Sixth Sunday after Epiphany.
The Stability of the Christian Church.
"The kingdom of heaven is like to a mustard-seed . , , to a leaven hid in three measures of meal." — Matt. xiii. 31. 33.
SYNOPSIS.
Ex. : I. Paul's confidence. II. Destruction and construction. III. No cause for alarm.
I. An imperial power: 1. Christ a king. 2. Delegated power. 3. Two parables.
II. Danger: 1. Conflict of rights. 2. Spirit of State. 3. Church's solution.
III. Church indispensable: 1. Liberty and peace. 2. Political integrity. 3. Patriotism.
Per.: 1. Church and State in America. 2. Calm progress. 3. Our duty.
SERMON.
Brethren, in these parables Christ guarantees the steady progress of the Christian Church. He would have us " feel confident of this very thing that He who hath begun a good work in you will perfect it unto the day of Christ Jesus."
In these words, Paul the Apostle expresses his firm trust in God's power and Christ's promise to sustain, protect and advance His Church against all opposition all days, even to the consummation of the world. And we Catholics of to-day have sore need of Paul's spirit — of his faith and hope. When we consider the present unhappy relations of Church and State the world over, and, more especially, the antagonism between the one true Church and the various Christian and anti-Christian sects, we are apt to become discouraged — to lose heart as did the little crew of Peter's bark on the storm-tossed sea of Galilee. Men are more observant of destruction than they are of constructive results — the thunder and lightning command attention, but Nature's greatest force — the sun — is barely considered. So, too, the Church. So uniform is her progress, her influence on the age — that it is scarcely noticed, whereas the opposing forces are the observed of all. When the storm of persecution rages, therefore, remember a storm clears the atmosphere; that it is only momentarily dangerous — for silent and peaceful forces alone are productive of lasting effects. No cause for fear for the Pilot and crew of Peter's bark, for they have on board not merely Caesar but Caesar's God. Nay, religious persecution should be our greatest joy, our liveliest hope, for resistance betokens progress — action is measured by reaction: and invariably antagonism arouses the antagonized to more strenuous efforts. In her inception, in her experiences of the past, in her attitude at the present day, we find no cause for alarm regarding the Church's ultimate destiny. She should not, cannot, be destroyed except, indeed, as another Samson burying herself and mankind in the ruins of the universe. No, when finally she stands on the borders of time and eternity looking back over the past she shall be able to say with the Psalmist: "Often have they fought against me from my youth, but they could not prevail over me."
The stability of the Christian Church is emphasized in her very inception in that she was founded as an imperial power — a kingdom. Ignore it as the world may; no man who reads and believes the Bible can deny the Church's claim to royalty. Ages before Christianity the kingship of Christ had been foretold, so that even the heathens looked to Judea for their future sovereign, and Israel turned to little Bethlehem for its promised ruler. So minutely had the prophets, especially Isaias and Daniel, described the future king and estimated his kingly dignity, so deeply imbued had the Jews become with this important idea, that, on Christ's approach to Jerusalem, notwithstanding all their jealousy and hatred, we find them going forth in throngs to meet Him, with palms in their hands and crying: " Hosanna to our King, the Son of David." Christ Himself never failed to assert His own kingly authority and the imperial character of the Church He founded. " All power is given to Me," He says, " in heaven and on earth," and to His Apostles He added: " I appoint unto you a kingdom as My Father hath appointed unto Me." Besides giving Peter the keys of His kingdom, that is, the plenitude of His power, He identified Himself with the whole band saying: '7He that heareth you heareth Me, and he that despiseth you despiseth Me and Him that sent Me." Nay, he would have their power even greater than His own, for having previously said that whereas rebellion against the Son will be forgiven, but rebellion against the Holy Ghost never— either in this world or in the next, He now says to His Apostles: " Receive ye the Holy Ghost." And the dominion He gives them, He promises, shall embrace every creature in the whole world and shall endure for all time. Now this kingdom of Christ, forasmuch as it is on the earth, is not wholly spiritual — it is as visible and tangible as the kingdom of Britain or the German empire. When Christ said: "My kingdom is not from hence," He did not mean to disclaim an earthly empire, but He pointed, rather, to the divine origin of His authority. With this authority He invested a purely human society which, after His ascension, from small beginnings grew into a mighty empire, the ruler of rulers, the common mother and protector of kingdoms. Herein is verified that twofold description of Christ's kingdom in the Gospel: " First, it is like a man gone into a far country who called together his servants and delivered unto them his goods; and second, it is like the mustard-seed, the least of all, but being grown becomes a great tree in whose branches the fowls of the air find a shelter."
Granted then, the imperial nature of Christ's kingdom on earth — Christ's Church — we are confronted immediately with the one great menace to her stability— her contact with the purely secular powers of the world and the consequent clashing of rights. Having her divine destiny to attain, the Church can never forego one iota of her authority without proving false to her mission and her Founder. On the other hand, the secular authority is, for the most part, in the hands of men full of inordinate ambition without the restraints of religion or conscience. She claims as Christ claimed: "All power in heaven and on earth," but they answer her as they answered Him: " We will not have you reign over us; we have no king but Caesar." Hence a conflict disuniting the heads of Church and State and parting the ranks — down to the humblest devotee and the lowliest citizen. Hence, too, that question which is agitating every Christian people to-day: " Can I be, at the same time, a good citizen and a good Catholic? " The Church shifts the responsibility of this conflict by answering emphatically, " Yes." But how? " Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's." Two locomotives running together on parallel lines are not less liable to collide than are Church and State if this rule be applied. " All power from God," but each has its separate dominion — the Church over man's spiritual nature and the temporalities inseparably attached thereto, with eternal happiness as an object — the State over man's purely temporal nature and temporal well-being. The State is as Adam when God created him; the Church, as Adam when He had breathed into him the spirit of God. What man is to the material universe, the Church is to the nations — their high-priestess, ordering them all to God. As the soul without the body, the Church can exist without the nations, but not they without her; so that even should they achieve the impossible and destroy her, their act would be self-destruction. Without her, there would be no freedom — " To be free," says Washington, " a nation must be virtuous," and the Church is the Mother of virtue. In France, for instance, the reign of terror began only when the Church was banished or suppressed. Without her there would be no harmony, for harmony is the result of self-sacrifice — a thing unknown outside the Church, especially among politicians. Without her there would be no national solidity. She is the keystone — the very heart of the nation at which the destroyer of truth would naturally aim as did Titus at the Jewish Temple. Without her there would be no political honesty. She teaches that public office is a public trust, conferred not by men but by God, to be exercised under the ever-wakeful and all-seeing eye of God and not under the public eye that winks and sleeps betimes. Without her there would be no patriotism. Religion and patriotism are inseparable. We cannot say with Ruth: " Thy people shall be my people " without adding with her: " and thy God my God." I love my country because I love the people in it, and it is God and the Church and not politicians that teach me to love my fellowmen, even my enemies. In fact the Catholic Church is a school of patriotism. It was patriotism that led to Christ's being born in a cave, to His being circumcised, to His paying tribute, to His weeping over Jerusalem, and the noblest patriot the world has ever seen was Christ dying on the cross. Never were truer patriots than the Apostles when they answered their persecutor: "We must obey God rather than man," and died for it. Why, in the Epistles of St. Paul alone, may be gathered the grandest treatise on patriotism ever written. Each Christian martyr was a true patriot because he gave his life for the Christian faith which was, ultimately, to be the liberator of his country and all countries from the slavery of paganism. And who to-day are the true patriots? The infidel throng? No, no. " Give me," says a famous general, "give me the soldier who, when he kisses his country's flag throws around it the halo of his religion; who, in the vision of his beloved country, sees the font of his baptism, his home, his Church and the consecrated graves of his forefathers." In a word, since the public worship of God in Christ's own Church is the highest function of man or citizen, therefore the better the Catholic the better the citizen — the better the citizen the nearer to being a Catholic — but the " ideal Catholic " and he alone, can be the ideal citizen.
Brethren, there is opposition to our Church even in free America — some communities calling themselves Christian will oppose a Catholic more than an atheist or Nihilist. The State usurps many of her rights concerning education, marriage, and the like. So-called ministers of the Gospel, lurking cowardly behind the State, attack the State's truest friend as a foreigner and traitor. Pseudo-patriots concoct dark schemes for her destruction. Why, you ask, does not the Church bestir herself and assert her rights? Ask the huge lion, as he stalks along, why he does not turn aside to chastise every tiny cur that barks at him. Ask Christ why He suffered Himself to be led like a lamb to the slaughter. The secret of this phenomenon is a sense of stability — a consciousness of power with perfect resignation to the workings of divine providence. The Church answers her enemies as did Christ His: " Thou shouldst have no power over Me were it not given thee from above." With Him she prays " Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." That is the spirit of Christ, of St. Paul, and of every true Catholic, too. As St. Peter says: " Let us so deport ourselves that by well doing we may silence the ignorance of foolish men," and withal let us have an abiding trust in the ultimate victory of justice and of truth. Let us convince ourselves from a consideration of the Church's divine origin, from her nature as an imperial power, from her absolute necessity to the existence of the State, and from the disreputable character of her opponents, that He who hath begun a good work in her will perfect it unto the day of Christ Jesus.