Sermons from the Latins/Sermon 55
Twenty-first Sunday After Pentecost.
Mercy.
"Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." — Matt. vi. 12.
SYNOPSIS.
Ex.: I. Shakespeare. II. Mercy should beget mercy. III. Beatitude.
I. History: 1. Peter's query. 2. Individual and priest. 3. Sinners God's debtors.
II. Rare virtue : 1. Measure for measure. 2. Mercy's eulogy. 3. Bearing wrongs patiently.
III. Judgment: 1. Parity. 2. Revival of guilt. 3. Foolish merchant.
Per. : Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
SERMON.
Briefly stated, dear Brethren, that is the subject of to-day's Gospel. It teaches that divine clemency and human gratitude should join in indissoluble wedlock, and bring into this world the lovely virtues of mercy and charity. Shakespeare compares mercy to the " gentle rain from heaven," that gentle downpour that renews the face of the earth — that steals through all earth's devious windings back to the ocean, and thence back to the skies whence it came. So, too, divine mercy if it beget not in us love and mercy one for another — that mercy " that reacheth from end to end mightily, and ordereth all things sweetly; " if it be not exhaled and returned whence it came, by grateful hearts, the heavens become as unyielding as polished metal, and God's earthly kingdom an arid waste. For, blessed are the merciful, and only the merciful, for they alone shall obtain mercy.
The Gospel parable is Our Lord's answer to Peter, who had just asked: " Lord, how often shall I forgive my brother his offences against me? Seven times? " Our Lord answered: " I say to thee not seven times, but seventy times seven times." We read that the just man falls seven times a day; if you remember, there are seven deadly sins; and seven out of the ten commandments treat of man's duty to man; and for one or all of these reasons Peter saw fit to make seven pardons the limit of forbearance. But Our Lord had previously said: " Be ye merciful, as your heavenly Father is merciful," and as the mercy of God is infinite, therefore He now teaches Peter, and through Peter He teaches us, to know in pardoning neither measure nor number. This lesson, I repeat, is meant for us, for Our Lord speaks not to Peter the priest, but to Peter the man; He defines Peter's duty not as the minister of the Sacrament of Penance, but as the Christian in the ups and downs of daily life. For, in his question, Peter had spoken of offences against himself; whereas, the priest in the confessional deals with offences against God; and Our Lord, in His answer, inculcates unconditional forgiveness, which, for the priest in the confessional, is oftentimes impossible. To the individual, to each individual Christian, is directed this precept of love and forgiveness.
Christ having answered Peter proceeds, according to the custom of those days, to explain His meaning by a parable. " The kingdom of heaven," He says, " is likened to a king who would take an account of his servants." God is our King and we His earthly kingdom, exiled, it is true, like the Israelites in the desert, but hoping like them to reach one day the promised land. An exiled nation we, homeward bound, some, loading ourselves with earthly spoils beneath which we fall and perish; and some trudging bravely on, indifferent to everything, to everything except the glory to come; each led on by the all-absorbing idea — our happiness. But even the worst among us pause betimes— our better moments— when the still, small voice of conscience speaks and we enter into reckoning with our God. And oh! how much we owed even had we never sinned! How immeasurably have our sins increased that debt! How small our funds wherewith to pay; and how hopeless the task of earning more! The servant, in the parable, owed his king ten thousand talents, that is, ten million dollars. If we suppose a million dollars to be the reward for keeping, and fine for breaking, one of God's commandments, many of as, alas! are hopelessly in debt, and many of us, thank God, are in a fair way to become multi-millionaires in the kingdom of heaven. But we sinners— ^those of us who have run our sinful course through the Decalogue, not once but hundreds of times — what an enormous debt is ours! Ah, we may pray: " Lord, have patience with me," but it would be folly to add: "and I will pay Thee all." We have not, we never can have, wherewith to pay the debt incurred by even one mortal sin, for what do we possess, what can we possess that is not from our bountiful Creditor? No, there is only one hope for us — the hope that our King and our God will be moved with compassion and forgive us all the debt, and the foundation for that hope we have in His own blessed promise: "That an humble and contrite heart the merciful Lord will never despise." But even our contrition and humility — our ransom — come from God. By a law of spiritual gravitation, of ourselves we can descend, but ascend, never, without the helping hand of God. If He turn not toward us we are lost. Dante represents the damned as submerged in a frozen lake — frozen because the light and warmth of God's gaze never penetrates there. The Lord looked on the traitor Peter, and immediately Peter wept. So it ever is: even the beginning of our repentance comes from God. He may look on us reproachfully, He may even command to be sold into the slavery of the devil our soul, and our soul's wife, which is our body, and the children of their union, which are our evil deeds, but His very wrath is an artifice of divine mercy to lead us to fall down at His feet and beseech Him saying: " Have patience with me and I will pay Thee all." Nay, He even puts it in our power to pay Him all, having given us an elder Brother, our Redeemer, possessed of countless riches amassed for just such emergencies, and ever generous in paying the debts of His scapegrace younger brethren. Be our debt ever so great — infinite if you will — yet as long as life lasts there is room for hope. By mortal sin we justly fall under the slavery of the devil, but not irredeemably. It is never too late to appeal to divine mercy to have patience; the case is never so hopeless but what, relying on the infinite merits of Our Redeemer, we can confidently promise God's justice to pay Him all. One thing, and one only, is necessary; that, as we fell by pride so we rise by humbly falling, supplicants, at God's feet, for: "He that exalteth himself shall be humbled, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted."
"Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us." " Mercy," says the poet, " is an attribute of God Himself," most difficult for man to imitate, and hence most often emphasized in God's dealings with man. Says the Psalmist: " If Thou wilt observe iniquities, O Lord, Lord, who will endure them?" Now do we, as creatures, properly reflect this attribute of the Creator? Alas! what a rare virtue among us is magnanimity. For lack of mercy in our hearts, too often the very recitation of the Lord's Prayer becomes a curse on our heads. We beg and receive forgiveness from our King, and going out we harden our hearts against the prayer of our fellow-servant and refuse to forgive. We ask for pardon in proportion as we are willing to pardon, and were God to take us at our word, were He to interpret our prayer as it is interpreted in our daily lives, forgiveness of injuries were as rare in heaven as it is on earth. But if during our lives God's mercy surpasseth all understanding, be assured, the day will come — the day of our death — when He will make our mercy the measure of His own. " For," says St. Luke, " with the same measure that you shall mete withal it shall be measured to you again."
Nothing, to my mind, brings out into stronger light the vileness of our nature than our lack of appreciation for this lovely virtue, for mercy for her own sweet sake is worthy of all love. Among virtues she is the highest in the highest. The Church, in one of her prayers, says: "The omnipotence of God is shown especially by mercy and pardon." Speaking of mercy of man to man Shakespeare says: " It becomes the throned monarch better than his crown, for earthly power doth then show likest God's, when mercy seasons justice." Mercy it is that constitutes us children of the Most High, for in Matt. (v. 45, 46) we read: " Pray for them that persecute and calumniate you, that you may be the children of your Father who is in heaven." Our powers of forgiveness are the measure of our loyalty to Our Saviour, for to forgive means to overcome self, and Christ has said: " If any man will be My disciple let him deny himself." In fact, chief among the objects of Christ's coming was to teach mercy to every living creature. He came to level the opposing fortifications of God's justice and man's arrogance, and though as to the former He succeeded, as to the latter, alas! His mission was partly a failure. For with all the ingratitude of the servant in the parable, we ignore the fundamental principle of all Christian morality, " Do to others as yon would like to be done by;" we refuse to see that the divine remission of our vast liabilities generates in us an obligation to forgive our fellowman his paltry debts. No, we throttle him, and cast him into prison, till he pay us all. " Mercy," says Shakespeare, " blesseth him that gives and him that takes," and, per contra, vengeance curseth equally its victim and its author. A man never appears to worse advantage — never more contemptible than when he clamors for revenge; whereas the sublimest heroism is patience under insult and wrong. The author of the book of Proverbs voices these sentiments when he says: " The bearing of a man is known by patience, and his glory is to pass over wrongs." Is an injury done or an affront offered; immediately the ignoble rowdy, with a shriek or an oath, rushes to the assault, but the gentleman stands unmoved or gives way, as the poet says, with nobler reason against fury taking part. The noble Christian looks over the present wrong, to a greater good beyond, to which wrongs, patiently borne, are stepping-stones; but the rowdy sees only the wrong here and now, and like a foolish child frets more bitterly over a broken toy than over the loss of his inheritance.
Such incidents are but modern reproductions of the scene on Calvary — the contrast between the mocking, blasphemous thief on his cross and the crucified Saviour — patient and silent — silent, or if He spake at all it was only to utter that gentle prayer: " Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."
The king, in the parable, having heard what was done, recalled his servant before him, and having upbraided him for his ingratitude, delivered him to the torturers till he should pay all the debt. There •is the third and last act in this little drama presented for our instruction. We may be inclined, perhaps, to console our guilty consciences by arguing that there is no parity between the action of the king to his servant and the attitude of God to the sinner, for in Ezechiel we read that as often as the sinner shall bewail his iniquities God shall no longer remember them. True, but still I call your attention to the closing words of the parable: " So, also, shall My heavenly Father do to you if you forgive not every one your brother from your heart." The parity is plain — plainly stated in the sermon on the mount: " If you forgive others your heavenly Father will forgive you; but if you forgive not others neither will your heavenly Father forgive you." Nay, just as in the parable, judgment is now demanded for a debt already pardoned, so our subsequent sin revives the guilt and justifies the punishment even of those previously pardoned. A schoolboy, for example, misbehaves and is forgiven; he offends again and is pardoned with a warning, and so on till patience ceases to be a virtue, and his master inflicts punishment, not for one but for the whole series of offences. And by the fact that the ungrateful servant did not dare, a second time, to plead for pardon, we are taught that the course of a relapsing sinner leads to final impenitence. A merchant had four ships, three so new and splendid that, not to mar their beauty, he went with all his merchandise on board the fourth that was old. But one ship cannot float the cargo of four, and so the old ship sank, and its owner with it, and now his three beautiful vessels are to him profitless things of the past. Brethren, we have four ages — childhood, youth, manhood, and old age — and if we load the entire burden of penance on old age, be sure we will fare no better than the foolish merchant. " Now," says the Scripture, " now is the acceptable time — now is the day of salvation."
Brethren, at times — in our better moments — we realize our debt of gratitude to God and we cast around for ways of paying it saying: " What shall I give to the Lord for all He hath given me?" Let me send you away this morning with this one idea fixed firmly in your minds, that your first, most sacred duty is to be kind and gentle with one another as your heavenly Father is merciful to you. How rare soever be the gift you propose to lay at the feet of the Saviour, remember always that rarer still is a merciful, a forgiving heart. " If," says Our Lord, in Matt. v. 23, 24, " if thou offer thy gift at the altar and there thou rememberest that thy brother hath anything against thee, leave thou thy gift before the altar and go first to be reconciled to thy brother and then coming thou shalt offer thy gift."