Second Sunday of Advent.
Faith and Miracles.
" Blessed is he that shall not be scandalized in Me." — Matt. xi. 6.
SYNOPSIS.
Ex. : I. Grounds II. Examples. III. Rewards of Faith.
I. Grounds: i. Multitude. 2. Magnitude. 3. Manner and variety of Christ's miracles.
II. Examples: John's 1. Hidden life. 2. Public life. 3. Passion and death.
III. Rewards : Similar to those of John.
Per. : The least in heaven greater than John.
SERMON.
Brethren, an ancient tradition has it, that of the two disciples sent to Jesus by John, one was a Jew and the other a converted Gentile. They were, therefore, a representative committee of two on behalf of the whole human race, Jews and Gentiles alike, destined to bear ocular evidence to the fact that Jesus was in very truth the long-promised Messias, the Saviour of the world, the Son of the living God. Consequently, through them Christ in to-day's Gospel preaches to us and to all a little sermon on the grounds and the examples and the rewards of faith in His divinity. Stiff-necked and slow to believe as we are, Christ gives us proof of His Godhead suited to our capacity in the multitude and variety and magnitude of His miracles. But faith begot of signs and wonders is not the faith He craves, and, hence, secondly, He points out to us John the Baptist whom He styles " the greatest born of woman," aye, a very angel, because without the carnal realism of miracles, John was quick to recognize the Lamb of God and, through the storms and disappointments of his brief and tragic life, clung to Him with unwavering fidelity. Lastly, for all who imitate John's constancy in faith no human vicissitudes can change, Christ declares the reward in those words aptly styled the ninth beatitude: " Blessed are they that shall not be scandalized in Me."
Brethren, no assertion proven by a miracle can possibly be false, provided it be a genuine and true miracle. I say genuine and true, for there are miracles that are not really such, but deserve rather to be called wonders. As Shakespeare says, there are many things in heaven and earth not dreamt of in our philosophy — many occult powers of Nature, which, when called into play by divine permission or by Satanic agency, popularly pass for miracles. By such-like prodigies mere men are frequently deceived, but angels and devils, with their keener insight into Nature, know them to be false. They are phenomena of Nature, that spring from hidden causes, and without divine consent could never be evoked. Such was the calling down from heaven, by Satan's power, of fire upon the flocks and shepherds of holy Job, and the changing of the rods into dragons by the Egyptian seers. Such, too, are the undeniable prodigies often wrought by modern magicians, and such will be the arts wherewith, at the end of time, Antichrist will try to deceive even the elect. God, for His own wise purposes, deigns to permit such things, false though they be, and doubly false since claiming falsely to be miracles and used to prop up falsehood. But it is of the very essence of a true miracle that the performing of it fall within the power of God alone. Not only to men, but to devils and angels as well, does a true miracle bring wonder and amaze, for the cause thereof lies not in Nature but in God alone. Since, therefore, God can neither deceive nor be deceived, and since the working of true miracles is His exclusive prerogative, whatever assertion He confirms with a real miracle must essentially be true. See, then, what proof we have of His divinity. " Go," He says, " and relate to John what you have heard and seen. The blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear and the dead rise again." And not alone those seen by John's two disciples, not alone those recorded in the Gospels, but such numberless others, says St. John the Evangelist, that were they each recorded and described not the world itself would hold the books they would fill. They are as countless as the stars of heaven, and the glory of them outshines those of all the saints as does the noonday sun the other luminaries. It was Christ's strongest indictment against the Jews that having done works such as no man ever did before, they still rejected Him. His very enemies confessed His power, for while refusing to believe Him the Messias, they were secretly whispering one to the other: "When Christ really comes, will He, think you, do greater miracles than these ? "
After their multitude, the next strongest argument for Christ's divinity is their magnitude. " Such works I do," says He, " as no man ever did before . . ." and we may add, or since. True, Christ promised that whosoever believed in Him would have the power to work equal and even greater prodigies than He, but we must not forget that whatever is accomplished by God's servants in the way of miracles is really done by power not theirs but Christ's. Christ taught this when He said : " I go to the Father and whatever you ask in My name that I will do," and Peter and John showed how well they had learned when they declared to the Jews that not by their power, but in the name of Jesus, had they cured the infirm man at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple. Besides, Christ calls the effects of apostolic ministry greater miracles than His to show that the conversion and the cleansing of a soul from sin is a greater miracle than the raising of the dead to life.
Again the manner of Christ's miracles distinguishes them from miracles of saints and further proves Him God, for they by prayer and fasting accomplished gradually their results, but Christ not so, but instantly and by His sole command. The variety of His miracles, too, attests the self-same truth of His divinity, for in every creature of the universe, animate and inanimate, He showed His almighty power. Of inanimate objects the star led to His birthplace, and the sun was darkened at His death; the loaves were multiplied; the water saw its Lord and blushed; He trod upon the waves and stilled the winds and seas. Of animate objects, the fig-tree withered at His touch and the fishes filled the net; He cured the humanly incurable ills of flesh; He raised the dead to life; He drove the demons from their writhing victims and angels came and ministered to Him. Were Christ a mere impostor and God permitted Him to do the prodigies He did, the imposition and deception would be attributable primarily to God, which is absurd and blasphemous. True, many unworthy men have had the power of miracles, but the reason it was given them was that they exercised it not to glorify themselves, which would be to deceive, but for the glory of God. These are they who, as the Gospel says, will at the Last Judgment try to justify themselves, saying: " Lord, Lord, did we not do miracles in Thy name? " and whom He shall answer thus: "Amen, I never knew you: depart from Me, ye workers of iniquity." Their power proved God's holiness, not theirs. But miracles permitted or wrought by God to prove directly man's sanctity or God's divinity are necessarily infallible arguments. With reason, then, could Christ turn to the Jews and say: "If you believe not in My divinity on the testimony of My words, believe at least My works."
Brethren, here, naturally, recur to our minds those other words of Our Lord: "Blessed are they who have not seen and have believed." Blessed John the Baptist is, after the Blessed Virgin herself, the most illustrious example of perfect faith in Christ, and as such he is held up to us by Our Saviour in to-day's Gospel. There are, I confess, few personages in history that appeal to me so strongly as John the Baptist. Like all great reformers he was a man of one idea. From the moment of his birth — aye from that day when at the approach of the unborn Saviour he leaped for joy in his mother's womb, the one overmastering principle of his life was to prepare the way of the Lord, to point out to the world the Lamb of God, its Redeemer. This is the key to the mystery of his life. All his other thoughts were so absorbed in this one that his time not having yet come and having nothing else in life to accomplish, he, while yet a boy, fled from home and his aged parents and sought communion with God in the wilderness. What a strange wild life his was for long years, and how picturesque! He is the companion of wild beasts; his garb of skins, his girdle of leather, and his food of locusts and wild honey. Talk of vocation for the priesthood, and sacrificing all to follow Christ, but did ever other minister of Christ follow the promptings of the spirit as fully and as faithfully as did the Baptist? And when at length the time was ripe and the kingdom of God was at hand, how earnestly he threw himself into the work of preparing the way of the Lord, levelling the hills by his fierce denunciation of the empty externalism of the proud Scribes and Pharisees, filling up the valleys by his kindly bearing towards the despised publicans, his consoling words of counsel to the soldiers, and his promises of better things to come; making the crooked way straight by his baptism of repentance and the rough ways plain by his touching appeals to all! No wonder people flocked by the thousands to hear him, no wonder they loved him. God bless the people for it now, as then, for let a man but throw himself into a work body and soul and with true sincerity, and straightway he finds the people at his back. At last for John came that great day when he and Jesus met, and instantly he cried: " Behold the Lamb of God! " No need of miracles to rouse his faith; rather it was his faith that cleft the heavens and brought the Spirit and the voice proclaiming Christ to be the Son of God. John's work was done; thenceforth he must decrease and Christ increase. But before retiring from the scene he fearlessly denounced the incestuous union of Herod with his brother Philip's wife. A dungeon in the strongest fortress of Judea was soon John's home, and there took place his passion — the trial of his faith. Born and bred a Jew, he doubtless looked as all Jews did for a conquering Messias— one who should establish one kingdom, the kingdom of God on earth forever. Yet what a disappointment! Here was he, a prisoner, seemingly abandoned by the man he himself had called the Son of God; half his disciples deserted to the Nazarene, the other half reporting daily that Christ was either fleeing from His enemies, outraging the sacred laws of the Sabbath, and of handwashing, or consorting with the wicked and feasting with the publicans and sinners — John's enemies. Was this the man for whom he (John) had sacrificed so much? Was this the Christ of God? What weight such thoughts would have with you and me were we behind John's prison bars! But not so John. His faith was founded not on signs and wonders but on the words of God, and naught but God's own word in contradiction could ever shake his trust. He sent his two disciples, not to question Christ for his own instruction but for theirs — and his very sending of them, his sublime confidence in the ability of Christ to give them an answer, satisfactory and essentially true, proves the depth and height of John the Baptist's faith. Hence it was that Christ commended him, his austere self-denial and firm constancy amid seeming contradictions. No reed was he, shaken by every wind of circumstance. Little cared he for worldly ease and preferment, yet was he greater than the greatest — more than a prophet — because more deeply imbued with the spirit of God — an angel, because he came from God and lightly touched the earth and flew to heaven again. As in his dungeon he bends his neck to the executioner's axe, John is a sublime figure of faith and hope and love — of faith, for he believed when doubt would have triumphed in most men — of hope, for he trusted when it seemed hope had fled — of charity, for he gave the highest proof of love by giving his life for his friend.
Brethren, great as was the Baptist, still Christ asserts that the least in the kingdom of God — the Catholic Church — can become greater still. John was of the Old Law, but we are of the New, with all its superior advantages and graces. Now, to best achieve our glorious possibilities we must first of all grasp firmly such fundamental truths of faith as Christ's divinity, and try to realize the overwhelming force of arguments such as His wondrous miracles. The human mind, if anything, is logical, and given first principles, it is sure to draw a practical conclusion; but from ignorance of fundamental truths result irreligion, indifferentism, and lukewarm Catholics. And after the foundation comes the superstructure, a life as like as may be that of John. To see one's duty and to do it come what may; to realize the importance of salvation and subordinate ail other thoughts to that; to recognize the duty of preparing the Lord's way and leading others to Him by word and golden example; to cling fast to the Church in word and deed, believing her divine whatever scandal stain her human side; to do all this and to persevere unto death is to carry out Our Lord's instructions; is to imitate the Baptist; is to be an ideal Christian.