Sermon XII. The Weapons of Our Warfare
" And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the "Word of God, and for the testimony which they held." Apoc., vi, 9.
Such was the vision disclosed by the opening of the fifth of the Seven Seals. An altar was seen in Heaven, and underneath the altar were the martyrs of Jesus who had been slain for the Word of God. In this are revealed to us many mysteries of the Communion of Saints. It shows us that the martyrs are in the vision of God, that from the field of their martyrdom they pass in the apparel of victory to their crown. For them there is no tarrying, no expiation, no detention from the fruition of their final bliss. The one heroic act of dying for Jesus conforms them to Himself. Next, we see that they are conscious of what passes here. " How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost Thou not judge and avenge our blood on those that dwell on the earth." They knew their oppressors to be in prosperity and power. They were in prayer crying out to Him that sat on the throne, pleading with Him, by His own name, to avenge His own truth which had been slain in them. And to this their intercession was an answer made. " White robes were given to every one of them." They received an accession of accidental glory, of consolation, and of rest. Lastly, we see that God has a perfect unity of design, in which the passion and the glory of His martyrs has its part and place. They were told to rest " till their brethren who should be slain even as they, should be filled up." That is, that the number foreknown from the foundation of the world of those who should follow the Lamb that was slain, not only in His life but in His death, should be accomplished. The purpose of God has its predestined outline and its perfect splendour; and its divine manifestation will rise upon the world in the succession of time, until its orb is full and its manifold beauty is revealed. All that is passing upon earth goes to its accomplishment, and the acts and sufferings of the Church, visible in this world, have their proportion to this end. It fills up that which is wanting of the sufferings of Christ: and it glorifies God by its, faith and patience.
Such thoughts lead directly to the subject of to-day, the Canonization of the Martyrs of Japan, in which the Church in heaven and earth united in a common act of worship and of thanksgiving. Before, there fore, I impart to you the Benediction, with plenary indulgence, committed to me for you by the Sovereign Pontiff, I will briefly, as I may, explain the nature of a Canonization, and the especial circum stances of that which took place on last Whit-Sunday.
- A canonization, then, is a judicial sentence of the Church, declaring a servant of God to be a Saint, admitted to the Beatific Vision, and ordaining that the worship of the universal Church be paid to him.
It is a judicial sentence, because it is a decision of the Church as judge in such a cause. It is given after long juridical process, in which evidence is taken with the greatest rigour, and opposed by all possible objec tions. It isa judgment onmatters purely supernatural, on which the Church alone can pronounce. "For what man knoweth the things of a man, but the spirit of a man that is in him? So the things also that are of God no man knoweth, but the Spirit of God."*
It is a judgment formed upon evidence, as to the virtues and miracles of the saint. The stages of the process are three. First, he is declared venerable, that is, worthy of the love and veneration of the Church: next, he is declared blessed, which process is called beatification: thirdly, he is declared to be a saint be fore the throne of God. The sentence of the Church does not make the servant of God to be blessed, or saint, nor does it place him, as objectors foolishly suppose,
*I Cor., ii, 11.
before the throne of God. It does not enact anything, as if the Church were legislating about it. It declares him to be what God has already made him, and pub lishes it to the faithful. The world, which declaims against the canonization of the saints, canonizes all its own departed friends. It pronounces them to be in heaven, to be blessed, to be with God: and that with out process, without evidence; often in spite of all evidence. Nevertheless, it will not allow the Church to do, in special examples, that which it does indiscriminately in all instances. So little does the world realize what it is to attain to the Vision of God; so in adequate, superficial, unreal, are its perceptions of the state of the departed. The Church, which intensely realizes the laws of the Divine Nature, and is profoundly conscious that "without holiness no man shall see the Lord," pronounces those only to be blessed, or to be saints, in whom by evident signs it knows that an eminent grace of sanctity has been made perfect. It requires, therefore, first of all, a protracted and exact proof of the virtues, cardinal and theological, in a heroic degree, and evidence of miracles as the countersigns of the divine favour, and of power before the throne of God.
But in the process of a martyr no proof is required, either of virtues or of miracles. The fact of dying for
" the Word of God, and for the testimony which they held," is enough. To die for Jesus as He died for us, is the most perfect conformity to Him. " Greater love no man hath than this, that he lay down his life for his friends."1 It is proof of the perfection of charity, and charity is the perfection of God and of His saints. We know of a certainty that such souls are beneath the altar, in the bosom of God; and the sentence which declares them so, is manifestly true and undeniable.
I have said, however, that it is a judicial sentence of the Church. It has, therefore, no mere forensic or natural certainty, but also a supernatural. The whole subject matter is eminently supernatural. The lives, the actions, and the passions of the saints fall indeed into the order of history, and are to be tested by the processes of evidence; but the principles, laws, and truths, which underlie the historical facts, are of the supernatural order, and demand a supernatural discernment. The subject is one of those of which the Apostle says, " The sensual man perceiveth not those things that are of the Spirit of God: for it is foolishness to him, and he cannot understand: because it is spiritually examined."!
And as the discernment is supernatural, so the sentence is undoubtedly certain. And the judge by whom it is pronounced is one that in dogmatic decrees of faith and morals is infallible, and in the process of judging and declaring the sanctity and blessings of her own children, assuredly cannot err.
The effect of such a judicial sentence is, first, to sanction the invocation of the saint who is canonized by all the Church, both in private and in public; and, next, to place him upon its altars as a pattern of imitation and a mediator by way of prayer in the presence of God.
Such, then, briefly and in general, is the process of canonization and its effects.
- I may now relate what this recent canonization was. It was the declaration that seven-and-twenty servants of God are before His throne, in the fruition of His glory, and interceding for our needs.
They consisted of one Confessor and six-and-twenty Martyrs.
Of the confessor, Michael de Sanctis, I need say no more than that he was a Portuguese by birth, of the Order of the Redemption of Captives, called Trinitarians, of singular innocence of life, and early gathered to his reward.
Of the martyrs, three were of the Society of Jesus, all natives of Japan. Three-and- twenty were of the Order of St. Francis. Five were Spaniards; eighteen were natives, three were priests, six were but lately bap tized. All the rest were laymen, catechists, teachers, aud simple Christians. Many were youths. Three were boys of ten, eleven, and twelve, as we should call them altar boys, who served the Mass of the Fathers. Seventeen were of the Third Order of St. Francis.
In the forty years between 1549 and 1589, the labours of St. Francis Xavier and his successors had converted great multitudes in the Empire of Japan. The number of Christians grew to be upwards of two millions. About the year 1596, the Christians were warned by many signs of a coming persecution. At last the order of the Emperor was published, and on the evening of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception the Franciscan ConventatMiako was surrounded, and the Fathers and their companions were made pri soners. They were then condemned to be carried throughout the Empire, and finally crucified at Nangasaki. While they were singing vespers, the soldiers came upon them, and Peter Baptist, their superior, took the crucifix, kissed the feet of our Lord, and placed himself as the good shepherd at the head of his flock. They went forth in procession, chanting the end of vespers. One named Matthias was absent. His name was called, but no answer. A Christian standing by came forward and gave up himself instead, saying: u Here is Matthias:" and he was numbered among the martyrs. Three native Jesuits were taken at Osaka, on the evening of the 2nd of January: they were told that next day their martyrdom would begin. They spent the whole night in prayer and in praising God. Next day they were led forth into the public place of the city, and their left ears were mutilated. They were then carried in wagons towards Nangasaki. As they went they sang the praises of God. The people, seeing among them three little children, were moved with compassion. A nobleman tried to save little Louis, saying: " My child, I will deliver you if you will renounce your baptism." Little Louis an swered: "No, but you must become Christian, the only way to salvation." Next day, they were carried on horses to Osaka: and on the 9th of January, 1597, they set out again for Nangasaki, distant more than a hundred miles, surrounded by guards, and a soldier bearing the sentence of death on a pole before them. Their sufferings in that journey were great. On the morning of the 5th of February they came in sight of Nangasaki. When the crosses were prepared, they were carried to a hill between the city and the sea. The martyrs were led to the place by a great multitude, among whom were many Christians. Great compassion was shown for all, especially for the three little boys, Louis, Thomas, and Anthony. Many efforts were made to save them by turning them from the faith, but all were inflexibly repulsed. The parents of Anthony, with prayers and tears, besought him to save himself. But he answered them, that he must serve God rather than his parents. Little Thomas lovingly kissed his cross. Little Louis asked where his cross was: ran to it: embraced, and kissed it with delight. After confession and mutual forgiveness, one by one they were attached to their crosses with cords. Father Peter Baptist prayed the executioner to drive the nail through his hand in likeness to our
> Divine Redeemer. When all were lifted up, little
Louis began to sing " Laudate pueri Dominum," and in a moment two executioners, by the side of each, drove two javelins crosswise from the side to the shoulder. The first who died was Philip of Jesus, and the last was Father Peter Baptist, the head and chief of this army of martyrs. Such was their conflict and their crown.
- What then does this canonization teach us? Was it a mere solemnity? a sterile act of ecclesiastical pomp, or a mere exercise of authority! Not so. It was an enunciation of a multitude of truths and laws of the supernatural order, most seasonable and most necessary for these later times.
First, it declared the supremacy of sanctity in the midst of a world sunk in sense and sin. It proclaimed that what makes one man differ from another is not birth, or wealth, or intellect, or cultivation, or science, or worldly achievements, but sanctity. " Men judge by the countenance, but God sees the heart." And as God sees, the Church judges, and proclaims the judgment of God to the world. Those whom the Church honours, are they whom the world despises. Even more: those whom the Church places upon her altars are often those whom we pass over. Not only does the Church take no heed of the princes, rulers, conquerors, orators, philosophers of the world, but it does not canonize only apostles, evangelists, bishops, doc tors, or great servants of the Church. It occupies itself with a supernatural love and tenderness about its least and lowliest children, if only the gleam of heroic sanctity be around them. Children, like little Louis and Anthony; poor shepherd girls, like Germain Cousin; beggars in the streets, like Benedict Joseph Labre, are as precious in her sight, as saints of noble blood or royal state. What it discerns in them is sanctity; that is, as St. Peter calls it, the participation of the Divine nature.2 And where this is, God is. And the Church proclaims His presence and operation to the world, that all men may adore Him who is wonderful in His Saints, and may recognize the supremacy of justice and of sanctity aboveall that the world worships. By canonizing these martyrs the Church testifies in a special way to the preciousness of faith in these later times, when faith has grown feeble among men. These boy martyrs are a rebuke to the worldliness, venality, and cowardice of thousands. Moreover, every canonization exhibits in a wonderful relief the great laws of the divine order which springs from the Incarnation. It manifests the supernatural office of the Church, not only in its discernment, but in its liberty of action. All human systems are dependent on the human will. What man makes man may control. Bat the Church of God is free, independent, sovereign in all its office, both in head and members. This then is a wonderful manifestation of its liberty in the midst of the secular usurpations of this age. The pastors and faithful of all countries come together at the will of their Head. That the Head of the Church is inde pendent and sovereign, is known to all; that the mem bers are also independent, has been plausibly disputed. But we have seen the Bishops of the Church vindicate their freedom to appear before the Vicar of Jesus Christ whensoever he shall call them No earthly power can detain them from his presence when his is known. And in this fact there is a direct and powerful witness against the Materialism, Erastianism, and Secularism of the day. Men believe now-a-days that the civil power is supreme, if not over the soul, at least over the body; that, so long as the conscience is not forced, the exterior actions of men are subject to the civil ruler; that he has the ultimate power to decide whether the bishops and faithful of his realm may correspond or communicate with Rome. This question has been solved by a simple fact, namely, the concourse of some three hundred bishops to the Holy See, no man letting them, though many would fain do so. 4. It may be asked: If these servants of God were martyred some two hundred years ago? why was their canonization delayed till now? I am not ashamed to answer, that I do not know. " It is not ours to know the times and the seasons which the Father has put in His own power." It is ours to obey the inspiration of His will. It is His to fix and to determine, and then to move the agents of His purposes. The cause or in tention of what He does is manifest, not at the time, but after wards. Nevertheless, we can see a great fitness in such an event at this moment, in the midst of the conflict of the world against the Church. It is a wonderful fact, that in an age sunk in materialism of every3 kind, from the grossest worldliness to the atheistical philosophy, governed by erastianism, and debased by the so-called positive science of secularism, the pastors and faithful from all lands should travel from far and wide to Rome to honour a handful of Japanese. What one idea is brought out by this fact, but the supremacy of the supernatural world, of that higher and universal order on which not only the welfare but the existence of the Christian world depends? These mar tyrs "were slain for the love of God and the testimony which they held."4 They were witnesses for God and for His revelation, for Jesus and for His Church: for its supremacy over all earthly power, for its independence and for its authority over men. In the midst of the schismatical nationalism of these times, there arose in every nation a body having a higher consciousness and a world-wide organization. A higher unity manifested itself as interpenetrating into all nations and transcending all their powers. King dom may rise against kingdom, and nation against nation; but when they rise against the Church, they divide themselves and fall to domestic contentions. The Church has its own in the heart of their power, and they cannot make war upon the Church without wounding and rending themselves. This event has given a warning to national pride, and is a counter revolution, descending from a higher level upon the political movements of the times. It is, moreover, the only antagonist to the universality of the revolution which works by secret agencies and wide-spread intelligence under the foundations of every government in Europe. There is but one system adequate to confront this movement of anarchy. The only power able to withstand the revolution in all places is the Catholic Church in all places, and this great assembly around the throne of the Supreme Pontiff has made the Ca tholics of all countries conscious of their unity, of their common duty, and of their united strength. Another effect was to give to the Sovereign Pontiff the moral force of the Catholic world in his conflict with the anarchy of Italy. For years he has stood all alone in his majestic isolation. He has singly withstood the threats and the violence of the anti-catholic and antichristian faction. He has been the butt of all the enmities of the world. He may say with his Master: " torcular calcavi solus." The cause of all the Churches was upon him. And in their behalf he withstood the adversary. By the great assembly of the canonization the Catholic world came round about him, thanking him for the firmness which sustained their common inheritance, reaffirming all his utterances, renewing all his declarations, and claiming a part with him in the patrimony of the Church, and in the great laws and principles by which the Christian world has been constituted, ordered, and preserved.
And this was accomplished by the simplest means. The will of the Vicar of Jesus Christ was made known to the Catholic world; and all nations flowed to it. The faithful throu^houtthe world recognized that will as universal and supreme. To know it is to obey. In the days before Whitsuntide Rome changed its aspect. The worldly activity and display of the winter and the spring-time had passed aw r ay with the visitors who streamed out from its gates on every side. The city resumed its own traditional calm, and its streets, like the precincts of a holy place, were still almost to silence. But now the stillness of the summer-time began to be broken by the arrival of bishops, priests, and religious of every nation. Rome put on the aspect of an ecclesiastical city in a season of religious solemnity. Men were heard conversing in every tongue. The habits of every people, diverse in colour and form, were seen mingling together. The universality of the Church was visible by representation. There were bishops by hundreds from the fourquarters of the world, and from the islands of the sea, to represent the episcopate.
Priests by thousands from every country. Every rite except the Chaldean in the manifold and world- wide worship of the Church was there. Since the great Council of L ateran, Rome had never seen such a confluence of the Catholic world. And the Council of Lateran, if more numerous, was not so vast in its representation. At that day the Episcopate of Northern and of Southern America, and of the Southern world, as yet had no existence. The gathering of last Whit-Sunday exceeded in its grasp upon the world all the General Councils of the Church. It was less only than the first and greatest Pentecost, when in the guestchamber Peter and the eleven who had the whole world in charge were assembled. And yet even there, among the many tongues of the Jewish dispersion, the languages of the Gentiles, which surrounded the tomb of the Apostle, were absent. In truth, the first Pentecost was present in the last in all the fulness of its lights, prerogatives, and powers. The last was to the first what the noontide is to the morning. All the dayspring is contained in it, and the first lights are mingled with its increasing splendour. Peter and the Apostles were there, surrounded by the principalities and powers of the kingdom founded in their blood. Peter in his successor, invested with the kevs of the
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Kingdom of Heaven, and with the sole universal jurisdiction over the flock on earth, celebrated that great Pentecost in the presence of the whole Church.
It is not for me to describe that great day. Others have the gifts to do it, and have done it. Its majesty and splendour go beyond words of mine. The Vicar of Jesus Christ, surrounded by some three hundred mitred heads, by a multitude of priests, and an inundation of the faithful, offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Jesus over the tomb of the Apostle, on the day and hour of the coming of the Holy Ghost, is an event in the history of the world which as yet has never been, nor perhaps again shall ever be. The flood of prayer and of praise which rolled through the Basilica of Constantine, when the Veni Creator and the Te Deum were first intoned by that mighty host, were as the sound of the mighty wind coming which filled the whole house in Jerusalem.
But on these things I do not desire and am not able to dwell. That which arrests my mind in these events is their intellectual and spiritual power and effect.
I dare say, I may seem to many to be a dreamer. Time will show. Nevertheless, what I believe I will say. I believe, then, that the moral and spiritual effect of this act of the Sovereign Pontiff is the beginning of a new order of intellectual convictions and of moral influences in the society of the world. For long years the anti-catholic policy has been in the ascendant. Nationality, revolution, and material prosperity have governed the minds and actions of men. The higher order of Catholic unity and of supernatural life has been derided, disbelieved, and violated. The Vicar of Jesus Christ, after years of isolated protest and frequent warnings, has at last convoked the Church of God, and forced into the lio;ht of the conscience of all men, of the worldly, the careless, the lukewarm, the deluded, even of the unbelieving and the adversaries, that a vaster power than the empires of the world envelopes them on every side, penetrates their strongest holds and their most secret councils. Nations may behave petulantly to the Church of God, and the Church bear long and be silent; but when the conflict reaches its last form and the Christian society of the world is at stake, the Church rises in its unity of strength, and the nations fall back from the conflict. I have no doubt that many have at last awoke to the consciousness that an universal and higher order than any national policy or interest is now assailed, and they are perceptibly slackening the heat of their politics and inventing reasons for delay, and for new combina tions, which may eliminate the insoluble difficulties of Rome and the sovereignty of the Vicar of Jesus Christ.
We may be indeed sure that the enmity of those who hate the Catholic Church, and believed it to be in their grasp, will be intensely excited by the calm manifestation of its moral power and of the sympathy of the nations with the Sovereign Pontiff. The independence and courage which devised and executed this great demonstration are not to be forgiven, and the acclamations of the people of Europe, who went forth and received again their pastors with public ova tions, only because they were on their way to or their return from the presence of the Holy Father, were sufficiently provoking to insure a great increase of bitterness. Nevertheless, thus far, little has been accomplished against the Church. The adversaries seemed to be confused in mind and speech. The facts were too vast and explicit, too powerful and profound in their significance and influence upon the public opinion of the nations, to be derided or despised. Those who endeavoured to make head, spoke with stammering lips, and uncertain sense, and abated breath. Still the time may not be come. We may yet see some new access of the enmity which has always followed the Church and the Vicar of Jesus Christ. But the act is accomplished. From that day of Pentecost a flood of light has been poured upon the minds of men engaged in this conflict. It has manifested many truths, the liberty of the Episcopate, its unity in itself, its union with the Holy See, the sympathy of the nations. It has elicited the public opinion of millions of Catholics in every country. It has powerfully reinforced that public opinion by the return of the bishops, priests, and faithful of all countries with their own people. When they returned from the presence of the Vicar of our Lord, they went back with a new commission to reanimate the spirit of the Catholic Society of Europe, which was sick unto death. Multitudes, who before were vacillating and uncertain, have been confirmed in their fidelity: the strong have become stronger, the adversaries have been made to doubt. A spirit of fearlessness has come upon many who once were timid: and a new life with new energy vibrates through the Church, a prelude of a new period, perhaps of conflict, certainly of victory.
For, lastly, there is visible in all this a pledge of the presence and supreme government of a Divine Ruler. The providence of God knows no theories of nonintervention. Even already the unity of the revolutionists is dissolved. They have turned upon each other, baffled each other s policies, shed each other s blood. Those whom God will punish, He first gives over to their own madness. The Parliament in Turin and the sanguinary occupation of Naples are enough to foretell the downfall of sacrilege. It is wonderful to see the counsels of Achitophel confounded, apparently without any cause. All that was so precipitate a little while ago is now at a dead lock. The prosperity of wrong has withered before the supremacy of justice. And the event of last Pentecost is among the chief of the agencies which have paralysed and baffled the world. From how small a beginning the greatest events arise. It was to declare the bliss of a few poor servants of Jesus Christ, simple children of Japan, unknown by name, martyred some two hundred years ago, lost to memory among the multitude of the saints of God. How little they thought that day, when they hung upon their crosses outside the city gate, with their faces radiant in death, turned, like the sacred countenance of Jesus, towards the west, that the day would come when their names should call together the strength and wisdom and fortitude of the Church of God, in an hour of vital conflict, around the Vicar of their Lord! It was the thought of the Supreme Pontiff, but his thoughts are inspirations of his Master. How great is the result even now in its rudiments and preludes. How great it will be, they who come after will know. The greatest actions of the Church were despised at their time, the Councils of Nice and of Trent, the Martyrdom of St. Thomas, the sufferings of the Church in France half a century ago, but these events have governed the minds of men, and altered the course of the world.
And in this moment of his great anxiety, and with the Church and the world resting upon his shoulders, the Holy Father remembered you. He sent you by me his Pontifical Benediction, with plenary indulgence. To you who have sorrowed with him, and suffered in his sufferings, who pray for him with all your strength, and gladly offer to him of your poverty in his greater need, to you he bestows in his own words, though by my voice, the Benediction which I now impart in obedience to his command.
Footnotes
Chapter 13 of 14