Sermons from the Latins/Sermon 36
Fourth Sunday After Pentecost.
The Christian Apostolate.
"And Jesus saith to Simon: Fear not, from henceforth thou shall catch men." — Luke v. 10.
SYNOPSIS.
Ex.: I. The fishermen. II. The fisher of men. III. God's call.
I. Preparation: i. Altar-boy. 2. God no respecter of persons. 3. Julian's blasphemy.
II. Call. I. Industry and self-sacrificed. 2. Hearing and preaching. 3. Net of God's word.
III. Response : 1. Trials and consolations. 2. Double revelation. 3. Peter's astonishment.
Per.: 1. Priestly self-respect. 2. Reverence of laity. 3. Golden mean.
Brethren, the scene of to-day's Gospel is a beautiful one to contemplate. The night had been stormy, and the fishermen's labor had been consequently fruitless, but now the morning breaks calm and clear, and the fickle lake, easily lashed to fury and easily stilled, lies smooth and glassy beneath the newly risen sun. Long, quivering shadows are cast athwart the waters by the tall masts, the idle sails, and the weary, disheartened fishermen. Presently, down from Capharnaum comes Jesus, the crowd following and pressing round to hear His every word. Shading their eyes with their hands, the fishermen look shoreward, then work their boats closer in, where rising and falling on the gentle swell they pause to listen. Christ's eyes are on the people, and His words are addressed to them, but His heart is on the fishermen, for by and by, when crowded to the water's edge, He steps aboard the bark of Peter and makes it His pulpit, and then launching out into the deep He bids them let down their nets for that wondrous draught whereby He showed that He had come there expressly to call them to be His Apostles. No priest of God can read that passage without emotion, for it recalls that bright happy day when first Christ came to him and said: " Follow Me; for henceforth thou shalt be a fisher of men."
Brethren, a wonderful and a mysterious thing is a young man's call to the priesthood. From his earliest years he is unconsciously being prepared, as an altar boy perhaps, and the summons, at first vague and general, may take years to become distinct and unmistakable. Thus Andrew had long been a disciple of the Baptist, and though months previous to their present call, when John had pointed out the Lamb of God to him and his brother Peter, they had immediately followed Jesus, still it is only now that their vocation takes shape definite and final. Doubtless the immediate works of Jesus's hands, the miraculous loaves and fishes, and the wine of Cana were far superior to that produced by secondary causes; and doubtless, too, some special grace was vouchsafed those whom Jesus personally called and consecrated to His service, but still it is the self-same Christ that summons to-day young men to the selfsame Apostolate. His voice is not heard, but just as through fishing He caught the fishermen, and by a star He led the astronomers or Magi, so through some circumstance peculiar to each He draws him naturally, sweetly, and yet mightily. Some event, trivial it may be, but still deeply significant in the light God sheds on it, will open up God's will to him, even as the sight of Jesus preaching to the surging throngs upon the strand must have recalled to the fishermen God's promise to their father Abraham that his seed should be as the grains of sand upon the shore; must have made them reflect that the harvest indeed was plentiful but the laborers few. " Pray ye, therefore, the Lord of the harvest," says Holy Writ, " to send laborers into His harvest," for a call to the priesthood is exclusively God's doing. Mary chooses the better part herself and Christ ratifies her choice, but to His Apostles He says: " It is I who choose you and not you who choose Me." Neither Peter the fisherman, nor Peter the disowner can turn to Christ unless Christ's glance first rest on him. And blessed be God that in distributing His favors Christ is impartial and no respecter of persons. James and John, we know, were own cousins to the Lord, yet Andrew and Peter's call preceded theirs. That Christ began by choosing a pair of brothers recalls God's choice of Moses and Aaron to liberate His people and seems to indicate the bond of brotherhood each neophyte enters into with his brother-priests. Again, neither wealth, nor influence, nor great abilities count for aught with Christ in His choice of subjects for His priesthood. One there was of great possessions whom He commanded to go, give all to the poor and coming follow Him, but that young man's countenance fell and he sadly turned away. More frequently the call comes to the poor and humble and by such is it more generally and more readily accepted. The fishermen were rough and unlettered, as unpromising, seemingly, for any purposes of usefulness or beauty as the unhewn log of wood or the undressed block of marble, but out of the wood may be fashioned a thing of beauty, and within the marble may lie hid an angel. Julian, the apostate, was wont to sneeringly remark that Christ chose the ignorant as more gullible, and even among alumni of Catholic colleges you will sometimes hear the brighter men reproach the duller ones with having studied for the priesthood because no other path to success lay open to them. The charge is false and blasphemous. Not all of Christ's disciples were rude and uncultured. Nicodemus and Gamaliel and Nathanael were doctors of the law; Lazarus and Joseph of Arimathea were from the Judean nobility; Paul and Denis the Areopagite and the many Jewish priests, who, as we read in the Acts, embraced the faith, were all most learned men, and later history records that the greatest minds that ever graced this earth were priests of God. And does it not redound to God's greater glory that men so utterly unfit as were the fishermen should have suddenly become masters of wisdom and of eloquence, linguists versed in every known tongue, and stupendous wonder-workers? That God chose such feeble means wherewith to conquer Jewish bigotry and convert a Pagan world served the double purpose of illustrating His omnipotence and saving the Apostles from vanity, for well might they say: " Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to Thy name give glory." Aye, it served a further purpose still, viz., to show the emptiness of all the teachings of the Pagan philosophies, for God chose the weak things of the earth to overcome the strong, and the foolish to confound the wise.
Brethren, when once the call has come, how deep the change it works in the young man's soul! Life immediately takes on a serious aspect, for he realizes there is so much to be done for God, and so little time for its accomplishment. Thenceforth he must be a toiler life's night through after the model of the Galilean fishermen, and of the Saviour who walked by the sea, a fisher of men, and ceaselessly went about doing good. We rarely hear of His having sat down to rest, and if at all, it was to teach, as now in Peter's boat, or on the Mount, or by the well where He converted the Samaritan woman, and through her the entire city. Christ's " follow Me," therefore, is an invitation to a life of industry, of which He sets the pace. God gave commands of old, but men neglected or erred in keeping them, and then came Christ saying: " Follow Me," setting Himself as an example for our imitation, and even taking us in hand and guiding us, as the writing-master guides the hand of a beginner. Thus young men called of God gaze steadily on Christ and learn to follow Him. He gave up all, Himself included, in His quest for men, and so must they relinquish all, their home and family and friends and hopes of worldly joys and wealth and honors, and take unto themselves their suffering Saviour to be their portion and their inheritance. They realize how steep the path to heaven is, what strides are necessary to keep pace with Christ, what numbers will depend on them for help; and they feel they cannot afford to be weighed down with worldly affections and things, and that he who loves these more than Christ is not worthy to be His disciple. The two essential parts of every priestly life are illustrated in to-day's Gospel. First, communion with God, to sit and listen to Jesus's words, and secondly, to launch out into the deep and let down the nets for a draught. " Follow Me," He says, " and I will make you fishers of men." The world is like a sea whose waters, seemingly clear and sweet, are nevertheless bitter to the taste and aggravate rather than slake men's thirst — sinners are like fish, cold, devoid of religious fervor, loving the darkness of the deep and its mud and carrion, having no eyes to see, nor ears to hear God's truth, nor spiritual hands or feet wherewith to extricate themselves, given to preying upon and selfishly devouring one another. And oh! how arduous and discouraging the fisherman's task; how often, when the fish is nearly caught, he suddenly slips back and plunges down again ! There is a rival fisherman, too, the devil, who, though he baits his cruel hook with poisonous pleasure and wealth and honors, and though he tears and kills his catch, still, sad to say, finds many eager for his lure. But Christ's mode of fishing and that of His Apostles and priests is with the net of the word of God. The wonderful complexity of natures in Christ, with their knots and difficulties, His gradual broadening out from a helpless babe to full Messiaship, His perforated body on the cross, and His reaching at His death from the highest heaven to the lowest hell, all proclaim that the Word made flesh is both the fisherman and the net whereby men's souls are gathered into the peaceful waters of God's heavenly preserves. Or, if you will, the preached and written word of God is the net, its doctrines the cords, slender but enduring, and bound indissolubly together as with knots by mysteries and miracles and divine commands; a net seemingly small at first, but when investigated and unfolded found large enough to encompass man's entire moral and intellectual world, reaching heaven with its promises and fathoming hell with its threats. Be the draught ever so great, the bark of Peter will not sink, nor will the net give way; " for," says the Lord, " though heaven and earth shall pass away, My words shall not pass away."
Brethren, when, as is related to-day, the miraculous draught of fish was hauled aboard, Peter in amazement flung himself at the Saviour's feet and cried: " Depart from me, O Lord, for I am a sinful man." If the priesthood has its trials, it also has its consolations. The night of fruitless toil may be long and wearisome, but God will take account of and reward the labor regardless of results. Through many tribulations one enters the kingdom of heaven, and especially so the priest, but if through all discouragement he persevere, sooner or later, and perhaps when least expected, his consolation is sure to come. Peter and his fellow-fishermen doubtless deemed it madness after their unsuccessful night to look for a rich haul in the glare of the morning sun, and hence their amazement when, at Jesus's word, they let down the nets and took that wondrous draught. They were completely carried away by a sudden revulsion of feeling. It was a double revelation — of their unworthiness, and of Christ's infinite goodness, and Peter voiced the sentiment of all when he cried in the spirit of the centurion: " Lord, I am not worthy; depart from me, O Lord, for I am a sinful man." There is no priest who has not at times experienced all of that. He preached perhaps, and bid right eloquently for a soul or souls, and because Christ's promise of success was not fulfilled as promptly and as abundantly as in the case of Peter's first discourse, he felt despondent and discouraged. And then perchance it occurred to him to imitate Christ, who at twelve disputed with the doctors, and at thirty came down to the capacity of the vulgar throng, and so at Jesus's word and in a humbler and a better spirit he again let down the net and lo! the miraculous draught again; the people crowded him as they crowded Jesus, ever eager for preaching that really is the word of God. Then came the double revelation of sin within and God without, and he cried: "I am not worthy; depart from me, O Lord, and yet not so, O Lord; remain with me, for without Thee I can do nothing, but in Thee who strengthenest me I can accomplish anything and everything. Let demons cry: ' Depart from us, Thou Son of God, What have we to do with Thee? ' but I, unworthy as I am, will henceforth try to imitate the fishermen, who leaving all things, their homes and families, their boats and newly acquired wealth, aye, and renouncing even themselves, followed Thee thenceforth more closely still, even to suffering and to death."
Brethren, St. Paul, writing to the Corinthians of himself and his brother-priests, says: " Let a man so account of us as of the ministers of Christ and the dispensers of the mysteries of God." Herein is contained a double admonition, one for priests as to how they should carry themselves, and another for the laity as to how they should esteem their priests. The Lord's anointed should never lose sight of the dignity of his sacred calling, nor of the rights and the duties that it involves. Christ's priesthood is as far superior to that of the Jews as are the truths and rites and ceremonies, the sacraments and the sacrifice of the New Law to that of the Old. No earthly dignity can compare with that of the Christian Apostolate. While the holy Bishop, St. Martin, was one day dining with the Emperor, the latter out of respect for his saintly guest passed him the royal goblet untasted, and the good Bishop, to assert the dignity of his office, not only accepted the honor himself but handed the cup to an humble priest, his secretary, as next in order of precedence. St. Ambrose, too, when the Emperor Theodosius would have seated himself in the sanctuary, exclaimed: "Emperor, go forth and take thy place among the laity, for though thy ermine make thee an emperor, it does not make thee a priest." The priest, therefore, while ever remembering, on the one hand, that he is the servant of the servants of God, must never forget, on the other, that he is an " alter Christus," another Christ, that he is the salt of the earth, which if it lose its savor will be cast out and trampled upon by men; that he is, in a word, a minister of Christ and a dispenser of the mysteries of God. As such, too, he should be accounted of and reverenced by you of the laity. Christ said to His Apostles: " He that despiseth you, despiseth Me." Respect paid His priests is respect paid to Christ Himself, and be assured that as Peter lost nothing by tendering the use of his boat for Jesus's pulpit, nor the widow by supporting Elias, nor the Sunamitess by housing Eliseus, so whatever material aid or hospitality you may provide for His priests will be amply rewarded. Remember, too, that extremes are perilous, and that safety lies midway. Excessive regard for individual priests begot factions among the Corinthians, one saying, " I am Paul's," another, "I am Apollo's," and a third, " I belong to Cephas." But neither Paul is anything nor Apollo nor Cephas; they plant and water the faith, but of themselves they are nothing; as Christ's ministers they are one and in all things equal; but they and we are all of Christ, and Christ is of God who giveth the increase. " Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to Thy name give glory . . . but let a man so account of us as of the ministers of Christ and the dispensers of the mysteries of God."