NINETEENTH SERMON
ON THE CONSOLATION TO BE DERIVED FROM THE RESURRECTION IN THE TRIALS OF LIFE.
Subject
Faith and hope in the future resurrection can and should encourage us to overcome all difficulties, and to bear with cheerfulness all trials and voluntary mortifications. Preached on the first Sunday after Easter.
Text
" He showed them His handstand His side." (John xx. 20)
Introduction.
In spite of the frequent assurances given by Our Lord that He would rise from the dead; in spite of the testimony of the angel, of the holy women, of the soldiers on guard, that He had really risen, that they had seen Him, that He was no longer to be found in the grave; in spite of the number of disciples who had seen Him alive and spoken to Him after the resurrection, the apostles were still so filled with doubt and fear that they hardly knew what to think. Could He be really risen? They half doubted, half believed it. Thomas had fully made up his mind not to believe: " I will not believe," he said. Then Jesus, to remove all hesitation from their minds, appeared to them again and " showed them His hands and His side," as if to say: do you not yet believe? See, here are My hands with the wounds made by the nails which fastened Me to the cross; here is My side pierced by the lance, with My heart still open. Then at last the disciples were convinced. " The disciples therefore were glad when they saw the Lord." My dear brethren, Christ is truly risen; we have no doubt of it; we all acknowledge and con fess it; nor can any Catholic doubt that it is an equally certain truth and proved by as cogent arguments that, as Christ is risen from the dead, so we too shall one day arise from the dead. What lesson profitable for our souls shall we now draw from this truth, my dear brethren? Oh, what a comfort for us in adversity and tribulation, what an encouragement in all the difficulties of life, to think: I shall one day arise to everlasting life! And this is the consolation I mean to speak of today.
Plan of Discourse.
Faith and hope in the future resurrection to eternal life can and should encourage us to overcome all difficulties, and to bear cheerfully all trials and voluntary mortifications. Such is the whole subject.
That we may in future be encouraged by this hope, give us Your grace, Lord, risen from the dead; we ask it of You through the intercession of Your Mother Mary and of our holy guardian angels.
If the hope of recovering his health, suggested by the doctor who gives him the medicine, is a source of consolation to the sick man who has lain in bed for whole months, and gives him courage to bear the discomforts of illness for a time longer; if the promise of freedom causes such joy to the prisoner that he bears much easier the severities of his prison, how much more body. should not a believing Christian be encouraged by the certain and infallible hope of a resurrection to an eternal, immortal, and perfectly happy life; so that he should bear with consolation and joy for a time longer the miseries of this short life, and willingly suffer with his suffering Lord? There have been people, and it is said there are still some in England, and especially in India, who believe that as soon as a man dies his soul does not go into eternity, but enters again into a human body and begins life afresh. This superstition makes its advocates so reckless that soldiers rush fearlessly into the midst of swords and spears, fire and bullets, and many merchants if they become bankrupts put an end to themselves at once without hesitation by hanging or shooting themselves. What does it matter, they think, if the body is wounded or mangled here? Elsewhere I shall get an other, and perhaps a better one than this. And although I die by a violent death here, I shall come to life again in another country and begin a new existence.
Seneca writes that Cato, one of the most renowned of the ancient Romans, after he had read a certain book of the philosopher Plato, thought so little of his life that when he saw the freedom of Rome on the point of being destroyed, and the commonwealth going to ruin and likely to be trampled under the feet of an emperor, took a sword and without the least hesitation stabbed himself to the heart with it, lest he should live after his country had lost her freedom. Some of his friends ran up, took the sword out of his body and bound the wound; but they could not alter his determination; for after having rested for a time, Cato, summoning up all his remaining strength, tore off the bandages, and widened the wound with his own unarmed hands; thus not so much giving up his magnanimous spirit, as compelling it to es cape through the wide gate he opened for it, are the words of Seneca. I know well that moralists are not agreed in their opinion of this act of Cato s. Some of them say that his contempt of death arose from a weakness and cowardice of mind, caused by the fear lest the triumphing Caesar might treat him as a slave, and that it could by no means be traced to the bravery or fortitude of a mind superior to all temporal evils. But others with Seneca maintain that this act was heroic, praiseworthy, and the proof of a really invincible heart. Be that as it may, what I am most eager to know is what he found in that book that could give him such a wonderful contempt for his own life, which is after all the best thing we can enjoy in this world? The book treated of the immortality of the human soul, and Cato was convinced by its teaching that the soul cannot die with the body, but that after it has been separated from the body by death it is as it were released from the bonds and chains which fettered it, and gains true freedom and a place among the great heroes forever as the reward of a well-spent life. If that is the case, he thought, I can easily allow one part of me, the body, to go, provided the other, the soul, lives forever.
My dear brethren, I do not cite this example as one worthy of imitation; God forbid that we should think of such a horrible crime! That we shall rise again after death in another body elsewhere is a false and erroneous doctrine, with which the devil deludes poor people that he may bring them down to hell all the sooner; the immortality of the soul is a divine truth; but it is a horrible crime to take away one's own life on account of it. What I conclude from the examples adduced is this: if the belief that after death the soul enters a new body gives such great courage as to take away all fear of wounds and of death itself, although they who believe this have no idea of where their souls will start the new life, whether it will be in a beautiful land or in a rugged desert among wild barbarians, nor what sort of bodies they will have, whether strong or weak, sickly or healthy, ugly or hand some, crippled or stately; and if the mere belief in immortality made Cato despise his own life, and all the comforts he might still have enjoyed, so that he gave them all up forever, although he did not know how or where his immortal soul was to live here after; what would both these classes of people do if they were quite certain that they would lose neither body nor soul, but that they would again receive their very own bodies, and live with them forever in a land full of all imaginable joys and pleasures with out any fear of sorrow or loss? What would they do in such a case?
Christians! where is our faith, our hope? What should they effect in us? We must die, it is true; but what of that? If we were allowed to do so, would we not almost be inclined to imitate Cato and compel the soul with violence to leave the body? We have sometimes many discomforts and miseries to suffer here, it is true; but what does it matter? Our suffering lasts but for a short time; so that we have just reason for adding to the dis comforts of the body every day; for we are assured, not by Plato, but by the infallible word of God Himself that we shall rise again in the same bodies and live forever. And provided we have suffered here with our suffering Lord, what shall the bodies be like in which we shall arise? They shall not be mortal, corruptible, faulty, subject to heat, cold, hunger, thirst, weariness, and countless maladies and miseries, as they are now; but hear what the holy Apostle St. Paul says of them: " The dead shall rise again incorruptible: and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption: and this mortal must put on immortality." The weak body shall become strong, the sickly healthy, the deformed beautiful, the wasting incorruptible, the suffering impassible; to say all in a few words: our bodies shall resemble the glorified body of Christ Himself, as the same Apostle assures us: " We look for the Saviour, Our Lord Jesus Christ, who will reform the body of our lowness, made like to the body of His glory." Mark well the magnificent words of our most faithful God: " made like to the body of his glory." These bodies of yours and mine, Christian, provided we serve our dear Lord truly and walk in His footsteps, these bodies, I say, that are now only masses of filth and rottenness, shall then be in glory and perfection like to the body of Him who is seated on a throne of glory at the right hand of His heavenly Father, surrounded by countless myriads of angels and princes of heaven, who adore Him with the utmost humility, whose beauty forms a paradise of exultation for the elect.
By a single ray that the soul of Jesus Christ allowed to fall upon His then mortal body on Mount Thabor, His face, says the Scripture, shone like the sun, and His garments became white as snow: "His face did shine as the sun: and His garments became white as snow," so that Peter, ravished out of himself at the sight of such transcendent beauty, wished to remain there forever: " And Peter answering, said to Jesus: Lord, it is good for us to be here; if You wilt, let us make here three tabernacles." l This, my dear brethren, was but a figure of the beauty of Our Lord's body after His resurrection from the dead. " The city has no need of the sun," says St. John in the Apocalypse, speaking of the dwelling-place of God, " nor of the moon, to shine in it; for the glory of God has enlightened it, and the Lamb is the lamp thereof, " who makes the clear day of heaven. Our bodies in the resurrection shall be like this most beautiful body. What more glorious lot can be imagined, what greater happiness can a poor mortal wish and hope for? But, dear Saviour, is it not enough, for the poor service that I can render You here below, to give an immortal life to my soul? No; the body, which is its companion in labor, shall also accompany it in glory, and that too after it has been made like to the body of His glory, " like to My body, Like Mine in brightness, it shall outshine the sun; like Mine in agility, it shall be able to go anywhere in a moment; like Mine in subtility, it shall be able to pass through stone and iron; "like Mine in majesty and glory, it shall cause the demons to tremble; like Mine in impassibility, it shall be incapable of feeling pain or discomfort; like Mine in immortality, it shall live forever.
And where shall my body thus live in beauty and glory? In what land shall it dwell? Our Saviour Himself answers us: "Where I am, there also shall My minister be;" namely, in heaven, in the land of those joys and pleasures that no human eye has seen or heart can conceive; in riches without any fear of losing them; in dignity without envy; in rest without disturbance; in sweet love without jealousy; in authority without care or trouble; in satiety without disgust. Where I live, there must My servant live with Me. Oh, what a consolation for Christians! Should not this hope impel me to crucify and chastise my body with its sensuality, after the example of the crucified and suffering Jesus, that I may be admitted to the companionship of His glory and majesty? Should not this hope at least encourage me to bear all the crosses and trials of this life with cheerfulness and patience for God's sake? What harm can all human suffering and misery do me since I expect such a great and glorious happiness? What injury have I to fear from any accident or misfortune since in the next life I shall possess all goods in abundance? TV hat can death with all the illnesses that may precede it take away from me, since I have the certain hope that this very body of mine, although it must decay in the earth for a time, shall rise again complete and live forever in a glorious eternity?
Go again in thought, my dear brethren, to holy Job, who, although he lived long before the time of Our Lord, was not only infallibly certain in his faith, as we have heard already, but was also filled with consolation by his hope. What made him so patient and undaunted under his many sufferings and calamities, the least of which could have vanquished the greatest hero and thrown him into despair? What else but the hope of his future resurrection placed him on a throne as it were like an exultant champion triumphing over all his miseries? Come here, all you men of the world! Consider for a moment that wonderful man who was renowned in the whole East: "This man was great among all the people of the East, " whom the world for a long time beheld in the enjoyment of all its goods and riches, its honors and comforts, surrounded by an illustrious and numerous family, waited on by a crowd of servants, honored by strangers as well as friends, in a word, fenced in, as Satan reproached him with in the presence of God, by temporal prosperity and happiness: see how in a moment he is reduced to beggary, all his cattle driven off by the enemy, his property destroyed by fire, his servants gone from him to find other masters, his houses thrown to the ground by the wind, his children crushed to death, he himself abandoned to all the rage and wantonness of the devil, and stricken in his body with such a grievous sore that he looked like a monster of deformity and a mass of corruption. In this extreme necessity, abandoned by his friends, mocked and cursed by his own wife, he was forced by the intolerable smell of his sores to go forth from the house and sit on the dung-hill and scrape off with a potsherd the mutter that flowed from his suffering body. Even the very stones might have pitied his miser able state! And yet in the midst of all these calamities, the bare mention of which makes us shudder, he sat there consoled and contented, blessing and praising God! Go some one, with his wife and jeering friends, and reproach him with his vain hope on God: "Do you still continue in your simplicity ? Bless God and die." Compelled by a natural feeling of sorrow, Job will in deed sometimes groan and sigh and complain and long for death; but never will he forget his dutiful obedience, submission, and respect for the Almighty God. He will encourage himself with his hope, and say: I can see the dung-hill on which lam sitting, the worms that creep out of my sores, and the decaying flesh that falls from my bones; I can see and know all that; but at the same time " I know that my Redeemer liveth, and in the last day I shall rise out of the earth: and I shall be clothed again with my skin, and in my flesh I shall see my God. It is this hope alone that comforts me in my misery; therefore I do not mind the loss of my goods, the misfortunes that have crowded on me, and the bodily pain I suffer. But, holy man, how can that hope help you ? The comfort you expectest is still a long way from you; many hundred years must pass away before your resurrection takes place! And meanwhile thou art lying there in torment! No, answers Job; my comfort is not far from me; my pains torment me only outwardly, while inwardly my heart is filled with consolation: " This my hope is laid up in my bosom; " " it is hidden in my heart; it sits with me on the dung-hill, and with that I am more contented in all my sufferings than a king on his throne. I shall rise out of the earth and shall see my Redeemer! Blessed be the name of the Lord!
What do you think of this, delicate Christians! who are so diligent in seeking your comfort, and cannot bear the least mortification? What do you think, pusillanimous and despairing souls, who complain so impatiently under the trials and crosses of life, as if all were lost? If misfortune or poverty deprives you of some temporal good, if sickness attacks and confines you to bed, if father or mother, husband or wife, child or friend is carried off by a premature death, or if the danger of death threatens you yourself, is all lost therefore? No, have you suffered any loss whatever? Let those complain of whom the Apostle speaks, those who have no hope, no expectation of a happy resurrection. Truly they have reason to complain, to murmur, to despair. But you, my dear brethren, who bear this hope about with you, why should you be disturbed at the loss of worldly goods, of earthly comforts, of a fickle health, of a mortal body? All these things are "momentary and light;" they will be restored to us here after in far greater perfection with the assurance of never losing them for eternity. " In all things we suffer tribulation, but are not distressed: we are straitened, but are not destitute; we suffer persecution, but are not forsaken; we are cast down, but we perish not; " we are wearied out with labor, with dangers, persecutions, hunger, thirst, imprisonment; but we are not distressed, nor disturbed at heart: " Always bearing about in our body the mortification of Jesus." But all this does not disturb or annoy us. Why, holy Apostle? What medicine do you use to sweeten such bitter trials? "Knowing that he who raised up Jesus will raise up us also with Jesus." There is the reason why I reckon as nothing all that I can suffer here; for what is it all compared to the future glory that awaits me in eternity?
Consider the many martyrs of Jesus Christ; nor do I speak now of adult, strong, able-bodied men, but of weak, delicate maidens, little children who ran joyfully to the cross that was held out to them, and who in the midst of torments and flames, and under the very hands of the executioner, mocked at their torments and defied the tyrant; what thought gave them such strength and courage, and heroic constancy? None other than the certain hope that their bodies, which they were about to lose for a time by the sword, by water, or by fire, would be restored to them in a far happier life: and therefore they acted up to Our Lord's teaching: " Fear you not them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul."
What an agreeable sight it must have been before heaven to behold the seven Machabees, maimed in hands, feet, ears, and tongue, joyfully offering their mutilated bodies to be roasted alive! You cut my tongue out, cried the first, and cut off my arms and legs; do so; I give them to you with pleasure; for you must know that I shall get them again from my God. The second, as he lay maimed in the frying-pan, exclaimed: " You indeed, most wicked man, destroyest us out of this present life: but the King of the world will raise us up who die for His laws, in the resurrection of eternal life." The third when told to stretch forth his tongue cried out undismayed; here it is, and my hands too: " These I have from heaven, but for the laws of God I now despise them, because I hope to receive them again from Him. " And the fourth: "It is better, being put to death by men, to look for hope from God, to be raised up again by Him." And so with all the others down to the very youngest. The mother looking on at the martyrdom of her sons, not like the mothers of today who weep and moan if the least accident hap pens their children, kept on crying out to them full of joy and consolation: Raise your eyes to heaven, my dear children! let them burn and maim you as they will: "The Creator of the world, He will restore to you again in His mercy both breath and life, as now you despise yourselves for the sake of His laws."
Christians, what a shame for us! They had but the light of the Old Law, and we in the full blaze of the noon-day sun of the Gospel show by our actions that we are blinder than they! What a shame for us who make profession of a religion which adores a crucified God who rose again from the dead, to be so weak and tender about ourselves, so anxious to fly the cross, so fearful of the least discomfort, not to speak of death itself, as if we had no faith in the resurrection! lam ashamed of myself when I read even of the heathen philosopher Anaxagoras; he was called on to defend himself against a man who wished to deprive him of a splendid property he had. " What! " he exclaimed; "are a few- acres of land worth so much trouble? If I have to go to law it must be for something worth while." All his friends were indignant that he was so careless in such a matter, in which others were wont to spare no trouble; whereupon he raised his eyes to heaven, and pointing upwards, said: " That, that is my country, that is my inheritance; it is for the things that are there I care, not for those that are on earth.": Could a Christian have given a better answer than that heathen ? Meanwhile many of us have fine words on our lips, but quite different desires in our hearts, showing that we care far more for the things of earth than for the eternal goods that we have to expect in heaven.
O Christian faith! how art you become so weak and wavering!
Christian hope, how uncertain your foundation in many people
Might we not think of some that they acknowledge no
other life than the present, which we have in common with the
beasts of the field, like that old woman whose epitaph was: "I
have lived, and have believed in nothing except life"? Oh, if
we only had a lively faith and hope in the glory of the resurrection, we should rejoice when poverty takes away our temporal
goods, or sickness or voluntary mortification weakens our bodies.
We should think and say with that leper of whom Rodriguez
writes: " See, the fetters that keep me on this wretched earth
are loosened more and more every day, so that I shall arrive in
my fatherland all the quicker." A nobleman who had lost his
way out hunting found himself alone in a forest, and knew not
how to get out or what to do. Suddenly he heard a most sweet
voice singing. Where can the song come from? he thought. Is it
an angel's voice or that of a human being? He spurred on his
horse and rode towards the voice; and behold there came out of
the thicket a poor, ragged leper, so misshapen and deformed that
the nobleman could hardly bear to look at him; meanwhile the
leper kept on pulling off the decaying flesh from his body. Poor
wretch!" exclaimed the noble; " who was singing so sweetly in
the forest a few moments ago? " " It was I, sir," answered the
leper. "What!" said the other; "can you, who have such
cause to weep and lament, sing so cheerily?" " Yes, indeed! I
have been singing through sheer joy and consolation; do you
wish to know why? I know that the only wall that keeps me
from heaven is this miserable body of mine; now the more I see
t decay the nearer I come to the fulfilment of my hope that the
wall will soon fall down altogether, and so I shall gain the rest
and repose I long for. That is the reason why I sing so cheerily and bless God who now mortifies my flesh, that He may re
store it to me afterwards in another guise."
Ah, my dear brethren, I again repeat, would that we had only a lively faith and hope! But there is where we are at fault! The inordinate love we have for our flesh and sensuality, the in ordinate desire of temporal things has so dimmed the faith in our hearts, that the future glory of the resurrection awakens in us but little pleasure, desire, or courage; or else if faith has still left some hope in us we try to persuade ourselves that we may arrive at that glory by an easier, more comfortable way than the rude way of penance and the cross, which Christ our Head and all His saints have travelled. Oh, truly that is a self-deception that brings many a soul on the broad way that leads to the abyss of hell! If Christ had found a more comfortable way to heaven than the way of penance and the cross He would certainly have chosen it, or at least have pointed it out to us, whom He loves even to death. But, " Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and so to enter into His glory?" Then have we nothing better to hope for? Certainly not; the Apostle assures us: " If we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection."
So that I must necessarily suffer here below? Yes. Then I will suffer here, either by voluntary mortification of my body or by patiently bearing the crosses and trials which God will deign to send me; and I shall be comforted and strengthened in this resolution by the certain hope of a resurrection to eternal glory. O death! how little I have to fear from you, if I only serve God faithfully, for you wilt transport me into a land of joy where I shall find my body again. poverty! now I know what a rich treasure I owe you, and I would not change you for all the riches of earth. Sorrow and trials! would that I had known it sooner! you are now so desirable to me, that I can heartily thank God for you. Weakness and sickness! I knew it not be fore how good you are to me in depriving me of my bodily strength, and preparing me to receive still greater beauty in the resurrection. Dying friends, parents, children, why have I afflicted myself so much on your account? For I shall see you again in a far better place! Be sorrowful now, my soul! because there you shalt swim in an ocean of delights! Eyes, ears, tongue, taste, touch, why do you seek pleasures here? Mortify yourselves and wait for the eternal pleasures that are coming! What would I say to the peasant who for the sake of seeing his casks filled with wine a little sooner begins the vintage in the month of July or August, and thus cuts off the green, unripe, and sour grapes? Wait, I should say to him, foolish man! Do you wish to have wine? You shall have enough of it; but wait a few months, and then instead of a small quantity of sour, immature, ill-flavored wine, you shall have an abundance of sweet, healthy wine that will always increase in goodness, to put in your cellar. The same I should say to him who plucks off the apples or pears before they are ripe and when they hardly have the proper shape of pears and apples; or to one who cuts his corn while the ear is still in formation: wait, put off your harvest for a time; then you shall have all and much more than you desired. So I will say to myself: this is not the time to enjoy the pleasures of sense; I will put them off to the harvest-time, when I shall rise again with those who sowed in tears and reaped an eternal harvest of joy. Yes, Lord! " I believe to see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living," where I shall be able to say with that Saint who appeared to St. Theresa after his death: "0 fortunate penance, which has merited for me such great glory! " This my hope is laid up in my bosom. Amen.