpose to speak of the means which God employs on His part; my purpose is to speak of the means on our part, that is to say, of what we must do — of that which is within our power, and therefore within our duty.

1. Now, first of all, those who are baptised have been planted in grace, and that from their infancy. If they retain their baptismal innocence and persevere steadfastly in the sanctifying grace which they have received in their regeneration, they may from that hour perpetually grow into a closer and closer conformity to the likeness of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The first condition, then, on our part is this: a constant fidelity to the grace of our Baptism. You are perhaps conscious, in looking back on your past life, of whole tracts and periods since your earliest consciousness, in which you have failed to correspond with your baptismal grace. Some of you, perhaps, remember how you have broken away from it altogether, how you have cast behind you the law of God, and grieved the Spirit of God, and have departed from the way of holiness; others, again, who, by God's mercy, have been restrained from so great a fall, nevertheless are conscious how, from their earliest childhood, they have been grieving the Holy Spirit of God by a multitude of petty faults, constantly growing in number and, it may be, in deliberation-how faults have multiplied over their whole character, and, though they have never come to any great downfall such as the world can know, and therefore have not, perhaps, altogether forfeited their baptismal grace, nevertheless they have retarded the continual expansion of the spiritual life which was planted in them in their regeneration. We read in the Lives of the Saints that many of them — I might almost say most of them; for perhaps I should not err far from the truth if I were to say that, as a rule, those who have become conspicuous among the Saints of the Church — have had mothers of great holiness of life, and that their early training has preserved them in the grace of their Baptism. I will take, for example, S. Anselm, the Archbishop of Canterbury, of whom we read that his mother was a Saint, and that she taught him from his earliest infancy to know his Heavenly Father. There is recorded in his life a beautiful example of the childlike conception he had of God. He dreamed one night that he was high up in the Alps over his native place, and that he was in the midst of a great reaping-field; and in the midst of the reaping-field he saw the Lord of the harvest. The master of that field called him to come. Anselm came to him with the confidence of a child, conscious at the same time that he was in the Divine Presence; and the Lord of the harvest asked him his name. He told him, with the simplicity of a child, that his name was Anselm. The Lord of the harvest gave him his blessing and a piece of white bread. Now, I ask you, whence came that train of images? How could a child, in his sleep, have such a vision of truth and beauty? You will not say it was inspired. Then, if it was not inspired, it was learnt; and if it was learnt, from whom? A holy mother; and the continual instruction which fell from her lips had made the thought of God as a Father, and this intimate and personal relation of love a familiar thought to her child. Therefore, in his dream he had no fear of approaching his Heavenly Master, and when asked his name he told it with simplicity and confidence. Now I give this only as an illustration — I am not using it as an argument for anything, but as an example — to show what a holy mother may do with a child that is 'born again;' how, when the Spirit of God is in the soul of a child, a watchful and holy mother can train up an innocent soul from his infancy in a familiar and confiding knowledge of God. I might also take the example of S. Edmund of Canterbury, whose mother was eminent for holiness. She also, from his earliest years, taught him in like manner to know God. The whole of his boyhood and youth is full of all manner of tokens that his first thought of God was the love of God.

They who are in their baptismal innocence have a special affinity with the Divine Justice; they walk before God without fear, because in them there is no malice; and the presence of God has no terror, for they think of Him, not so much as a judge, but as a father. They are ignorant of evil; they have not yet learnt that which the men and women of the world believe to be the perfection of a manly or a mature character, that is, familiarity with the evil of this world, which cannot be known without a loss of unconsciousness of evil. To be ignorant of the evil of the world is a grace; to be familiar with its evil is a temptation and a soil. Children who are innocent and ignorant of evil have a special affinity with the Kingdom of God and with the Spirit of God and with the mind of God. They understand things which those who believe themselves to be cultured intelligences cannot comprehend. When S. Paul says that Christ crucified was to the self-trusting Jews a stumbling-block and to the cultured Greeks foolishness, he expresses this same truth. There is between the minds of little children and the mysteries of revelation a kindred and a sympathy, so that they receive them as by intuition, and understand them better than their teachers. The Psalmist says, 'I was wiser than my teachers because I kept Thy commandments.' The mind of a little child is larger and more expanded for the conception of revealed truth than the mind of philosophers and sceptics, who narrow their understandings with unreasonable and pertinacious doubt. And in such innocent and unconscious souls there is a perpetual growth of the spiritual life, a continual formation, an accretion, as we see in the forest tree, which, year by year, puts out an additional ring in the solidity of its stem; and in its bulk and stature is continually though insensibly growing. So it is in the spiritual life of those who are faithful to their baptismal grace. In truth, little children are the nearest to the Saints; and those who have childlike minds are the most saintly. Our Divine Lord has, twice over, taught us this. He said, ' Unless you be converted, and become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven;'2 and again He said, 'I confess to Thee, 0 Father, Lord of heaven and earth' — that is, I thank Thee, — 'because 2 S. Matt, iviii. 3. Q

Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent'— in their own eyes — ' and hast revealed them unto little ones: yea, Father; for so it hath seemed good in Thy sight.'3 And therefore the first and chief means of our conformation is that we should be faithful with an even and continuous fidelity to our baptismal grace.

2. And the second means is that we should make good confessions. Now why does the world hate the confessional? I will tell you in a word. Because the men of the world are afraid of laying their heart open. They know that there are black spots, that there are dark stains, deep wounds, old scars, open sores, and they hide them in darkness. The innocent have no fear, for their hearts are unspotted; and though conscious of many faults and many weaknesses, they are free from the stains and the wounds of an evil life. They are not afraid: to them confession is easy. But those who are conscious that they are carrying within them a secret which the world does not know, of which their neighbours are not aware, which the nearest to them does not suspect, which they would rather die than reveal — according to the shrinking of flesh and blood, forgetting all the while that God knows everything— 3 S. Matt. xi. 25, 26.

they fear and hate the thought of confession. This is the true reason why the world rails against confession; this is the reason why every revolution that breaks out at once burns the confessional. It dare not come near the confessional. When it sees a confessional it sees a forerunning witness of the Great White Throne and of the Day of Judgment; and to get rid of this intolerable reality the antichristian revolution tears it out from the church and burns it in the streets. They who have kept their baptismal grace have no fear of the confessional. Why should they? What have they got to say? A great many omissions, a great many infirmities, a great many faults, and a great many temptations, it may be, but no habits of indulged sin; there are no stains of deliberate acts, none of those deep and searing recollections of an evil life. Therefore they come readily; and like children, as they spiritually are, they say at once, kneeling under the crucifix in the confessional, so far as they know, 'all that their Heavenly Father has against them. It is because men break God's law in their hearts that they fear to confess. Therefore they put off their confession until it becomes hard; for if they put it off, they begin to be careless, and they lay up new matter, and that matter multiplies, and the longer they put it off the more unwilling they grow. But those who are still in their baptismal innocence go on continually from light to light; they go on knowing themselves more and more perfectly every time they come to confession, bringing with them no necessary matter of absolution, because no mortal sin; they bring with them, indeed, many a venial sin, which does not break their friendship with God, for such sins come from infirmity and not from deliberation, or, at least, not from malice. And they are pardoned freely by the Precious Blood of our Divine Lord in their perfect absolution. You will find, therefore, that all those who are faithful to the grace which is in them love the Sacrament of Penance. Here is the difference between those whose conscience does not accuse them, and those whose conscience gives them a rebuke: the former come freely and gladly to accuse themselves, and the latter shrink away. The second way, then, to maintain this state of innocence before God is the habit of frequent and good confession.

3. The third way is to avoid the occasions of sin. We must therefore understand exactly what the occasions of sin are. The Tempter covers the whole face of the earth with all manner of snares. He spreads his nets in every path of life. The world, too, covers itself over with toils. There are temptations of various kinds, in all manner of unlawful, forbidden, and evil things. But these are not the occasions of sin of which I speak. Every temptation, indeed, is an occasion of sin; but the occasions of sin of which I am speaking are not always temptations to things that are evil. An innocent conscience will at once start back from such temptations. An innocent person, who lives in the fear of God, having the spirit of piety in him, if he be tempted to any action visibly and sensibly evil, would be shocked and start aside. The Tempter often defeats himself, and temptations become warnings to awaken the conscience; but an occasion of sin means something which is lawful, innocent, and harmless in itself, but nevertheless may, by some circumstance, either in others or in ourselves, be an occasion of falling. Let me take an example. It is lawful for us to use food and drink; and yet food may be the occasion of delicacy, indulgence, pampering of the body, and thus may be made the occasion of gluttony; and gluttony is one of the seven capital sins. Drink also is lawful, but drink may be intoxicating. Like poison, it may be lawfully taken, but not in a measure to destroy life or reason or moral sense. It becomes unlawful if the measure of it be unlawful. No man may take poison and destroy his life, and no man may take intoxicating drink and destroy his brain. He may take poison to allay pain, and he may take intoxicating drink if he believes that it sustains his strength. Many physicians do not believe it, but others do; and while physicians debate, men will choose what they like best. But if a man abuses it, I say more, if women abuse it — if the refined, from want of watchfulness over their habits, from an indulgence of their palate, or for the purpose of stimulating a languid and wearied frame, worn out by the excitements of society, or to keep up the flagging animal spirits after long hours of senseless talk and depressing waste of life; if they form the secret habit of taking wine and intoxicating drink unknown to any one but God — and this stealthy habit is formed,. I am sorry to say, every day by the refined and the delicate, whom the world never suspects — then this fatal abuse may become a bondage from which they may never be freed, and in which at last, in a miserable unconsciousness, they die. Do not think that I am saying these things for the mere purpose of rhetorical effect. I have seen these wrecks, I have stood by them, I have watched them as they have settled down. I have seen strong drink mastering the conscience and the will as the sea encroaches on the shore, until there was no help and no hope left. This is what I call an occasion of sin — a lawful thing abused. I might take many other examples. I will only take one more: I mean friendships. Nothing can be more lawful, nothing can be more innocent, nothing can be more helpful, if the friendship be good: nothing can be more dangerous, nothing more insidious, nothing more corrupting, if the friendship be evil. A bad book is a great evil, but a bad friend is worse. The whisper of a bad friend at the ear of an unwary soul is the most dangerous of all occasions. Friendship has a power of assimilation. A bad friend will change you into his own likeness. I say, then, that the avoiding the occasion of sin, watchfulness over what we do, where we go, what habits we form, what friendships we make, in what measure we indulge ourselves in the things that are lawful — is one of the surest means of conformity to the Sacred Heart.

And here let me say one word to fathers and mothers. You are not conscious of the harm that you do, or allow to be done, to your children, by taking them into the midst of pleasures, the very sounds and sights of which you know to have a taint upon them. You say that you believe your children are too young to be hurt. Believe it not. Sometimes a silent child sits in the midst of grown people, while their tongues are going, without bridle or caution, of matters which they think the child cannot understand; but that young intelligence drinks-in every word; and though the conceptions formed may not be of the same experienced accuracy as in those who speak, they are abundantly sufficient to sow the seeds of evil in the soul, to awaken dangerous curiosities which taint it, and come out fatally some day in after life. I have sometimes listened in amazement at the unguarded license of speech, the surpassing imprudence, with which grown people will speak in the presence of the young. Those young ears are quick to hear, and those young hearts are quick to understand, beyond all that you can conceive. There is an old saying, even of the heathen, that ' great reverence is due to a boy.* The actions, the examples, the words, the conduct of grown people in the presence even of little children, ought to be under a great restraint. You will remember the words of our Lord: Woe to him that shall cause to offend one of these little ones. ' It were better for him that a millstone were tied about his neck, and that he were cast into the sea.'4 And again He said, ' Their angels in heaven always see the 4 S. Matt, xviii. 6.

face of My Father who is in heaven.'5 These silent children have guardian angels, who are looking up into the face of God, and looking down in wonder upon you if, through your imprudence, you either act or speak unwisely in their presence. And once more. I have no doubt the fathers and mothers who hear me have had among their children some one whom they have thought precocious; and it is a common saying, * Such a child, I believe, will not be long in this world; he seems not fit for it; he is always talking of God; he has always in his mouth the name of our Lord; he seems to have a sort of affinity to things of the world to come; he is not long for this life.' Now do you believe that this early ripeness is something morbid or exceptional? Not at all. It is the state in which all baptised children might be, if you were faithful and watchful in training them for God. I do not say every baptised child would be in this state, but I say might be. I cannot doubt that you yourselves have known what you would call examples of early piety, of habitual consciousness of the Divine Presence, of ardent love for holy things, of vivid perception of the love and the Passion of our Divine Lord — of heartfelt sympathy with everything that relates to His Person — far

5 S. Matt, xviii. 10.

beyond all you have in yourselves. What does it come from? It comes from the grace of their Baptism, which continually expands within them, if only the scenes that are round about them, the atmosphere of their homes, the influence of your lives, the occasions of sin, shall not taint or suppress the growth of their spiritual life.

4. Another means of this conformity is the knowledge of ourselves. Why is it that so few people have a thorough knowledge of their own character? I believe it is this: they have not steadily grown up in the light of the Divine Presence; they have gone out from it, at certain periods of their life, into the outer darkness; and when they have returned into the light again, they are like men that come into a light too great for their sight to bear; they have lived for a time unconscious of their own state, and they have not been able to catch up again the threads, and to keep pace with the growth of their own natural character. From this it comes that they understand other people better than they understand themselves; and they have in them a self-love which always dims their view of themselves. Our own hearts are deceitful; there is nothing more difficult to unravel, and therefore self-knowledge is a rare thing. There are three lights in which we can always know ourselves if we will.

The first is the light of God's presence. If we would only place ourselves every day in the presence of the divine perfections; if we would make a meditation of a few moments upon the infinite sanctity of God, the infinite purity, the infinite truth, the infinite justice, and the infinite mercy of God, and then compare ourselves with these perfections: ' Am I holy, am I pure, am I truthful, am I just, am I charitable, am I compassionate, after the example of my Divine Master? Alas, I know this, that " His eyes are as a flame of fire;" and when He looks into me, He sees how deformed and how unlike to Him I am. I know that in His sight the moon shineth not, and the stars are not pure; and what, then, am I?' If we only placed ourselves in this light every day, and often in the day, we should begin to know ourselves. But there is another light in which to see ourselves— the light of the Sacrament of Penance. Whenever a man makes a true and good confession, he acquires more inward light to know himself; it is a part of the sacramental grace which is given with absolution. We read in the history of the Church of great Saints who went to confession every day of their lives, for instance, S. Charles, the great pastor and Archbishop of Milan. You might ask, What could he have to say? what

23G THE SURE WAY OF LIKENESS TO could he find of which to accuse himself? He lived a holy life in perpetual self-denial, giving himself altogether for his flock, — what could he have to confess? He had, indeed, no mortal sins to confess, — no; nor had he many venial sins. Perhaps not. But he may have had many omissions and temptations, many interior movements of impatience, of resentment, of a strong will, ready to battle with all that came across its path. Because he was a Saint he had a consciousness of internal imperfections, of a warfare and a tumult within him which we have still more, but do not perceive. You do not think these things matters of confession; but he did. He compared himself with the perfections of his Master; and if we did so, we should see that the things which we condone and absolve in ourselves so readily are of the nature of sin. Next, perhaps, he never lay down at night without being conscious of a great many omissions throughout the day, of good left undone, of opportunities which he had not used, of occasions in which he might have given help to some soul, or have spoken a word that might have brought some one to God. Perhaps these are omissions that we think very little about; but he thought much about them. He thought them matters of self-accusation.

We will take another Saint, a Bishop in England — S. Thomas of Hereford — a most fervent pastor, a man who lived a whole life of apostolic labour, ' spending and being spent' for the sake of his flock. When he was on his deathbed, his chaplains, who were round about him, said, 'My lord, would you not like to go to confession?' and he looked at them and said, 'Foolish men.' After a little pause they said again, ' Do you not know that your time is drawing near? The leech says you cannot live much longer. Would you not like to see the confessor?' He said, ' Foolish men.' A third time they said the same thing: ' The time must be near; would you not desire to make your peace with God?' And a third time he made the same answer; and so he died. Afterwards it was found that he went to confession every day. He had no need of their counsel; but he had no will to reveal what had been the habit of his life.

There is one more light in which we shall learn to know ourselves, and that is, the light of the Sacred Heart of our Divine Master. The Sacred Heart has three relations — its relation towards God, its relation towards mankind at large, and its relation towards each one of us personally. Let us set that before us and make examination of ourselves. The relation of the Heart of Jesus towards His Heavenly Father — what piety, what love, what fervour, what self-forgetfulness, what self-denial, what self-sacrifice. What is there.in you corresponding to this? Alas, what is there in us? Again, the relation of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to mankind. What charity, what forgiveness, what generosity, what pity, what compassion, what intercession. What is there in us towards our neighbour like this? Thirdly, the relation of the Sacred Heart of Jesus towards ourselves personally. What tenderness, what long-suffering, what exquisite kindness, what delicate forbearance, what hopefulness, that, being such as we are, full of sins as we know, and as He knows better than we, even to this day He has borne with us; and He has not 'broken the bruised reed, nor quenched the smoking flax.' Let us compare this with ourselves, and see whether we can stand this test, and we shall learn to know ourselves.

5. And then, lastly, if any one desires to preserve his baptismal grace, he must be a man of prayer. A man without prayer is dead before God. If he does not live in union with God, speaking with God, conversing with God, depend upon it there can be little union of love between God and him. There may be faith that God exists, and there may he a hope that some day he may hegin to pray; hut union of charity between God and a prayerless soul there cannot he. It is hy prayer that we appreciate what God is. When the heart ascends by the intellect to the knowledge of God, when it ascends by the affections to the love of God, and when it ascends by the will to the resolution of holding fast by God, then we begin to realise that God is above all things, and worthy of all love and adoration, and that it were better for a man to lose the whole world than to lose the vision of God in eternity. And this is to be learnt in prayer, and in prayer only. The man that prays realises also the relation of God to himself as a father, and the personal relation of Jesus Christ to him as a kinsman and a brother and a friend. And, further, by the light of prayer and contemplation of God and of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a man is ' changed into the same likeness from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord.'

We know that friends who love one another become like to each other; they catch the very tones of each other's voices; they exchange the very look of each other's countenances — features the most dissimilar acquire a strange likeness in expression. So it is with our souls, if we live in the habit of prayer;

that is, of conversing and of speaking with our Divine Friend. When Stephen stood before the council, his face shone like the face of an angel. The light of the presence of his Master in heaven fell upon it. And they who live a life of prayer are being ever changed into the likeness of their Divine Lord. I do not mean that they are outwardly transformed; I do not mean that there come rays out of their hands or their side, or that there is any resplendent light upon their countenances; but I mean this, that there is a gentleness, a sweetness, a kindness, a lowliness, an attraction about their life which makes everybody at peace with them. Everybody draws near to them with a tranquil confidence and a rest of heart. We know that with some people, though they are good and just, yet when we approach them we have a sense of fear; but where there is in any man a likeness to the Sacred Heart of Jesus there is an attraction which goes out from him. As our Divine Master said: 'I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things unto Me;' so He communicates to His servants, who are like Him, the same power of attracting others. The world calls it fascination; but what the world calls fascination is simply this, that in the measure in which men have the likeness of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, they draw others to themselves.

Just as He would draw men unto Himself if He were visible now, they do it in His stead. And there is a special strength and calm and sweetness in such characters, a sweetness which everybody feels — not simply in their charity, but in the finer influences of their charity, of charity carried into the least things, into the delicate consideration of what is due to others; not only of what is just to them, but what is equitable; not only what ought to be done in such a case, but what would be the best, the highest, the most generous, and the noblest thing to do. And the bearing of such men is calm, because they are never thrown off their balance; they live in the Divine Presence, and they neither fear anything nor court anything. The world cannot bribe them; the world cannot terrify them. And because they are independent of the world, they are inflexible; they have a gift of strength and of fortitude, and they leave their impression upon everybody around them, and they take their impressions from no one but from their Divine Master.

Now here, in outline and very insufficiently, is the way in which we, if we were faithful, might be continually growing into the likeness of our Divine Lord. If by fidelity to our baptismal grace, by good confession, by avoiding the occasions of sins which

R taint the soul, by growing in self-knowledge, and by living a life of prayer — if we would only so hold fast by the Sacred Heart, then assuredly God, on His part, would perpetually transform us into the same image by His Spirit of Grace.

I cannot help saying one word more of warning to parents. If these things be so, what, in the Name of God, are some parents doing, who are ready to give over their children to secular instruction and secular schools? Their first and chief aim is the cultivation of the intellect, and their last thought is the training and formation of the spiritual and moral life. These are the fathers and mothers who are wrecking the baptismal innocence of their offspring. They who ought to be guarding it are they who, of their own folly, are exposing it to every peril. They who ought to be sheltering their children in innocence and ignorance of evils which ought never to cross their soul are they who are exposing them to temptation all the day long. I can but say this in passing. The subject is too great to go into it now; it needs an ampler time. Therefore I beseech you who have any influence either over children or over parents, or over education in any form, never to depart from the great line and law of Christian education, namely, that the education of a child born again in the Sacrament of Baptism is the building up of God's spiritual work in the soul. You are called to be fellow-workers with God in the transforming of your children into the image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

I might also have added how precious life is, if only from our infancy we had all been faithful, if only from our childhood we had persevered in the brightness and freshness of grace in which the Holy Ghost planted us at the font. If now, in the vigour and strength of our manhood, or in the maturity of our older years, we were, not only what we are by the experience of life, but also that which we were in the innocence of our early childhood, we should be nearer to the Sacred Heart, weak and sinful as we may be. Nevertheless, see ' how great a charity our Heavenly Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called and should be the sons of God. Therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that when He shall appear we shall be like Him, and we shall see Him as He is.'6 6 S. John iii. 1, 2.

IX.