Sermon XII. False Maxims.

"Lord, that I may see." —St. Luke xviii., 41. (From the Gospel for Quinquagesima Sunday.)

Blindness is a very common thing, if we may judge by the many false maxims afloat. We find them everywhere and in every thing, in politics, in business, in the government of children, in religion. Wherever they are, they are pernicious and destructive. In business they lead to bankruptcy and ruin; in politics to disunion, revolution and anarchy; in the government of families to dissipation and worthlessness. But of all false maxims, the most pernicious and destructive are those relating to religion: because they involve the loss of the soul, of all our interests, hopes, and happiness in one great ruin.

There are many such. One will say: "It's no matter what a man's faith may be. All religions are alike, they are different roads that lead to the same end. Let a man only act right, and he can throw all creeds over board; whether Jew, Turk, Heathen, Protestant or Catholic, it makes no difference." A man who speaks thus is no Catholic, nor is he ever like to be. He has put out the light of Jesus Christ, who holds up to us "one faith, one Lord, one baptism," and gropes along to his ruin in a darkness of his own creation. But I don't mean to speak of such. I would rather speak of the false maxims of certain Catholics by which they persuade themselves that all will be right, though the Lord and Savior says that all is wrong, and so rush blindly to their ruin.

One of the first of these maxims is this: Because I'm a Catholic I shall be sure to get to heaven. Where did such a notion come from? You are sure of heaven only on condition of behaving yourself as you ought. If you have a ticket on the cars and misbehave, you are put off at the first station; so what ever rights you have to heaven in virtue of being a Catholic are forfeited when you cease to live as a Catholic ought to live. If you sin, your being a Catholic won't hinder you from losing all the privileges of your baptism. Where did you get the notion that it's enough to be a Catholic without being a practical one? Was it from the Church of God? The very first word addressed you by her, was in your baptism, when you were asked: "What dost thou ask of the Church of God?" The answer was: "Faith." "What does faith bring thee to?" was the next question. The reply was: "Eternal life." Then spoke out the Church right solemnly: "If thou wilt enter into life keep the commandments." Keeping the commandments is here the plain condition for obtaining eternal life, and nothing else. That's what the Lord himself said to the young man who asked the question: "What shall I do that I may have everlasting life?" His reply was in the very same words: "Keep the commandments." [Footnote 77]

To whom is that addressed? To Catholics. Who says it? The God of heaven and earth. Do you believe Him? If you do, you must give up the idea of being saved merely because you are a Catholic, but expect salvation by being a good one, and keeping the commandments. What's more, the Divine Scriptures expressly state that it is not enough to profess the faith without good works. "Know ye not that the unjust shall not possess the kingdom of God. Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor adulterers, nor idolaters, nor the effeminate, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, shall possess the kingdom of God." [Footnote 78]

Who are addressed? Heathens? No; they are Catholics; the Corinthians who had been baptized and received the sacraments. Under what figure is the Church of God represented in Scripture? As a net that contains fish both good and bad. Yes, they are not all good fish that are in the net; there are bad ones. What is said of these bad ones? That at the last day they shall be sorted out and given to the fire. The Church is compared to a field sown with good grain and overrun with tares. Are the tares rooted up in this world? No, they grow together with the wheat until the harvest; that is, until the judgment at the end of the world: then comes the division, and the burning of the tares. Listen to the explanation of the Lord: "So shall it be at the end of the world. The Angels shall go out and shall separate the wicked from among the just, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." [Footnote 79]

If you are acting on any such maxim you have blinded yourself, you have put out the light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and walk in a way of your own devising, to your eternal destruction.

Another false principle of a great many is this: Because they don't lead what they call very bad lives, they cannot, as they imagine, be among the damned: In other words, they don't and won't believe that one mortal sin is the death of the soul. Where did this notion come from? From the Church? I would like to know where. What Apostles, Doctors of the Church, Pontiffs, Priests, or Laymen, that ever wrote on the matter, ever broached such an idea? For eighteen hundred long years the Church, we may say, has done nothing else but repeat over and over that one mortal sin will damn the soul. Did any Priest ever preach to the contrary? I never heard one do so; I never heard of one who had done so. And yet, Catholic people do sometimes get this folly into their minds. An old man, quite a respectable one too, came to me not long ago: "Father, I have a temptation on a point of faith." "What is it?" "I can't believe that one mortal sin will damn the soul. I heard the Missionary say so in his sermon, but I didn't believe him. I think I have heard the contrary from other Priests." I said to him: "My friend, I cannot believe you ever did. It's a notion you've picked up from another quarter." Why, what do we mean when we speak of mortal sin? The very word mortal means deadly. Don't you see, the very definition of mortal sin, is a sin that grievously offends God and brings with it the death of the soul? It is deliberately rejecting God with your eyes wide open. Once is enough. Spit in a man's face once, you need not do it a second time. Play the hypocrite with him once, he won't trust you again. Renounce his friendship once, and friendship is over. Your friend will forgive you many little offences, but trample once on some right, on some feeling which he holds dear and sacred, and once is enough. How many times must you spit in God's face, play the hypocrite with Him, turn your back on Him, trample on His most sacred commandments, before you expect Him to be angry? One mortal sin is enough because it is mortal. Many don't and won't believe this. Hear what they say: "I'm a good one to attend mass. I don't miss it of my own fault more than five or six times a year." "Do you ever get drunk?" "Oh, not a great deal, only a reasonable share, now and again, a few times in the course of the year;" and so on of other things. The devil has blinded them. They are travelling along with the great crowd, singing and laughing, down the broad road that leads to the pit of hell. Listen to what the Scriptures say: "Be converted and do penance for all your iniquities, and iniquity shall not be your ruin. Cast away from you all your transgressions by which you have transgressed, and make to yourself a new heart, and a new spirit; for why will you die, O house of Israel." [Footnote 80] That's it. "All" is the word. Nothing short of this will save from ruin.

Another false maxim: That we shall be saved by the sacraments, no matter how we receive them. A great many have evidently some such principle lurking in their minds. The way they make confession shows it. The only idea with them seems to be to wipe off old scores and to be at more liberty to begin afresh. The load of sin gets heavy; it begins to press upon the conscience; it makes one uneasy. What's to be done to get rid of it? Pitch it off upon the Priest's back. Then he will become responsible; they need give themselves no farther trouble about it. They have brought the same load of mortal sin now for many years, perhaps every half-year, and, what's more, they really expect to do the same until their death. Some come concealing their sins time and again. If an absolution can be got out of the Priest, it makes no matter how. It is the absolution they want; all the same to them whether God sanctions it or not. So when the Priest refuses, seeing that they are not prepared, they beg for it. "Oh Father, do give me the absolution!" "You are not fit for it." "Oh, but you can give it if you please," they say. Sometimes they threaten, "If I'm not absolved, I won't come again." Sometimes they plead occupation: "If I go away without absolution, I cannot come again without great inconvenience;" as if their convenience should entitle them to absolution, without penitence, and the purpose of amendment.

This is indeed taking out of the sacraments all their life and spirit, and reducing them to a mere form. This is what our Lord called the religion of the Scribes and Pharisees, who made clean the outside of the platter, but left the inside greasy and filthy. These go through the form of confession, merely keeping up an outside appearance of piety, but their hearts are full of rottenness and filth. Does the Church teach any such thing? No, far from it. She teaches that the indispensable condition of forgiveness is a true, heartfelt sorrow for every mortal sin, with a firm, unflinching determination to avoid every such sin for the rest of one's life. She is the Holy Catholic Church, and her teaching is as pure as the sunlight on this point; it is clearly laid down in all her catechisms and instructions, so that no one need make any mistake about it. Nevertheless the Lord foresaw that many would blind themselves in spite of all this. He represents them standing at the judgment and saying: "Lord, have we not eaten and drunk at thy table?" [Footnote 81]

Yes, we received the sacraments; certainly there can't be any mistake, it must be all right. What is the answer? "Depart from me, workers of iniquity, I know not whence ye are." [Footnote 82]

Sacraments received wrongfully work out, not the salvation, but the damnation of the soul. So St. Paul speaks of those who, through their sins, did not discern the Lord's body, being weak and sickly—speaks also of eating and drinking judgment to one's self.

If this last is a false and fatal error, how much more horrible is it when it assumes a new shape and comes out in this form: Oh, I will live as I please, and the last sacraments will make it all right. I'll send for the priest before I die. Judas when finishing his act of perfidy, kissed the Saviour whom he had deliberately and wantonly betrayed. So these desert and betray Christ and his holy religion, and then go to make it up with a last kiss; a kiss full of hypocrisy and only given through a dire necessity that presses them. Is any hope held out in Scripture for the victims of such delusions? "If ye live according to the flesh ye shall die." [Footnote 83]

"What a man soweth that shall he reap." [Footnote 84]

"Ye shall cry unto me Lord, but the Lord will, not hear you." "Ye shall seek me and ye shall not find me; ye shall die in your sins." [Footnote 85]

Small comfort this to those who are cheating themselves with the idea of sending for the priest, and receiving the sacraments on their death-beds. Priests and sacraments, if they do receive them (which is a thing extremely doubtful), will do no good without contrition, and who will answer for the contrition of one who has persisted in outraging God through a whole life, and who, now that death stares him in the face, and in the midst of pain and fever and stupor, must set the accounts of conscience in order. The whole demeanor of such persons shows, only too frequently, how little they realize their condition, and what a wretched reliance death-bed repentance is, for the salvation of the soul.

Such are some of the false maxims that put out the eyes of the soul. Whence do they spring? From an evil and perverse heart. A man given up to sin must justify himself in some way or other. He therefore makes light of sin—seeks to persuade himself that its consequences are not so dreadful—that after all, when it comes to the very point, God will not allow these consequences to fall upon him. They say a drowning man will catch at a straw. So these persons, though they know the truth, catch at every straw that holds out the least prospect of safety—every flimsy pretense that holds out encouragement for a life of sin; every false maxim that holds out a ground of hope. They call such things up on every occasion to fortify their own minds. They repeat them over to their friends, as if by hearing them a number of times they might seem to have more foundation in them. They like to hear others say such things; it gives them a wonderful encouragement to go on. So the blind lead the blind. At last this false reasoning gets to be so habitual that they fall back upon it whenever conscience begins to speak to their hearts. As to turning to God and quitting sin, that they won't think of even for a moment; so, in the words of Scripture, "a strong delusion is sent upon them to believe a lie." It is sent upon them, in the sense that they have drawn it on themselves. To be sure, they don't really believe it, but they wish to believe it, try to believe it, and fancy that they do believe it. Indeed, in practice they may be said to believe, inasmuch as they have made up their minds to act upon it. What a miserable state to be in is this! Self-satisfied and self-blindfolded, to be drifting down into hell, in a dream of careless and stupid indifference! The poor blind man cried out with all his might, "Lord! that I may see!" The loss of bodily sight is indeed a great calamity, a thing to be keenly felt. The bare possibility of being restored to sight, should be enough to make one cry out, with his whole soul, 'Lord, Lord, that I may receive my sight!' How much more deplorable when the eyes of the soul are put out! How much more occasion to cry out in agony of spirit to Jesus the true light, that enlightens every man that cometh into the world—'Lord! that I may see! that I may understand the things that belong to my peace; that I may arouse from my stupidity, throw away all false delusions, and square myself by the maxims of the Gospel, opening my eyes to those eternal truths revealed by a God who can neither deceive nor be deceived!

Oh sinner! oh careless, indifferent Christian! if you have the least desire to make your hope of heaven a sure hope, one that shall not be confounded, cry with the blind man to Jesus, "Lord, that I may see!" Cry aloud, repeat that cry, until Jesus shall turn to you, and grant your request. Show that you are in earnest by taking the means to get your soul enlightened. Go and hear the word of God preached on the Sundays. Don't do as so many do, that go to Low Mass, early, and hear no sermon from one month to another. Make a practice to go to High Mass, where Jesus Christ, in the person of his priest, stands on purpose to give you light. How can you expect light when you close your eyes? How will the truths of the Gospel reach your heart and make an impression there, if you never listen to them? Preaching is the appointed means of receiving the truth. "Faith cometh by hearing!" says the Holy Ghost. [Footnote 86]

Imitate the blind man. He found out where Jesus was expected to come by; he went there. Do likewise. Go where Jesus is, to the Church; cry to Him; listen to Him; when He speaks through his holy Gospels; read them, and hear them explained by the living voice of his representative, the Priest. Then you will have light; you will have it abundantly, to your great joy and consolation.

The promise is sure; there can be no failure. "If any of you lack wisdom let him ask of God, who giveth to all abundantly and upbraideih not, and it shall be given him." [Footnote 87]

Ask for it, and you shall receive it. What is it? The light that shall direct our feet in the way of peace, and carry us through safely to the light of glory in heaven. The light of Christ, "in which the Priest from on high hath visited us, to enlighten them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death: to direct our feet in the way of peace." [Footnote 88]