Sermons from the Latins/Sermon 48
Fifteenth Sunday After Pentecost.
The Necessity of Religion.
" Young men, I say to thee, arise." — Luke vii. 14.
SYNOPSIS.
Ex. : I. Widow and son. II. Miracle. III. History's repetitions.
I. Causes and objections : 1. Religion and irreligion. 2. Ignorant pride, human respect, vice. 3. Old, change, civilization.
II. Indispensable : 1. All peoples. 2. State of infidel. 3. Crime against God.
III. Results of irreligion : 1. Picking and choosing. 2. Man minus religion. 3. Death-bed.
Per. : Pray that miracle may be repeated.
SERMON.
Brethren, the Gospel of this morning's Mass presents to my mind a picture and a subject for discourse. A picture — that of Christ meeting the funeral of the son of the widow of Nairn; a subject for discourse — the necessity of religion. As Our Lord was entering the town, behold a dead man was carried out — the only son of his mother and she was a widow. And seeing the poor mourner the tender heart of Christ melted with pity and He said to her: " Daughter, weep not." And touching her son He said: "Young man, I say to thee, arise," and the dead sat up and began to speak, and He gave him to his mother, and the astonished multitude cried out: " A great prophet is risen up among us and God hath visited His people."
Alas! brethren, how history repeats itself. Here to-day in many of you I see that picture reproduced; many a mother, wife, daughter, or sister, your hearts full of desolation; bending, like the widow, in speechless sorrow over the spiritual corpse of son or husband, father or brother — dead to God by their neglect of the sacred duties of religion. And you come here, as to the Christ, seeking to again move Him to pity; begging Him to repeat to you the consoling words: " Daughter, weep not," or to your unfortunate relative: "Young man, I say to thee, arise." May Christ comfort your afflicted hearts as He did that of the widow of Nairn!
Brethren, by religion I mean the sum of the relationship between man and God — God creating preserving, sanctifying, and saving man; and man's consequent duties of knowing, loving, and serving God in this life, with the hope of eternal happiness in the next. No one, except possibly the fool, will dare say in his heart, there is no God. On the other hand, the soul's consciousness of her own intellectual nature and inherent longing for everlasting happiness, loudly proclaim her to be spiritual and immortal. Now between those two beings, God and man, the connecting link — the bond of union — is religion. Whether we will or no, whether we recognize it or not, such a bond surely exists. For, though man at his creation becomes a distinct individual, still, not even God Himself could make a single creature independent of his Creator. But alas! what God refuses to do — what God is unable to do — man, foolish and ungrateful, is not slow to attempt. For the man without religion — the man who forsakes or neglects his religion — practically says: " Away with God! I will none of Him! I am independent even of Him — absolutely self-sufficient." The foundling renounces his generous benefactor; the son disowns the most loving of fathers! In some this rebellious spirit takes the form of contempt for everything sacred; in others, it is the bitter opposition to some particular creed; in the majority, it is downright indifference. And though the cases of the scoffer and the religious fanatic are, God knows, deplorable enough, still, there is in them an activity, an interest — a partial belief, if you will — which may, God willing, lead to something better. But the case of the indifferent is the most hopeless of all. He is neither hot nor cold, and, therefore, disgusting to God. " I would," says the Holy Spirit, speaking to the indifferent, " I would thou wert cold or hot; but because thou art lukewarm and neither cold nor hot I will begin to vomit thee out of My mouth."
Brethren, the causes of irreligion are, it seems to me, threefold. First of all is "ignorant pride;" sometimes a little pride and great ignorance; sometimes less ignorance and greater pride; but invariably "ignorant pride." How many men there are, not knowing even how to read or write, who will sneer at those eternal truths of religion, in the presence of which the world's greatest minds have bowed in humble assent! How many men there are with a stock of learning, little enough to be dangerous, but large enough to fill them with infinite conceit, who will produce, as their own, objections to religion as old as history; as unanswerable, objections refuted thousands of times; feeble, knock-kneed arguments, as destructive of that religion the saints professed and hosts of Christian martyrs defended with their lives! How many men there are, who, in the pride of their hearts — because, forsooth, they have delved deeply in science, literature, or art — who have learned everything except to recognize how little they know, do not hesitate to pass judgment on religion, as did Pontius Pilate on Our Saviour; and treat her as he treated Christ — as a fool or an impostor! Ignorant pride and human respect. Here is the second cause of irreligion. Pride and ignorance are mental defects, but human respect is a disease of the will, a lack of moral backbone; the misfortune of those who " are ashamed to profess the faith of Christ crucified." But it is not always the head that is at fault; more often it is the heart, and here we have the third and last cause of irreligion — human passion. There is no virtue religion does not inculcate, no vice she does not denounce; and sooner shall heaven and earth pass away than she forego one iota of her law for any man. Hence the sinner, unwilling to give up his darling devil, is, by consistency, forced body and soul into the ranks of unbelievers, according to Christ's own words: " No man can serve two masters," and "He that is not with Me is against Me."
Brethren, I would not tire you by rehearsing the arguments with which the irreligious seek to justify themselves, were it not that these arguments, by their very weakness, prove the necessity of religion. In a series of religious chats with a young gentleman, lately, I found his first great difficulty was that religion was an old story, something belonging to a bygone age. Old! most assuredly it is old! As old as the human race, for it is the relation of man to God. I trace it back through the Christian era; back to Calvary and the cross of Christ; back to Moses and Aaron; back to the caves of the prophets and the tents of the patriarchs; back to the cradle of humanity, and thence back to heaven, whence it comes. Is age her shame, or is it not rather like an old lady's gray hairs, her crown of glory? A crisp bank-note or a brilliant coin is suspected as counterfeit by reason of its very newness. So, too, the various non-Catholic sects are discredited by their own modernity; whereas one instinctively turns for the genuine article to that religion, and that alone, which with its God can say of itself: " Before Abraham was, I am;" of which the Psalmist says: " Thou art ever the selfsame and thy years shall not fail." " Oh, but," my friend replies, " religion has changed and does change!" Change, yes, as Christ changed from a babe to a youth and full-grown man. True, she was, in times of persecution, often changed, as was Christ by His Passion from the most beautiful of the sons of men to a mangled felon on the cross with no beauty in Him. Change! yes, as the tree changes its girth and the spread of its branches; changes in her ceremonies as the tree changes its foliage; changes in her results, as the tree,, from year to year, changes its fruits. Ever changing and yet ever the same. For religion is not an Egyptian mummy, but a living, active agent that becomes all things to all men to save all. Yet in her essential parts she is as unchangeable, in an ever-changing world, as that pyramid of the desert which for ages has watched the ever-changing Nile glide slowly at its feet. But would not civilization suffice, without religion to block her way? Civilization suffice! Alas! how small the connection between education and virtue is well attested in this most enlightened but most vicious age. Religion block the way of civilization! Why, when science, art, and literature, in the Middle Ages, were cast out like helpless babes doomed to destruction, religion took them to her breast, nursed them in. the cloister, and restored them to the world, as Pharao's daughter restored Moses to be the leader — the saviour of the nation. Religion is the life-giving sun in the world of souls; the moon lighting up the darkness of human existence; and that same religion that began with humanity shall end only with humanity, for God is with it all time and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
Brethren, religion is an essential element of our inner nature. As the stag after the fountain of living water, so our minds thirst after truth — and God is truth. The human will, feeling its own weakness, looks up for some infallible rule of action — and God is the way. Both body and soul feel they are created things and turn instinctively to pay homage to the Author of their being — and God is life. Now this turning of our whole being to God, as the sunflower to the sun — to God, the way, the truth, and the life — this is religion. And that it is a fundamental law of our nature is attested by the fact that in all the nations of the world, past or present, you will not find one without its religion. Here and there a blasphemous monster will assert his unbelief, but his voice is drowned in the chorus of adoration that ascends from the world to the throne of God. True, the system of truths of this savage people may be preposterous; the moral code of that other, barbarous; this nation may worship the sun or moon or some graven thing; the object of that other's worship may be a myth; but still it is ever the same craving of the soul for the way, the truth, and the life — for God, Hence, I say, the man of no religion— the man who forsakes or neglects his religion— is a living lie. His whole life is a contradiction — a perversion of Nature. In his words and actions he asserts, probably boasts of, his unbelief, but his heart, his soul cries out: "Thou liest; deep down in thy being is the consciousness of God's existence and thy soul's immortality, and the essential relations of each to the other." Further still, he is a moral suicide. He stifles into silence the most sacred aspirations of his soul, and refuses her the truth and love as necessary to her existence as food and drink to the body. He is worse than the idolater or the fetish worshipper. Nay, I would yenture a step further and assert that he descends to the level of the brute. For what is it distinguishes man from the brute? The ability to think? No, for an elephant is wiser than many men. The gift of speech? No; monkeys converse fluently. Their bodily shape? No; there are gorillas and men who would pass for brothers. The distinguishing mark is the yearning of man's soul for a higher life. Man's dignity as lord of creation and heir to heaven is never more emphatically asserted than when he says: " I believe in God," " Thy will be done," and falling down prays: " Our Father, who art in heaven." But the unbeliever, the neglecter of religion, has practically nothing to distinguish him from the brute creation. Like the prodigal son, he no sooner abandons his father than he begins to associate and feed with the swine, and regains his manhood — his dignity as son and heir — only when he forms and carries out his resolution to arise and go to his father. This folly of the irreligious not only reflects on themselves, but it is a crime of injustice against God. What a monster of injustice is the son who turns his back on his parents in the hour of their need! What an execrable ingrate he is who steals away and hides when the call goes forth for defenders of his country! For our parents give us being and make us what we are, and our country watches over and protects us at home and abroad. But God is nearer to us than parents or country. Whatever we are, whatever we have, comes primarily from Him, and every moment of our lives we feel the need of His sustaining and protecting hand. Therefore, I say, the unbeliever — the neglecter of religion — is infinitely baser than the betrayer of his country.
Brethren, your irreligious relative will tell you this picture is overdrawn. " I am not as bad as that," he says, " I admit all but a few of the truths of religion. With one or two exceptions the commandments of God and the Church are all right. But have not I the right to worship God in my own way? " The right to pick and choose in religion — to worship God as you please! Most decidedly not! What manner of citizen, soldier, or servant would that be who should decide with himself what laws and commands he would obey, which violate? God did not consult you and me whether He should create and redeem us or not; and the duties and obligations arising from creation and redemption are not for us to criticise but to fulfil. The religion that accepts only half the truth and does only what it feels like doing, is like worshipping God and robbing our neighbor; or helping our neighbor and despising God. It is as bad, aye worse than no religion, because in the sight of God it adds insult to injury. For God has sworn that sooner shall the heavens fall than one iota of His religion be changed, and St. Paul warns us that even were an angel from heaven to preach us a gospel other than that of Christ crucified let him be anathema.
Brethren, let me prove to you the picture is not overdrawn, by taking it from life. This irreligious relative of yours, what is his condition? His soul animates his body, it is true, but in all its other functions it is practically dead. He lives a purely natural, animal life, with all the wretchedness of the animal, and none of its contentment. Speaking of such a life holy Job says: "Man, born of woman, liveth a short time, and is filled with many miseries." For miseries come to man from the world through his body; but consolations come through his soul from religion. But in the case of your friend it is all misery and no consolation. He looks on himself as a purely material being who is born, lives and dies, and there is an end of it. By his own admission he is a mere lump of red clay, as his name originally signifies; like the old Pagan philosophers, his favorite flower is the swamp lily, to show that he, too, has sprung from the slime of the earth. Sprung from nothing by a process of conception too shameful to be thought of or talked about; an ordeal which Christ, with all His humility, was unwilling to undergo. A helpless prisoner before his birth in a filthy cell; guilty at his birth of almost a murderous attack on the mother that bore him; for years after his birth a little bundle of miseries to himself and his family. Ask the young mother what are the miseries of man's earlier years. To learn the ills all flesh is heir to, visit the parlors of a dentist, the operating-room of a hospital; count the doctors' signs in our city, the thousands of diseases and thousands of remedies, often worse than the diseases themselves. The poor envy the affluence of the rich; and the rich, the happiness of the poor; every one thinks his own station in life the least desirable of all. Such things happen to all flesh, but to sinners sevenfold more. For though the irreligious may ignore his soul, yet will she not be ignored. If she cannot have the truth and the love she craves, she will turn and fill herself with the husks of sin. If he will not praise God in prayer, be sure he will not fail to blaspheme. If he will not sanctify the Sabbath day by going to church, you may look for him in the policy shop or den of iniquity. If he will not drink the chalice of His blood that Christ offers him, he will drain the glass of hellfire the devil ministers. Ah! who shall tell the consequent miseries to himself and family! As well try to count the drops of rain or the sighs of the wind, as enumerate the tears of his poor children or the moans of his heart-broken mother, wife, or sister. Life, God knows, is at best wretched enough, but life without religion would be unbearable. It would be this earth without the sun; a wild night with no moon; a trackless expanse of stormy ocean with no hope of land or friends beyond. Were the uncreated offered life without religion, they would shrink in horror from existence; for their greatest happiness would be that of never having been. But with religion as our guide we are consoled through it all. We see the thorns of life spiritualized in Our Saviour's crown; and hope carries us on to that happy land where our places shall be allotted, not by the favors of fortune or the accident of birth, but where each has the making of his own future; all happy, the afflicted comforted and the weary at rest.
Brethren, there is one other place where you may study the necessity of religion — by a man's deathbed. Death dispels illusions and brings us back to the realities of life. Many a life-long argument as to the uselessness of religion has been disproved at the hour of death. Even that arch-atheist, Voltaire, acknowledged his error at the last, and would have called in the ministers of religion were they not forcibly kept away from him by the members of the society he himself had founded — the " Society for the Protection of Man from His God." That of so many unbelievers so few die in their unbelief is the strongest argument for the necessity of religion. And of those who carry their unbelief beyond the grave, witness the horrible death of one such, and tell me if that is not even a stronger argument. I have seen one such that I am not likely soon to forget— such that even now I turn in horror from the remembrance. But assist at the death of a faithful child of God — a young Catholic boy or girl — on their face that look of peace and love one sees on the face of a nun — the quick flash of the closing eyes as they get their first glimpse of their glorified Saviour — and the tremble of the lips as they settle into a smile that reflects the peace of heaven. Truly, blessed in the sight of God and man is the death of God's saints.
Brethren, let the services to-day be a repetition of the scene at Nairn. Pray to Our Lord for the conversion of sinners. To Our Lord, the Comforter of souls, that He may console the sad heart of many a mourning woman. To Our Lord, the Converter of souls, that He may raise up our men from their neglect or unbelief. Pray, and I guarantee we shall again have reason to cry out: "A great prophet is risen up amongst us, and God hath visited His people."