Low Sunday.
Rationalism.
"Jesus said to him: Be not faithless, but believing. Thomas answered: My Lord and my God" — John xx. 27, 28.
SYNOPSIS.
Ex. : I. Salutary doubt. II. Rationalism. III. Based on pride.
I. Truth : 1. According to rationalists. 2. According to Catholics. 3. Three stages.
II. Unreasonable: 1. Truth infinite. 2. Revelation possible and a fact. 3. Necessary.
III. Even natural truths: 1. Difficult 2. Danger of error. 3. Romans.
Per.: Practice of 1. Catholics. 2. Rationalists. 3. Inconsistency.
SERMON.
Brethren, the Apostle, Thomas, was the first sceptic or rationalist of Christian times. " Oh, happy doubt," exclaimed St. Gregory, " which removed all doubt and placed the fact of Our Lord's Resurrection beyond dispute." Would that one might say as much for later-day rationalism, whose effect invariably is indifference and infidelity. The doubting Thomas is one of the strongest pillars of the Christian Church; the modern rationalist is religion's most dangerous enemy. The rationalist in his pride of intellect rejects and ridicules the supernatural, while Thomas uses Nature to lift him up to God, saying: " Lord, I believe; Lord, help with evidence my unbelief." As Judas by despair was lost and Peter saved by penance, so the modern rationalist's ruin is his
