Sermon XII. Missions to the Heathen a Test of Love

At the Church of the Immaculate Conception, July 16, 1871.

He said to him the third time: Simon, son of John, lovest thou Me? Peter was grieved because He had said to him the third time: Lovest thou Me? And he said to Him: Lord, Thou knowest all things; Thou knowest that I love Thee. He said to him: Feed My sheep. ST. JOHN xxi. 17.

These are words of divine power, which have moved the world. They are also words of divine pity, which reveal the Sacred Heart of Jesus in all the tenderness of the Good Shepherd, and in all the compassion of the Absolver of Penitents. Three times He asked of Peter: ' Lovest thou Me?' for three times Peter had denied him. So tenderly and so sweetly, without an explicit word, He brought to remembrance his threefold sin of infidelity to his Divine Master. Peter, well taught by the experience of his own infirmity, answering, said: * Lord, Thou knowest all things; Thou knowest that I love Thee.' He no longer made professions, he no longer spoke out of the blindness of his own self -trust; he appealed only to the Sacred Heart to confirm the truth of his words, that, faithless as he had heen, he loved his Master still. Then three times the charge was given, by which the test of love was established for ever. Let no man say he loves Jesus who has not the love of souls. Let no man think he loves the Good Shepherd who does not love His flock. The test of our love is this: ' Feed My sheep. Feed My lambs.'

I have said that these are words of Divine power, which have moved the world. They have revealed to mankind the watchful care of the Good Shepherd. They have taught us what is the law of love which binds the Shepherd to the sheep; they committed to Peter the charge of the whole flock on earth. They created the pastoral office. They imposed on every pastor the duty of laying down his life, if need be, for the sheep for which Jesus shed His most precious Blood. This commission is perpetual, yet gathered up in the hands of one — the Vicar of the Good Shepherd — from whom the distribution of that pastoral jurisdiction goes forth for all time and in all places. These words, spoken in the twilight of that morning, and by the sea of Tiberias in the stillness of the solitary shore, are full of living power to this day. When our divine Lord gave to His Church the pastoral commission to make disciples of all nations, He gave to it also the love of His own

Sacred Heart. He had said, ' I am come to cast fire on the earth.' He cast upon His Apostles on the day of Pentecost the fire of the Holy Ghost, the fire of charity, the fire of the love of God, the live coals from the altar, the burning embers from the golden censer of the Divine Heart of the Good Shepherd. They went forth into the world to set on fire the nations of the earth with the love of God, and the love of all mankind. From that hour this sacred flame has never been extinguished. It has burned day and night in the tabernacle upon the altar, and in all hearts in whom Jesus dwells. Apostles and Evangelists, Bishops and Pastors, Missionaries and Priests of the Church of God, from that hour to this, in so far as they have been conformed to their Divine Master, have thirsted for the salvation of mankind.

What, then, are the motives of this love of souls? The love of Jesus our Lord; His own commandment, because it is His will; His own example, because it is our law. "Unless we love our neighbour as ourselves, we cannot have the love of God in us. St. John has said: ' We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not, abideth in death.'1

1 1 St. John iii. 14.

Therefore, if the love of God be in us, the love of souls will be in us too. I speak the truth, and your consciences bear witness to me, that the love of souls, as a sensible emotion, is not often found in us. But the same may be said of the love of God. The sensible love of God is not to be found in any high degree in many who love God well. We are bound to love God above all things, it is true; but the love whereby we must so love Him is the love of appreciation, the love which measures the greatness of God according to His dignity. So also I may say of the love of souls. It is not the sensible or emotional love which we feel to a friend or a kinsman. It is rather a sense of duty, which makes us willing to suffer anything for their sakes. It is the effective love which will move us to do acts of charity to persons who may be remote, or even repulsive to us. For the love of souls also is a love of appreciation. We must appreciate what a soul is. And in these days, when society is breathing the cold atmosphere of unbelief, and the literature that men read, and the philosophy that they hear, disputes the very existence of the soul, and even of God Himself, we are bound all the more to watch and to pray that the fire of the Sacred Heart may be kept alive in us. We are bound, one by one, by prayer and self-denial, to kindle, and to keep alive, the grace of love which we have received in baptism; when ' the charity of God was poured forth into our hearts hy the Holy Ghost, "Who is given to us.'2

How, then, shall we rightly appreciate a soul? Measure it as the Word of God has revealed it.

1. A soul is the most perfect, the most precious work of God. It is the nature which is next to His own; it is nearest to His own glory; it reflects most perfectly His own heauty. There is nothing more beautiful than a soul, except God alone. Our Lord has said, that ' the just shall shine as the sun, in the kingdom of their Father.'3 The beauty of the sun in its strength our Lord takes for an example of the beauty of the soul. The soul is the most perfect work of God, reflecting His own attributes with the greatest clearness; reflecting His own intelligence and His own will: that is, He has communicated to us the power of knowing and of originating our own actions, in like manner as He does Himself. Where, then, is there to be found a work of God which for beauty, perfection, or dignity, compares with a human soul? The little children in the street, who meet us bareheaded, barefooted, on the pathway, are every one of them created in the Image of God.

2 Horn. v. 5. 3 St. Matt. xiii. 43.

The holy Angels see that beauty and that dignity, though we pass them hy.

2. Again: if we wish to measure the true value of a soul, let us look stedfastly until we see the red spot of the most Precious Blood upon it. Every several soul was bought by the Precious Blood of Jesus, which is infinite in price. A ransom was given for it which is infinite in value; and if the ransom be infinite in worth, what is the worth of a soul, for which it was given? In the appreciation of God, every soul has upon it the price of the Precious Blood of His Incarnate Son. It is the object of an infinite love; and if a soul be infinitely loved, what must be its value? And if the sufferings of an Infinite Person were measured, what would be the price before God of a soul for which they were endured? The soul is dear to a Will Infinite in benevolence, Which would die again, if need were, for its redemption.

3. And farther; let us bear in mind that every soul has in it an immense capacity for life and bliss. I say immense, because we cannot tell the measure. Infinite it is not, because the soul is finite; but no man can conceive the measure of the knowledge of God, to which a soul illuminated by faith may reach; no one can imagine the immensity of the love of God, to which a soul inflamed by the Holy Ghost may ascend; no one can imagine the perfection of will, which by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost may be attained. The souls of the little children that perish in our streets are ennobled with that capacity. They have received the inheritance of the beatific vision, of a bliss and glory which cannot be conceived. 'Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love Him.'4

4. Once more: if, on the one hand, a soul is infinite in this capacity for life and bliss, it has also the same capacity for misery and death. A soul created to the image of God, capable of knowing and loving God, if it fall short of the end of its creation, if it be deprived of the vision of God for ever, no human mind can conceive its anguish for all eternity. It is not in our hearts to imagine this mystery of eternal pain. A stone cast into the flame suffers nothing. If a dog were cast into eternal fire, it would not have the capacity of exquisite pain which only a soul created to the image of God can know. And yet souls that are about us all day long, the millions that we see thronging this great city, are hanging between life and death. Their eternity is in the balance. One way or the other the scale must 4 1 Cor. ii. 9.

incline at last. Therefore another element in the appreciation of the value of souls is this, that all day long, in every moment, souls are perishing throughout the world. We know not how many tens of thousands every day are passing out from this life of sin, from the darkness of this world, into the overwhelming splendours of the Throne, where they shall be judged by their Maker and Redeemer. The condition of the heathen world is too terrible for anything but the pen of an inspired writer. St. Paul, in his Epistle to the Romans, has drawn out that picture, and has described the state of a soul without the knowledge of God. A soul that knows not God grows rank by that very darkness. The soul of man without the light of the Divine presence becomes morally dead, distorted, and degraded beyond all that we can conceive. And such is now the state of the heathen world; for out of nine hundred millions of souls, not one half as yet has heard the name of Him by whom alone they can be saved.

Such, then, is the love of appreciation, and such are its motives. And now let me apply whai I have said to the subject before us to-day.

The duty of every Christian is to labour first for the salvation of his own soul. The rational love of self is taken as the measure of the love of our neighbour. When we see the value of a soul in ourselves, we shall then learn to value our neighbour's soul also. You remember, when God asked of Cain: ' Where is thy brother Abel?' Cain, in whom the love of God was dead, answered: ' Am I my brother's keeper?' That malicious answer was reversed when the second Adam asked of Peter: ' Lovest thou Me?' and gave, as the test of love: ' Feed My sheep.' Every Christian, then, is bound to labour according to his power for the salvation of men. Every priest, pastor, missionary, father, mother, master, mistress, neighbour, friend — every one who has influence, every one who, by his word and example, by the watchful use of opportunities, by the vigilance with which he can foresee and can avert the danger of others, is bound to labour, each in his place, and according to his power, for his neighbour's salvation.

There are indeed various classes who demand this duty of charity of us. And first of all, the multitude of children whose education is committed to our charge. If we do not love their souls, we have not the love of God: if we do not love the lambs of the flock of the Good Shepherd, we have not His love in us: if we can look upon the sins of men without the emotions of charity which impel us to labour for

BB their salvation, we have not in us the love of the Sacred Heart: if we have not pity and compassion for penitents, even in their relapses, we have not in us the patience of our Divine Master: if we have not a tender and sensitive love for the poor, so as to practise some self-denial for their temporal and spiritual good; if this does not form part of our actions day by day, then the love of Jesus must be faint in us.

And where there is the love of the Sacred Heart, it will go beyond the boundaries of our own country. If we have not in us the love of the heathen, because they are souls, because they bear the Image of God, and are daily perishing; if this is not a practical motive in us, the love of our neighbour at home will certainly be faint also. The Church of God has been on fire from the beginning with this missionary zeal. The apostolic labours of the Church are a record of the most heroic and saintly actions the world has ever known.. This zeal ought to be in every one of us. If we cannot ourselves go on foreign missions, we may send others in our stead; but missionaries cannot go, unless we prepare the way.

Every Christian country is bound by great obligations to spread the light of faith. But there are some that are bound more than others. There was a time when Spain had an empire from sunrise to sunset; and Spain was then the great missionary power of the world. It penetrated into South America: it reached into the East. It did its work while the sun of imperial splendour shone upon it. Portugal, in like manner, when a widespread dominion was entrusted to it, laboured as an evangelist in South America, and also in India. The works of Spain and Portugal endure to this day. The empire of Britain has succeeded to a vaster dominion. It is therefore burdened with a responsibility, for which, if empires cannot give an account, nevertheless all who belong to it will have to give a reckoning at the last day. And for what shall we have to reckon in that great account? We are in contact, with every nation upon earth. Our commerce traverses every sea, and reaches every shore; we are mingled with every race; we have learned to speak the language of every people; we have made our home on the shores of almost every nation of the world; we are mingled with the human race more widely than any empire that ever was, not excepting even old Rome itself. These are our opportunities, the open doors for the entrance of the truth, for which we must give account.

But there is a dark side in this reckoning. What has the empire of Britain done for the faith of Jesus Christ? If we were swept away to-morrow, what record would there be upon the world of the Christianity of Britain? Our people have carried their religious douhts and errors and conflicts to those unhappy races who are still without the knowledge of God. The poor Hindoo has been known to say: ' I should like your Christianity very well, if I could only know what form of it to believe; if only I could tell who among you is right; if you would only agree among yourselves.' Again, the contact of our people with foreign races has introduced all the vices of civilisation. For instance, there is the trade in opium and in intoxicating drinks. The sin of drunkenness had once no existence in the East. It is a Christian vice. We have been justly reproached by the Hindoo, who says: ' Wherever your British sway enters, intoxication follows it. Take away your burning spirit; till you came among us, we knew it not. You are making a trade and a revenue of it; and wherever it enters, the Hindoo perishes.' These things will be written in the records of the British Empire: and there will also be records of cruelty and of extermination, which make the heart sick. Such things indeed are chiefly of the past; but shall these be the only records of our Christianity? Shall there be nothing left but wounds and scars?

But I can conceive that some one may say: ' We need everything at home. We have thousands and tens of thousands without education. Half the population of London never go to church: perhaps half have never been baptised; or, if they were, they live as if they never had been. Here is our heathen world. Here is our missionary work. Why, then, send missionaries into other lands?' The answer is: If you wish to put out a fire, you have only to stifle it. Stifle the zeal of the Church, and you extinguish it. Keep down the flame of the love of God and of your neighbour, and it will soon die out. This answer would be sufficient. But we have an ampler reply. Our divine Lord has promised: ' Give, and it shall be given to you;' and therefore if I did not know how to find the means even to build a school, I would not refuse alms to send the gospel to the heathen. Be assured that the same Lord, Who is almighty, is also generous. He is able and willing to give us all we want. It is an axiom of faith, that the Church was never yet made poor by giving its last farthing for the salvation of souls.

There is still another answer. It is sometimes thought, that if we establish missionary colleges in England, we shall lose the men we want at home. Not so. Let me prove this by an example. France for two hundred years has had in Paris a missionary college for the heathen. That college was founded in extreme poverty, in the heart of a city, of which all I have said ahout London might he well repeated. Calculating — not to say grudging — hearts, more under the light of worldly prudence than of simple confidence in God, might have asked: ' Is it not hetter to try to convert Paris, than to send the faith to the heathen?' Out of that one house, there have already come forth many martyrs. And in the midst of their relics, they who aspire to the priesthood, and to the crown of martyrdom, form themselves in the love of the Sacred Heart. In that sanctuary they learn what theology cannot teach them. Three or four years ago, when tidings reached that house that one of their brethren had received his crown, the maple-tree in the garden was illuminated at night, and a Te Deum was sung -under its branches, with nine invocations to the Queen of Martyrs.

In 1862, Pere Bonard, a missionary in Corea, the night before his martyrdom, thus wrote to his friends:

' This is the last letter I shall write to you. The solemn hour has struck. Farewell! I make appointments with all of you who remember and love me to meet me in heaven. I hope in the mercy of Jesus, and I have a firm confidence that He has pardoned my innumerable sins. I offer, with all my heart, my blood and my life for the love of my dear Master, and for those beloved souls whom I would have served so willingly to the best of my power.' After other words he adds:

' To-morrow, Saturday, the Feast of St. Philip and St. James, the 1st of May, is the anniversary of the entrance of M. Schoeffler into heaven, and I believe it is the day appointed for my own sacrifice. God's will be done. Blessed be God, I die happy. I bid farewell to all in the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum. In cordibus Jesu et Marice osculor vos, amid mei.

' Vinctus in Christo, the vigil of my death, April 30, 1852.'

Tell me, if you were to receive that letter from a martyred son or brother in India, would it not kindle in your heart for the rest of your life a zeal for the salvation of your neighbour that you never knew before? Once more. Pere Dorie, after a few months' labour in Corea — which is truly called the ' Mother of Martyrs,' by reason of the cruelty of its people¹

— was crowned with martyrdom. When the news came to his home, a Te Deum was sung in the parish church, in the presence of the Bishop of Lugon and people of St. Hilaire, with his family and friends. After the Te Deum, his brother came forward, and, in the name of his father and mother, thanked the Bishop for his charity, and for the honour shown to his martyred brother, saying: ' When he left us, we sacrificed him for God; hut we did not know how complete that sacrifice was to he. When tidings of his martyrdom came, nature for a time had its way: but we then thanked God that we had a Protector in heaven, in whose footsteps, though afar off, we all resolve to follow day by day.'

Do you think, if events like these came back upon us, they would not have the effect of exciting the love of God and of souls throughout England, so as to raise up, not only a body of missionaries for the Corea, but for London, and Glasgow, and Birmingham, and the brickfields of which we read the other day, than which nothing more terrible is to be found in heathen lands? If this be so, you will be glad to know that there has been founded in this diocese a College for Foreign Missions. It is not a college of this diocese alone, but of the whole of England, and for all the world. A priest whom I will not commend — for, if I were to do so, you might think that old and tried affection biassed me — some ten years ago conceived the idea of founding the first missionary college in England. The Catholic Church in England had then no missionary institution. It had only just emerged from penal laws. For centuries, the Catholics of England had been worshipping in poverty. The Blessed Sacrament had, indeed, been reverently laid up in the Tabernacle; but the Tabernacle had been housed in places unworthy of the worship of God. While penal laws and their effects were upon us, it was not to be supposed that England could have a missionary college; but no sooner had the Church arisen from the depression of the past, than this House of Missions was founded. It was one of the chief desires of the late Cardinal Archbishop. It has received the special benediction of Pius IX. It was sanctioned by all the Bishops of England, at the first public assembly of the hierarchy, apart from its Provincial Councils, since its restoration. It is not, therefore, as I have said, a diocesan work. It is a work of the whole of England, open to all England, and to be supported by the alms of all England. When I tell you that it began with one priest and one student, in a house that was not even hired, but lent, I shall give you one of the best guarantees for its future prosperity — the deep poverty of its beginning. The priest who began this work went to North and South America. The alms which founded the work came chiefly, not from England, but from abroad. It was Northern and Southern America, then — foreign lands, and not England — that laid the first stone of this college. As they have so well helped us to begin, we are bound by every obligation to carry it to its completion. It has been already begun upon a scale to accommodate seventy students. Two - thirds of it are built: the church is building, but a sum of four thousand pounds is required to complete the work. Year by year, no less than half a million of money is given in England, by those who are not of the unity of the Church, for foreign missions. They manifest a zeal for which I honour them. How much is collected, year by year, for the only missionary college we possess? Scarcely two hundred pounds. Nevertheless, let us not lose heart. We are only in the outset; these are our tardy beginnings. I feel confident that the words I speak now will never be repeated again. The Catholics of England at large will abundantly contribute hereafter to send to the heathen, who are perishing, the faith which God has so miraculously preserved to them in this land.

This, then, is the appeal I have to commit to your charity. I would ask of you three things. First, to enrol yourselves in this work. It is an association of the nature of a Confraternity of Devotion. Let each enrol himself in it, and thereby hecome personally a partaker in its works.6 Secondly, if you are able to give, give according to your means. Lastly, if you are not able to give, pray that the hearts of others may be moved to contribute of what they possess. Gather by your industry, from them, what you cannot give yourselves. There is no reason why the roll of this college should not bear the name of every one who hears me now. By becoming members of this association, you will receive the special benediction which is attached to every work of charity for the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Happy are you if, when our divine Lord shall gaze upon you and ask of each one: ' Lovest thou Me?' you are able to say with truth: ' Lord, thou knowest all things; Thou knowest that I love Thee.' The answer will then be in your hearts: ' Feed My sheep.'

6 To become a member of St. Joseph's Society of the Sacred Heart for Foreign Missions, nothing more is required than to be inscribed on the books of the Society, to pray for the extension of the kingdom of God, and to give an annual subscription towards the education of priests in St. Joseph's College, or in other ways to co-operate in the work of the Society. All the members will participate in the good works and merits of the Society.

XIII. THE NEGEO MISSION:

In St. Joseph's College, November 17, 1871.

THE NEGKO MISSION.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord hath anointed me: He hath sent me to preach to the meek, to heal the contrite of heart, and to preach a release to the captives, and deliverance to them that are shut up. ISAIAS Ixi. 1.

MOEE than a thousand years ago, a lonely priest in the West of England, meditating in his cloister on the spiritual misery and spiritual death of the heathen in the midst of Europe, found no rest day or night, until he had formed the resolution, and carried that resolution into effect, of leaving his home, his brethren, and the charities of life, to go over into Friesland, and there to preach the Gospel. He went forth, and failed, and turned home again. But the fire of zeal that was in him could not he extinguished. A second time he went forth into the same land, and into Thuringia and Bavaria. The hearts of the heathen opened to his voice; and Winfrid, or Boniface, the Englishman, became the apostle and martyr of Ger-many.

Footnotes

1. I beseech you to remember me before the Lord; be sure that, as I have told you before, if He has mercy on my soul, I will not forget you for ever. ↩