FORTY-SIXTH SERMON
ON THE HOLY APOSTLE ST. JOHN.
Subject.
St. John a true son of Mary. Preached on the feast of St. John.
Text.
" He saith to His Mother: Woman, behold thy son. After that He saith to the disciple: Behold thy mother." (John 19:26)
Introduction.
No greater happiness could John have received from Christ on earth than to be loved by Him in such a special manner, and thus to be distinguished among the other apostles as " the disciple whom Jesus loved." Nor could Our Lord have given John a surer sign of this special love than to give her of whom He deigned to be born to John as his mother, and at the same time to give him to her as her son. " He saith to His mother: Woman, behold thy son. After that He saith to the disciple: Behold thy mother." "O wonderful proof of love!" exclaims St. Thomas of Villanova, " He puts John in His own place with His Mother, and leaves John to the Blessed Virgin as a son in His stead! "! " Could that favor have been made any greater? " And to the great glory of this apostle, all we can add in his praise is this, that as John was publicly declared the son of Mary by Christ Him self, so he was a true son of such a great mother. This glory and honor of this great Saint I mean to represent to you to-day, my dear brethren, and I say:
Plan of Discourse.
St. John was a true son of Mary. Such is the whole subject of this panegyric. Let us, too, endeavor to be worthy children of Mary: such shall be the conclusion.
Obtain for us this grace, holy St. John, from Jesus, who loves you, through the hands of Mary, your mother, and our holy guardian angels.
To be a son of Mary Oh, what an honor! what happiness for a mortal man! To have as mother the greatest lady of the world, the Queen of heaven and earth, the chosen daughter of the Eternal Father, the beloved spouse of the Holy Ghost; to be called the son of the same mother of whom was born Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and thus to be a brother of Jesus Christ; what an honor, I repeat; what a dignity, and what incomprehensible happiness! Where, since the beginning of the world, will you find any mere creature who has enjoyed a similar happiness? None of the angels, not even the greatest of the seraphim, could hope to be raised to such a dignity: " To which of the angels hath He said at any time: Thou art My son?" Such is the question we may well ask about Mary, which St. Paul in wonderment asks of the Eternal Father. Oh, truly, no! All the princes of heaven, great as they are, are quite satisfied to have the honor of saluting this virgin as their empress, of serving and waiting on her most humbly as her vassals. When St. Margaret of Cortona once heard, after holy communion, those words from Our Lord: " My daughter," she was ravished out of herself with joy, fell into an ecstasy, and after a considerable time, awakening as from the dead, cried out in a loud voice: "O infinite sweetness of God! blessed words! My daughter! such is th,e name given me by the great God! Is it possible that I still live, and that my soul was not forced to leave my body by such an overwhelming weight of happiness? " My daughter! Jesus has said that to me! What, then, is there in the world for me to desire any longer? What, think you, lovers of Mary, would be your feelings if any one of you heard from the lips of the Mother of God the words: My son; my dear child? For my part, if that happened to me, I could not contain myself for joy; but to no purpose should I expect such a great and unmerited favor.
This joy, this honor, this happiness fell to the lot of John alone among all mere creatures; for from the lips of the infallible truth, Jesus Christ Himself , he heard himself publicly proclaimed as the son of Mary when he heard the comforting words: " Woman, be hold thy son," which the Lord said to His Mother; " After that He saith to the disciple: Behold thy mother." Whereby He meant, as a learned author says, " For My sake you have said to your parents: I know you no longer; behold, now the Mother of God is your mother! You left the fisherman's boat; behold, now you guide the merchant's ship that bringeth her bread from afar; I commit to your care what I love best on earth." "Happy and blessed St. John," exclaims St. Bernard, " to whom the Lord deigned to commend such a treasure! prudent disciple, beloved by Christ before all, whom the Lord made the private chamber lain of His most beautiful palace! " Denis the Carthusian is also struck with astonishment, and cries out, congratulating John: " How great is thy honor and glory, and what a precious treasure is entrusted to thee! The vessel of all holiness, the Lady of the world, the Queen of heaven, who had and brought forth one and the same Son with the Eternal Father, from whom the Holy Ghost truly proceeds, is given and is sent; that Mother is committed to thee, and is become thy mother, and thou art called her son! Truly, Jesus loved thee when He conferred such a favor on thee! " John, the son of Mary! Nothing more glorious can be said in his praise.
John, the son of Mary, not merely in word and name, not merely by adoption, as rich and childless people sometimes adopt poor children, and make them their heirs, but a true son of Mary. Such is the opinion plainly asserted by some of the holy Fathers. Hear St. Thomas of Villanova: "Let us not imagine," he says, writing of the words: Behold thy mother; "let us not think those words of the Saviour to have been uttered in vain; for there are not wanting pious and learned men who maintain that he is not merely Mary's son in the opinion and estimation of men, as if by adoption, for they say He who by His word created all things out of nothing could make a son of one who was not a- son; but if He could, He did; for He did not say: Have her as your mother; but assertingly: Behold thy mother." St. Peter Damian seems to have no doubt of this, writing of the same words of Christ: "These words are efficacious and found ed on the infallible truth; for that only-begotten Word of the Father that hung on the cross is substantially in the substance of the Father and is eternal; therefore the words spoken by Him, since they are the spirit and the life, cannot be empty. Just as He said to the Mother: This is thy son; so He said to the disciples: This is My body words that have such great pow er and efficacy that the bread which He held out to them at once became the body of the Lord; for He spoke, and they were made; He commanded, and they were created." From which the holy Doctor draws this conclusion: " By analogy, then, we may say that St. John was not to bear merely the name of son, but he deserved by the force of those words of the Saviour to be united with the Blessed Virgin in the bonds of a stricter relationship." Origen contradicts all who would wish to dispute this sonship of John, and says: "If, according to the judgment of those who think rightly, no one but Jesus is the son of Mary, and if Jesus said to His Mother: Woman, behold thy son; it i the same as if He had said: Behold, this is Jesus whom you brought forth;" or, This is thy son, as Jesus, whom thou didst bring forth, is thy Son.
Be that as it may, my dear brethren, this much is certain, that John possesses all the qualities that go to make a true son of Mary. For in the first place, a true son loves his mother, and is loved by her in return. Oh, who can describe the tender and affectionate love that Mary had for John as her son, and John for Mary as his mother? Let St. Cyril of Alexandria speak of it: "Christ," he says, "commended His Mother to the disciple that he might perform the duties of a son to her; in the same way He admonishes the Mother to have the authority of a parent over the disciple; that is, He wished them to be as united in the bonds of love and charity as if they were bound to each other by the ties of the strictest relationship according to nature." Speaking of the words, "be hold thy son; behold thy mother," St. Thomas of Villanova says: " By these words the Lord impressed on the heart of the virgin a certain maternal love towards John more ardent and strong than that which mothers generally have by nature; and He gave to the apostle a filial reverence, such as no son naturally possesses." And how must not this maternal and filial love have grown and increased while these most holy and amiable persons were living in the same house, united by the strictest ties, conversing, eating, and praying together, and that not merely for one or two years, but, as the probable opinion has it, for twenty- three whole years? Oh, that we had been vouchsafed a glance at that holy society! What comfort and joy that motherly and childlike love must have caused them mutually? If a single greeting of the Mother of God made John the Baptist exult in his mother's womb, "what, think you," says St. Thomas, "must have been caused in the Evangelist by such long-continued association with the same virgin? " And that, too, the association of such a mother with such a loving son; of such a son with such a tender mother?
Moreover, the true son is recognized by his likeness to the mother; for children are generally like their parents, and they resemble the mother more than the father, not only in the outward form to her,
and appearance of the body, but also in their character. Well
does Salvianus say of children: " Before they are able to use their
parents property they have the parents themselves in their dispositions." As St. Paul says: " For if the first fruit be holy, so
is the lump also; and if the root be holy, so are the branches."
Of which passage a learned author writes thus: " As the leaven
must be like the mass, and the branches like the root, so must
children resemble their parents." Therefore parents are wont
to say of a child that is not like them: That is not my child;
he must have been changed in the cradle. And of one who is
like father or mother: That child is the living image of its father;
it is the very stamp of its mother, etc. And it is in that respect,
my dear brethren, that St. John is a true son of the Blessed Virgin; for if we compare them with each other we find in him a
perfect image of Mary, showing forth clearly the disposition and
the virtues of the divine Mother. Let us see whether such is
really the case.
It is an infallible truth that Mary was always an immaculate virgin, the Virgin of virgins, who, according to the testimony of the holy Fathers, would have preferred not to be the Mother of God than to sully her virginity. Is not John exactly like her in this respect? For there is no doubt that from his childhood till his death he remained a chaste virgin. Euthemius writes of him that from his youth he was most careful in guarding his virtue, " so that he never allowed even an impure thought to enter his mind." The doctors and interpreters of Holy Writ are generally of the opinion that it was on account of this virginal purity that he was so specially beloved by Christ, as de Lyra says: "Jesus loved him and showed him special marks of love on account of his virginal purity." B According to St. Thomas, " he was beloved especially on account of the beauty of purity, because he was chosen as a virgin by the Lord." St. Bonaventure says: " He was with reason beloved by the Almighty on account of his inviolable purity. To the same effect are the words of St. Jerome, Theophylactus, Albert the Great, and others. On account of the same purity he received from God a wonderful light, greater than that given to the other evangelists. " Not without reason," says St. Peter Damian, " was such a profound and accurate knowledge of the divinity given to a virgin." It was John alone who recognized Christ when He appeared to the disciples after the resurrection, while none of the others knew who He was. " It is the Lord! " cried out John with joy. De Lyra tells us the reason of this: "John, who was purer than the others, being a virgin, recognized Christ quicker than they." And it was on account of the same virginal purity that he received Mary as his mother, as St. Jerome testifies: " To him the Lord, while hanging on the cross, commended His Mother, that a virgin might have charge of a virgin." Mary herself called him her angel, on account of his purity; for when asked by her divine Son, after His death, whether He should send her the archangel Michael as her guardian, she answered, as the Abbot Guericus tells us: " It is not necessary; I am satisfied with that new angel in the flesh, the disciple- whom Jesus loved." But why should we spend so long to prove this? The purity of Mary alone excepted, no greater purity has been found in the world than that of John, as St. Peter Damian does not hesitate to say. Therefore in this respect John was a son of Mary, quite like his Mother.
Again, there was never a creature in heaven or on earth who loved Jesus so tenderly as Mary, His Mother; and we may well say that after Mary there was never any one in the world who loved Jesus so tenderly as John, the son of Mary, who was so like her. This is already evident from the fact that he was "the disciple whom Jesus loved;" for if Christ loves those who love Him, as the eternal Wisdom expressly says, "I love them that love Me," then John must necessarily have loved more than all the others, since he was loved by Christ above all the others. So it is, says the learned Salmeron: "John loved more intimately and sweetly, therefore he was loved by the Lord more tenderly and sweetly." This, too, is the opinion of St. Augustine, whose words are quoted by Albert the Great: "The cause of this special love was that John in his turn also loved Christ more than the others loved Him." St. Peter Damian calls his heart a burning furnace of divine love; and indeed he could not hide his excessive love for his Saviour. From the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh; we know that all lovers gladly speak of the object of their affection, and exult and rejoice at the thought of being loved; now almost everything that John spoke was filled with love, as St. Gregory says: "Let us consider the words of John; for everything he utters is inflamed with the fire of charity." Therefore he repeats so often the words: " The disciple whom Jesus loved," as St. Chrysostom well remarks: " It is usual for lovers to be unable to conceal their love; they often speak of it, that they may thus receive some consolation." And it is the property of lovers to be willingly in each other's company, and to be unable to -bear separation without pain. And how that showed itself in John! Wherever Jesus went John was with Him. " Hence," says Surius, "the seat he desired to have next Our Lord, with his brother, was not asked through ambition, but for the love of Christ, since he did not wish any one to be nearer to the Beloved One than himself." He showed the same afterwards, when he hastened with Peter to the grave of Our Lord; the gospel says: " They both ran together, and that other disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulchre." For, as St. Gregory says: "Pie who loves more ardently runs quicker and arrives first." Many a one, seeing John reclining on the bosom of the Lord, would have accused him of a discourtesy or want of thought in behaving thus in presence of the other apostles; but, as Salmeron says, " it was done through excess of love, which does not consider its actions, and is only concerned about being united with the loved one." St. Thomas says: " The beloved John, without being ordered, without asking permission, confidently reclines on the Lord's bosom. Love did that; for love is beyond measure daring." For he knew that Christ was aware of the tenderness of his love, and would not take his conduct in ill part.
Further, no one can deny that Mary truly suffered with her divine Son; therefore she is called by the Catholic Church the Queen of martyrs; for she it was who, standing close to the cross, with her own eyes contemplated the sufferings of her Son as He hung dying between two thieves; all the pain and agony that He suffered in His body that Mother felt in her soul, so that, according to the prophecy of Simeon, a sharp sword of sorrow pierced her heart. There again, my dear brethren, you can see the resemblance between Mary and John, her son. For he alone it was who kept constantly at her side during her bitter sorrows, with this difference, that Mary felt the torments of Christ as those of her son by nature, while John felt them as those of one who was now given to him as a brother. And indeed it would seem that, as far as the length of time is considered, the sufferings of John with Christ lasted longer than those of Mary; for of the latter we read only that she stood at the foot of the cross, and saw how Jesus died; while John was present at the whole passion from beginning to end. He saw the bloody sweat in the Garden; and from there he accompanied Our Lord to the house of Caiphas; thence to the tribunal of Pilate; from Pilate's house to the cross, and from there to the grave. " He was present with Him in the palace," says St. Thomas; " he was present in the praetorium; he was present as He hung on the cross; he weeps, grieves, and groans. It was a wonderful dispensation of love that the beloved disciple should be present at the terrible torments of his Lord, and that he should drink the chalice of the passion with his dear Master at the foot of the cross." And truly, if the sorrow of Mary on account of the sufferings of her Son were so great that they are compared by the Prophet Jeremias to a vast sea, " great as the sea is thy destruction," then, too, must we say of the sorrow of John that it was like a rapid, rushing river. For, my God! what anguish must have filled the heart of the loving disciple when he saw his dear Master fettered with chains and dragged like a dog through the streets, buffeted, spat upon, and ridiculed as a fool! What pain it must have caused him to hear the whips and rods raining down the cruel blows, and tearing and wounding Jesus from head to foot! To see Him crowned with the sharp thorns, streaming with blood, more like a worm than a man, exhibited publicly to the people, condemned to death, and obliged to carry the heavy load of the cross on His shoulders up the steep hill of Calvary! To see Him nailed hand and foot, lifted on high, hanging three hours in extreme agony, and finally giving up the ghost! What pain to be hold that most sacred bosom, which had formerly served as his sweetest resting-place, and that heart by which he was so tenderly loved pierced with a lance! Who can comprehend the greatness of this torment? " Those two martyrs," says St. Bernard, speaking of Mary and John, " kept silent, and could not speak on account of the greatness of their sorrow." Both almost died of compassion with Our Lord; that is, Mary and John, the suffering mother and her son, who was like her in suffering.
Finally, to epitomize the virtues of this Mother and of her son, there never was any mere creature so united with the will of God as Mary was. In all circumstances, in sorrow and in joy, she repeated with contented heart that humble act of submission: " Behold the handmaid of the Lord." Even on Mount Calvary, according to the teaching of the holy Fathers, she was ready, although to her own greatest sorrow, to nail her most beloved Son to the cross with her own hands, if that had been necessary for the redemption of the world, and had been required by the will of God. My dear brethren, if we wish to know whether and how far St. John was like his Mother in this great virtue, we need not examine his whole subsequent life; the last years of it are enough for us; if we consider them briefly we shall find circumstances which many perhaps have hitherto passed over. Mark what I am about to say: after Christ had died on the cross and ascended into heaven; after Mary, the Mother of Christ, had been assumed, body and soul, into heaven; after all the other apostles and disciples of Christ, set free from the trammels of the flesh by the death of martyrdom, had been received into heaven: John alone remained alive on earth; and how long? Not for a few months only, but for many years after; and although he was the youngest of the apostles at the time of their calling, he was the oldest of them at the time of his death, for, as some writers tell us, he was ninty-three years old, or, as others say, ninty-eight, and, according to some, he even reached the hundred and sixtieth year of his life.
Yes, you think, but what is the meaning of all this? What conclusion do you wish to draw from it? This: that John was old age. an example of the most perfect conformity with and resignation to the divine will. How so? Consider for a moment what a hard thing it is for a lover to be separated even for a few weeks from the object of his affections. Every day in which he highs in vain to be in the loved one's company seems a year to him. How hard, then, must it not have been for that holy apostle so filled with ardent love, to be left quite alone by his Master his dear Mother, Mary, his beloved brothers, the other apostles, and that for so many years, in this sorrowful vale of tears, while, they were in the full possession of eternal joys, in the presence of Jesus and Mary, in the heavenly fatherland! " I am straitened," exclaims St. Paul; "having a desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ." "I am dying because I do not die," cried out St. Teresa, so intense was her desire to be with Christ, her spouse. For life seemed to her more bitter than death, on account of the fervent desire she had to be united with her God. How many similar sighs, then, will not St. John beyond all doubt have sent to heaven, since he enjoyed such a special degree of intimacy with Our Lord on earth, and yet had to abstain from seeing His divine countenance till he had reached a ripe old age? good Jesus, is it then true that this is the disciple whom Thou didst love most tenderly? If so, why didst Thou leave him so long on earth? Why didst Thou not call him to Thee before all the others, since his wish to be with Thee was so intense? What a fine opportunity of dying he had when, weakened by age and constant apostolic labor, he was scourged and put into a caldron of boiling oil, in the city of Rome, out of hatred to the faith? Oh, how his heart must have bounded with joy on the occasion! Praised be God! he must have cried out; now at last I have reached the goal of my desires! now I am dying for love of my dear Master! now the long wished- for moment has arrived for me to come to Him whom I have loved more than myself! But he was disappointed. God preferred to work a miracle rather than allow John to die then. The boiling oil was to him a cooling bath, in which his body was made more vigorous and strong. "He came out of it stronger and healthier than he entered it," says St. Jerome, and such, too, is the testimony of Tertullian. But, dear Lord, what does that mean? When St. Andrew was hanging on the cross he cried out, fearing lest the people should rescue him: " Lord, King of eternal glory, receive me hanging on the gibbet; " a and Thou didst hear his prayer! Thy holy martyr Ignatius cried out, through a desire of death: " May I be ground by the teeth of the wild beasts! " Let the lions, Lord, devour me, that I may come to Thee! And Thou didst hear him! Many other martyrs begged of Thee to put an end to the miracles by which they were enabled to withstand different torments, so that they might at last lose their lives; and Thou didst grant their prayers! Thou dost take from the world many who dread nothing more than death, and desire nothing more than a long life. And be hold, the disciple whom Thou lovest, who loves Thee so much, wishes for nothing more than to die; naturally speaking, he should have succumbed in the bath of boiling oil; yet Thou didst not permit him to die! The very means that should have destroyed his life were by Thy Almighty power made the means of enabling him to live longer! Oh, what a hard fate! I repeat. Meanwhile, how did John submit to this arrangement of Divine Providence? Did he become downcast, or did his love grow less? No; he was fully satisfied and in the same dispositions towards his divine Master as before; daily he preached nothing to his disciples but the love of Christ and of his neighbor; he who in the same sentiments as Mary stood at the foot of the cross always thought in his heart like his Mother: Behold the servant of the Lord; be it done to me according to Thy word; according to Thy holy will let me live how and as long as my God wills; let me die how and when it may be pleasing to Him.
My dear brethren, could a child be more like his mother than John was like Mary? So that he was a son of that Mother, according to the last testament of Christ; a son of that Mother, being adopted to that position; a son of that Mother by filial love; a son of that Mother by likeness of disposition and virtue; and therefore John was a true son of Mary. Yes, holy apostle of charity, we congratulate thee, and rejoice that thou hast been raised to such a high dignity and happiness as to have received as thy mother her who bore the Saviour of the world! " Truly, Jesus loved thee, since He conferred such a favor on thee!" Ah, would that we, too, might have the happiness of venturing to greet Mary as our mother, and to call ourselves her children!
But what am I saying? Venturing? Dear Christians, rejoice! Even we, too, have all of us that great happiness; and on account of it we are bound every day of our lives to render most humble thanks to Jesus Christ. According to the holy Fathers, when St. John heard the words of Christ at the foot of the cross, "Woman, behold thy son; behold thy mother," he stood there in the person of the whole Catholic Church, and in the name of all the faithful he received Mary as his Mother; so that we are adopted children of Mary, and Mary is the Mother of us all. But to be true and beloved children of this great Mother depends on ourselves, and on how we behave towards her. We shall be her true and beloved children, if, like St. John, we show her a constant, tender, childlike love, not merely in word and in daily greetings, but in deed and truth. But this cannot be done by us unless we love Jesus, her divine Son, with our whole hearts, and constantly; for it is a falsehood to pretend to love Mary when one is in the state of mortal sin and an enemy of Jesus. Undutiful are those children who disobey Him whom the Mother loves more than herself, and wills every one to love above all things! We shall be true children of Mary, if, like St. John, we endeavor, as far as possible, to become like to that Mother, that is, to imitate her life and virtues, especially in as far as purity according to our state is concerned. No one is more displeasing to this most chaste virgin than he who is contaminated with the horrible vice of impurity. W T e must imitate her also in suffering with Christ, that is, in bearing with true patience the crosses and trials that are laid on us; and we must be like her in the conformity and resignation of our will to the will of God in all His decrees. dearest disciple of Christ, true son of Mary! thou canst now do all with these two in heaven; obtain, we beseech thee, for us all the grace to be as we profess to be true children of thy Mother and ours; then we shall have a sure pledge and sign that we shall one day rejoice with thee forever in heaven in the society of Jesus and Mary. Amen.