Sermon XIX. Merit The Measure Of Reward.

"Behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with Me, to render to every man according to his work." —Apoc. xxii., 12.

Society is made up of numerous classes of persons, of very varied position and attainments. How marked is the line, for instance, which divides the man who lives in the Fifth Avenue, anywhere below Fortieth street, from the occupant of a shanty on the outskirts of the city! Again, what point of contact is there between the man of science or literature, whose life is spent in intellectual pursuits, and the vacant lounger that hangs around our steamboat landings and wharves? These men move in separate spheres, and have scarcely anything in common. They are like two different races of men. The difference is perhaps less marked in this country than elsewhere, inasmuch as royalty and nobility and hereditary titles do not exist here. But even in this country there is a clear line of division between distinct classes of persons. Shall this always be so? Shall these accidental and artificial barriers survive death? How will it be in heaven?

No, my dear brethren, these particular lines of division, of rich and poor, learned and unlearned, shall cease with this world; but others will be set up in their place. There is an aristocracy, there is a hierarchy, in Heaven. St. Paul, after saying, "There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars, for star differeth from star in glory," adds, "so also is the resurrection of the dead." [Footnote 137]

St. Teresa calls this difference "a prodigious inequality." We must not imagine, however, that these various ranks of glory in Heaven are founded upon such accidents as birth or good fortune. They are founded upon that proportion of merit which we shall have gained, each one by his good deeds in this life. The amount of grace and personal holiness that we possess when we appear in judgment before the Lord, this, and not wealth, or position, or gifts of any kind, will be the standard by which we take a high or low place there. It is about this principle of "personal merit" before God, and in view of Heaven, that I am going to speak to you this morning. In order to do this, I shall speak of the certainty of merit, of the sources of merit, and the conditions of merit.

I. The Certainty Of Merit.

What is meant by merit? It is that supernatural reward, which God has promised by way of justice, to a good work done in the state of grace. God has made a contract with us, as it were, in virtue of which He has given us the privilege of claiming eternal happiness from Him on certain conditions. Let me show you how this is the teaching of Holy Scripture. "Rejoice and be glad, for great is your reward in heaven." [Footnote 138]

Our Lord, you see, uses the word reward which I have used. "Every one shall receive his own reward according to his labor." [Footnote 139]

St. Paul here adds another idea to that of reward, namely, that it shall be given according to one's labor, or good works. This is what our Lord says in the words of my text: "Behold I come quickly, and my reward is with me, to render to every man according to his work." "For the rest there is laid up for me a crown of justice, which the Lord the just Judge will give me in that day; and not to me only, but to them also who love his coming." [Footnote 140]

In this passage St. Paul tells us another truth about the principle of final rewards. He says they shall be given by way of justice. The time for mercy will then have passed, and we shall be weighed in the balance of justice, and our reward shall be in strict proportion to the weight of merit we have cast into the scale. "Therefore, my beloved brethren (he writes to the Corinthians), be ye firm and immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord; knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord." [Footnote 141]

Then, there is that passage of which I have already spoken, where St. Paul illustrates the diversity of rewards. "For there is one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for one star differeth from another star in glory. So also shall it be in the resurrection from the dead."

Thus from Holy Scripture we get these several facts with regard to the rewards of the next life, namely, first, that it is a reward, and not merely a favor from God. Next, that it is a reward for good works. Thirdly, that this reward is given by way of justice. And lastly, that these rewards differ as widely from one another as do the several lights of the sun, moon, and stars. But of what use is Holy Scripture to us without Her interpretation, whose office it is to interpret, as it has been to preserve it? I will quote you two, out of many, decrees which the Holy Church made on this matter at the Council of Trent. "If any one shall say that the just ought not for their good works done in God, to expect and hope for an eternal recompense from God, through his mercy and the merits of Jesus Christ, if so be that they persevere to the end in well doing, and in keeping the Divine commandments, let him be anathema." Again, "If any one shall say that the good works of a justified man are in such sense the gifts of God, that they are not also the merits of the justified man himself, let him be anathema."

It is then certain, both from Holy Scripture and from the decisions of Holy Church, that we can merit the possession of heaven as a right, by our good works. But you will say, if this be true, does it not tend to cherish in us a spirit of self-sufficiency, and of independence of God? No, it does not; and for the reasons I am now going to give you, in speaking on the second point, namely:

II. The Sources Of Merit.

There are two sources of merit, neither of which are in ourselves, but both of them are in God. One is the goodness of God; the other, the merits of Christ.

1. My brethren, God is not bound to his creatures except so far as He has been pleased to bind Himself. He could have lived on as well without any creation at all. And even now that he has created our race, his promise is the only measure of our rights and privileges. These promises were forfeited by our first parents, and God might never have renewed them to us, their posterity. But "God so Loved the world as to give his only begotten Son, that whoever believeth in Him may not perish, but may have life everlasting." [Footnote 142]

"Behold what charity the Father hath bestowed upon us," says St. John in his Epistle, "that we should be called, and that we should be the sons of God." [Footnote 143]

It is because we are sons of God, "and joint heirs with Christ," that God has honored us so much, and made it possible for us to merit by our good works. In order however, to keep us humble and to make us mindful that in all things we are indebted to his goodness, God has reserved to Himself two graces which we cannot merit, and without which we cannot be saved. These are the gifts of sanctifying grace and of final perseverance. A man is not likely to take airs upon himself and be insolent to you, when he is lying on the broad of his back in the road, and cannot stir hand or foot to help himself. No, he is most likely to address you in terms of supplication and entreaty. Well, this is our condition when God, of his pure love, bestows upon us the gift of sanctifying grace. Then, again, though we should have this gift to-day, we may lose it to-morrow, and but for God's continued graces we would infallibly lose it. Can you imagine a dependence which is more pure than ours is upon God? An infant is not more dependent upon its mother for the preservation of its physical life, than we are upon God for our spiritual life. "Give us this day our daily bread," is our every morning prayer. We are like little birds in a nest before they are able to fly. All we can do is to make a piteous cry, and hold up our mouths to be filled. Where, then, is there room for presumption in such teaching as this? Now, let me go on to my second source of merit, which is the merit of Christ.

2. We are in a double sense indebted to our Blessed Lord. He is not only our Creator, our Preserver, and our Benefactor, but He is also our Redeemer. It is by his bitter Passion and Death, and in union with these, that what we do in his name has a value and a price in the sight of the Eternal Father. It is that precious Blood of his which is poured into our soul in holy Baptism; it is that precious Blood of his which we drink in Holy Communion, that constitutes the pure and holy source of every good and meritorious act of ours. He has Himself explained how this is, in the parable of the vine. "I am the vine, ye the branches. He that abideth in Me, and I in him, he beareth much fruit." [Footnote 144]

Let us now try to get at our Lord's meaning. It is quite common nowadays to see a grapery in a gentleman's country garden. The entire roof of those ornamental glass-houses is covered with luxuriant vines; and they in turn are loaded with rich green leaves, and with beautiful bunches of grapes. The sap has made its course through the length of the vine, and into the various branches. Here it has forced out a green leaf, and there a bunch of fruit. These it continues to feed, by a continuous flow, until the leaf has gained its size and color, and the fruit its delicacy of flavor. Both leaf and fruit owe their existence, their beauty, and whatever is excellent in them, to this sap, which is the source of all; but will you say that they do not have these things in themselves? Will you say that the grapes are not really fine flavored, but only called so because they belong to an excellent vine? No, certainly not. You say the grapes are fine, because they really are fine, because they answer in point of taste to what you understand by that term. They have in themselves a something which is not accidental to them, but which is an essential quality in grapes of that kind, namely, that delicate flavor which has established their worth.

Now, apply this to ourselves. We are united to our Lord through the Sacraments, as branches to a vine. His grace is that precious Sap which has been let in upon our souls, through those seven main channels. They cleanse and purify our souls. They sanctity them, and make them beautiful and pleasing to God. The acts of the soul, so long as it is united to God by this divine gift of grace, are at the same time the acts of grace. They are good and meritorious, inasmuch as they are done by the co-operation of grace with our intelligence and free will. By rewarding such acts as these, God rewards the works of his own hands. This is what St. Augustine says: "When God crowns our merits, He does no more than crown his own gifts."

Let me illustrate this in another way. St. Paul says, in his second Epistle to the Corinthians, "I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ." [Footnote 145]

Here he calls the soul the wife, and Christ its husband. By this we are to understand, that the grace of Christ in the soul enables it first to conceive good desires, and then to bring forth good works, which are, as it were, the children of the soul. Thus a dignity and worth are communicated to them, which are, in a true sense, divine. Suppose, for instance, a Prince of royal blood were to marry a peasant girl. Her children would unquestionably have royal blood in their veins, how ever obscure may have been the parentage of their mother. They would be entitled to the right of succession, and could claim the throne of their father. Well, in like manner our good works, having God as their Author, are able to claim from Him a supernatural reward.

III. The Conditions Of Merit.

There is one condition of being able to do a good supernatural work, which always comes first, and that is, that the person shall be in the state of grace when he does it. God can find no pleasure in us so long as our will and affections are turned away from Him, and this is the case when we are in mortal sin.

Again, our merit will be in proportion to the excellence of the work in itself considered. One apple is better than another, though both have grown upon the same branch. To attend the bedside of some poor sick person, is a more excellent work than merely to bestow an alms upon him. To be contrite for one's sins, is more excellent than to do penitential works in expiation of them. To forgive the injury of one's enemy, is more excellent than to pardon the unkindness of an acquaintance. The poorest effort at self-control, is better than the best advice given to another. I remember a story which shows what even one excellent work will do for a soul. It is in "The Lives of the Fathers of the Desert." A monk, who was serving God with much prayer and self-denial, was tempted with the desire to see a man whose merit in the sight of God should be the very counterpart of his own. God gratified his weakness. He was directed to go to a certain inn in a neighboring village where he would see such a man. On reaching it, there stood before the door a poor fiddler playing for pennies. The monk understood, by an interior light, that this was the man. Much surprised, and rather mortified too, he nevertheless addressed the fiddler, and asked him what sort of a life he had led, and what he was then doing for God? He answered, that he had, for many years, gained a poor but honest livelihood in the same humble employment. That as to his having done any thing very good, he did not know about that, although there was one thing that he always remembered with a great deal of satisfaction. "With some danger to myself, I once rescued a poor girl from those who would have ruined her." The good monk was made to understand, that for preventing that outrage, God had raised this poor fiddler to a great purity of soul.

A good work, again, is more excellent in proportion as it is more difficult. What a consolation this ought to be to us! How hard we think it sometimes to get on in life, with its multiplied vexations and discouragements! We say, "What a strange world!" "What a weary world!" In the language of Holy Scripture we say, "In the morning, who will grant me evening? and at evening, who will grant me morning?" [Footnote 146] as though things were turning out very different from what we had a right to expect.

Ah! God has been good to us in the planning out of our lives, better than we should be, if we had all the planning to ourselves. I have shown you that future rewards are to be determined by merit; now our merits are measured by our trials. By your own admission then, this world, in being full of trials, most completely answers the end for which God created it. If we could but get into the habit of looking at things from this point of view, the face of life would be lit up with a perpetual sunshine. Yes, the harder our state of life is to bear, the more difficulties we find in following our Lord, the more laborious the work, so much the brighter are our prospects for the life to come, if we prove faithful to the end. How well the mother of the Maccabees, that noble woman, knew this! Holy Scripture says: "She was to be admired above measure, and worthy to be remembered by good men, who beheld her seven sons slain in the space of one day, and bore it with a good courage for the hope she had in God." [Footnote 147]

As the youngest, her last and dearest, was about to be put to death, she encouraged him to be resolute; and he went to a martyr's reward under the influence of a consoling thought, which he thus beautifully expressed: "My brethren having now undergone a short pain, are under the covenant of eternal life."

Again, our merit is in proportion to the purity of the intention with which we do the work. The intention we make, either actual or habitual, is the chalice, as it were, in which we make our offerings to God. It is even more than this; for the excellence of the intention is imparted to the work itself, and becomes the measure of its merit. I once saw some wooden goblets in the window of an apothecary shop. Being curious to know what they were for, I was told by the clerk that they were made of quassia, a peculiar kind of wood which imparted to pure water, when drank from these goblets, a most healthy tonic. Now, so it is with a pure intention. If the work that we do for God is only pure and good in itself, the intention will communicate to it its own peculiar excellence, and the work will receive the reward of that excellence, which has become its own.

Suppose, for instance, you hear Mass from a mere motive of duty, as being a Catholic. It is a supernatural work, and it will secure a supernatural reward. But to that intention you have added another the next time you hear Mass; namely, the intention of doing penance for your sins. Well, the same act is now doubly meritorious. The third time you hear Mass from a pure desire to make reparation to our Lord for all the injuries He has received in the Blessed Sacrament, and your intention is more excellent still, and, if united with the other two, will merit a three-fold reward.

Again, great merit is gained by small things done for God. This is surely very encouraging for us who have not the abilities, or the opportunities, of doing great things. Of course I mean great things as the world views them. A check put upon a wrong thought; the arrest of an improper word; the silence to which we have forced ourselves, when we feel within us the swelling of anger; the call we make upon a sick neighbor in passing; the alms we bestow, however small; the effort to be patient under sickness or pain; the kind word of advice to the erring; each such act as these, will be a passport at the gate of Heaven.

And now, dear brethren, I repeat once more what I said when I began. There is an aristocracy, there is a hierarchy, in Heaven. As there are nine choirs of Angels, and, so St. John tells us, except "the one hundred and forty four thousand" who had consecrated their virgin bodies as first-fruits to God, none could sing the "new song" or "follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth," so shall it be forever.

I will say more; and this is what I wish especially to impress upon your minds. You must already have gathered it from what I have said. It is this. That aristocracy, that hierarchy, is in process of formation at this moment. It is not determined by an arbitrary choice in heaven, but on the principle of personal merit, here on earth. How is it with a large body of students at one of our colleges or universities? They are class-mates, or even room-mates, for years, but look at them after the lapse of twenty years, and what are their respective positions? One is a merchant, in a small way, in a country town of a new state; while the other is representing his country as Minister at a first-class foreign court. One is a village physician, while the other is the nation's choice to fill the Presidential Chair. So shall it be with families. Some will scarcely be saved, while others will fill up the ranks of the seraphs, which were broken at the time of Lucifer's rebellion. Where, I ask, shall our place be in this hierarchy? Our Lord says: "The last shall be first, and the first last." Where shall we be? Grace and a good will are the only materials wanting in the formation of a Saint Aloysius, a Saint Stanislas, or a Saint Elizabeth of Hungary; and these are in the reach of every one. What shall I say in conclusion, dear brethren, to spur you on to do good works? I will ask you to look back upon the past. Does it not lie in your memory in all the blackness and barrenness of a western prairie, over which the desolating fire of the savage has passed? Where can you find the trace of any real care of your souls? Where your good works? Where your merit? At least let us resolve now, while our hearts are warm, that we will improve the present, remembering that "what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap;" and that "he that soweth in the Spirit, shall reap life everlasting." [Footnote 148]