FIFTY-SECOND SERMON
ON THE HOLY APOSTLE ST. MATTHIAS.
Subject.
1. The exaltation of St. Matthias shows that no one should disturb himself by unnecessary questions regarding his predestination or reprobation, but should endeavor to work out his salvation by a holy life and a careful use of the grace of God. 2. The unhappy fall and reprobation of Judas shows, on the other hand, that in no state of life can we promise ourselves security, but must be always afraid of a fall, and therefore protect ourselves against it with all possible diligence. Preached on the feast of St. Matthias.
Text.
" He was numbered with the eleven apostles." (Acts 1:26)
Introduction.
Wonderful, but just and adorable are the providence and the decrees of the Almighty! Judas at first was most carefully chosen by Our Lord, and placed among the twelve vessels of election whom the Saviour of the world selected out of the whole human race to assist Him in the great work of the redemption; nevertheless he is not found in the number of the blessed apostles in heaven; another received his office and took his place. On the other hand, St. Matthias had not the happiness of being among the apostles during the lifetime of Our Lord, and yet he has the good fortune of enjoying, like the other eleven, the title, rank, and privileges of an apostle in eternal glory. A strange turn for things to take! Did Our Lord perhaps not know beforehand the fall of the one and the merits of the other? God forbid that we should suspect Eternal Wisdom of such ignorance! But if He knew the one as well as the other, why did He in His choice prefer the unworthy to the worthy, thus entailing, according to our poor way of looking at it, the disagreeable consequence of having His choice, as it were, frustrated? To this I can give no answer except to cry out with the Royal Prophet in the deep est adoration and reverence for the inscrutable judgments of God: "Thy judgments are a great deep." "Thou art just, Lord, and Thy judgment is right." Thou art just in hurling Judas from his seat, and excluding him from heavenly glory; just in giving to Matthias the place lost by Judas, and the glory of heaven! My dear brethren, instead of venturing on a rash investigation of the inscrutable designs of the Almighty, let us rather endeavor to draw a useful lesson, which may serve partly for our encouragement, and partly to inspire us with a salutary fear that will render us most cautious; let us learn this lesson from the rejection of the one who was called and chosen, and from the elevation to the apostolic dignity of the other, who was not expressly called at first. The choice and exaltation of Matthias may serve to encourage us, inasmuch as we can learn there from not to disturb ourselves by useless inquiries into our predestination, but rather seek to work out our salvation and make it certain by leading holy lives; the unhappy fall and eternal reprobation of Judas will serve to make us cautious, and to inspire us with a salutary fear, inasmuch as we shall learn from it that no one, no matter in what state he may be, can promise himself full security, but must be always in dread of a fall, and there fore must be always on his guard. There you have the subject and divisions of this sermon.
Plan of Discourse.
The choice and exaltation of St. Matthias teaches us that no one should disturb himself by useless inquiries into his predestination, but rather seek to work out his salvation by a holy life and a careful use of the grace of God: the first part. On the other hand, the unhappy fall and reprobation of Judas teaches us that no one, no matter what may be his state of life, can promise himself security, but must always fear a fall, and therefore guard him self from it most carefully: the second part. The exaltation of Matthias and the reprobation of Judas are the whole foundation of my sermon; the careful use of divine grace, a salutary fear , and constant watchfulness are the end and object of it.
To obtain this end we beg Thy powerful grace, dearest Saviour, Christ Jesus, through the intercession of Thy holy Mother and of the holy angels.
Many, even pious Christians, are not a little troubled by the thought: Am I chosen for eternal life or not? How if I am excluded by God from the number of the elect? If such is the case, what avail will be all my efforts to save my soul? for no matter what I do I shall not be able to change the eternal decrees of the Almighty. To be chosen for eternal life is a grace for which we can never be grateful enough to God; but to be excluded from it is a misfortune that we can never sufficiently deplore. But away with this useless worry and trouble! St. Peter teaches us to lay it aside: "Wherefore, brethren, labor the more that by good works you may make sure your calling and election." As if to say: How can it help you to lose your time in such distressing questions? Be on your guard against sin, do good; be zealous in working with the grace that God gives you; then you your selves can make your election and eternal salvation certain. So it is, my dear brethren. We have a striking example of this truth in the election of our holy patron, St. Matthias the apostle, who, as it were, forced his way into the dignity of the apostolate by the holiness of his life, although he had not been called to that dignity before, and drew to himself by the power of his merits the hon or and glory prepared for the apostles in preference to others of the elect, according to the words of Our Lord. The history of this is told in the Acts of the Apostles, and is too well known for me to delay in recounting it to you. But the mysteries concealed therein are perhaps not often considered as deeply as they deserve; and these may well occupy our attention now.
As you are aware, by the shameful fall and unhappy death of the traitor Judas a place was made vacant in the college of the apostles, which, according to the prophecy of David, had to be filled up. To this end the disciples of Our Lord met, in order to counsel about the choice they should make. The question at issue was indeed an important one, for it treated of a very great dignity and a great responsibility which could be conferred on only one person. Peter, as the head of the assembly, rose up and said: " Men brethren, the Scripture must needs be fulfilled which the Holy Ghost spoke before by the mouth of David concerning Judas, . . . who was numbered with us, and had obtained part of this ministry. . . . For it is written in the Book of Psalms: His bishopric let another take. Wherefore of these men who have companied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus came in and went out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day wherein He was taken up from us, one of these must be made a witness with us of His resurrection." He must be a man who, like us, has been constantly following Christ, who has heard His sermons and doctrine, and observed His exhortations, so that he may be a good witness to His actions. He must be a man free from faults, who will neither allow himself to be led into evil by an imaginary happiness nor to be deterred from good and from the perfect imitation of Christ by any imaginary evil or fear; lest we should a second time be exposed to the shame caused our holy office before the whole city of Jerusalem nay, before the whole world by the disgraceful treachery of Judas. In a word, he must be a man of whose virtue there can be no doubt, and who by his blameless life may atone for the scandal caused by the perjury of the unhappy traitor, which might turn the people away from us and our teaching. My dearest brethren, it is the will of God that you seek out a man of this kind, undaunted in danger, proved in virtue, from among those who are assembled here, in order to associate him in our apostolic labors. Such was the address of the Prince of the apostles; whereupon there was held a general examination of the lives and actions of all present, in which their virtues and merits were strictly investigated, until finally the votes of the assembly were given to Barsabas and Matthias: " And they appointed two: Joseph, called Barsabas, who was surnamed Justus, and Matthias; " and one of these was to be chosen to take the place of the traitor Judas.
This fact alone, if we knew no more of him, should suffice to give us an extraordinary idea of the holiness and virtue of this great man; for the election held by the Christians then assembled was not founded on vain or worldly views, but rather on the merits and sanctity of the individual, as we cannot for a moment doubt. It is clear, then, that Joseph and Matthias were men such as Peter had described in his address nay, that their virtue shone conspicuous before that of all the others, and therefore that in the whole crowd of Christians they were the most perfect and the best fitted to fill the vacant place. Truly, that is a short and pithy description of the greatest praise that a holy man can receive! Judge yourself if such be not the case. In those days the Church was so filled with the spirit of Christ in all its freshness and vigor that nearly every member of it deserved to be admired as a model of holiness; yet in that shining firmament there were some stars that shone far brighter than others; among them might be reckoned the holy deacon Philip, St. Luke, St. Mark two evangelists and instruments by whose voice and pen the Holy Ghost was pleased to speak to the nations, to announce the teaching and articles of the faith; besides, there were St. Stephen, St. Barnabas, and many others! What excellent men they were! and what a beautiful example of holiness they gave! What glorious props and pillars they were of the divine edifice, the Church, that the incarnate wisdom of God erected here on earth! We know how laudatory are the terms in which the Holy Scripture speaks of Stephen: "A man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost;" and again: " Full of grace and fortitude." He it was whom even his enemies looked on as an incarnate angel, on account of the innocence and sanctity that shone in his countenance and in all his behavior: "And all that sat in the council looking on him saw his face as if it had been the face of an angel." He it was who had gone so far in the doctrine of his divine Master that while he was still living he merited to see the heavens opened, and Christ in His glory standing at the right hand of His heavenly Father: "He saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God." Yet he, and many others like him excellent men, whose holiness and brilliant virtues the world cannot even now sufficiently admire had to retire; for after due deliberation the assembly of Christians judged that of all present Matthias and Barsabas were the best suited for the office of the apostolate. "They appointed two," says Denis the Carthusian, " be cause they seemed to be conspicuous for sanctity above the others, and more adapted for the grace of the apostolate."
Now we should do this most wise and holy assembly, in which were the apostles and Mary herself, the Mother of Jesus, a great injustice if we doubted that their choice of Matthias and Barsabas was a perfectly just one and suited to the merits of the persons chosen. But if it was just, and according to sound reason as well as to the divine will, then it is evident that marks of a quite extraordinary and unusual perfection must have been discovered in those two men, on account of which they merited the preference. And as far as our St. Matthias is specially concerned, the holy Fathers, authors, and historians are unanimous in asserting that from his childhood he was a model and mirror of all perfection; "he was illustrious by his purity and innocence of soul," says St. Bonaventure. Denis the Carthusian writes that he showed a wonderful innocence from his childhood, avoided all vanity and dissipation, and adorned his tender years with a great earnestness of manner. The author of his Life in the Bollandists shows how in his youth he would, have nothing to do with the frivolities which belong to a tinder age, but occupied himself solely with reading the Holy Scriptures, and studying the law and all the commandments and prohibitions contained in it, and exactly observing them. Whereby under the guidance of Simeon, the high-priest at the time, and his experienced teacher in divine things, he advanced so far as to attain to a perfect knowledge of the law and the prophets; and the author adds: "The blessed man was most pure of body and of mind, most acute in solving the difficulties of t he Scriptures, prudent in counsel, elegant and eloquent in speech." It would delay me too long to rehearse all the praises given to the admirable virtues displayed by him both before and after he followed Our Lord, virtues by which he won such great esteem in the assembly of Christians. It is enough for my purpose to say that the Christian community, moved by no other consideration than that of his exceeding great and remarkable virtues, presented Matthias, along with Barsabas, to St. Peter.
But the excellence of his merits is still more evident from the fact that by the infallible judgment and command of God Himself he was preferred even to Barsabas, who was justly so renowned for holiness and perfection. On account of the apparently equal merits of both, the apostles and disciples could not decide which should be raised to the rank of apostle. Therefore, to avoid all mistakes in such a weighty matter, they all had recourse to Heaven in fervent prayer, and begged of the Almighty, who knows the secrets of hearts, to decide which of the two, who seemed outwardly so like each other, should have the preference: " And praying, they said: Thou, Lord, who knowest the hearts of all men, show whether of these two Thou hast chosen to take the place of this ministry and apostleship, from which Judas hath by transgression fallen." "They left to God the decision," says the learned Salmeron, " since He knew which was the better of the two." Then they cast lots, in order to have an outward sign of the divine will: " And they gave them lots, and the lot fell upon Matthias, and he was numbered with the eleven apostles." We congratulate thee, holy disciple, and now chosen apostle of Christ, on this fortunate lot! It did not fall on thee by chance, but was directed by the hand of God, whereby thy virtues were made known and exalted before the world much more than by any other species of eulogy. And in fact, my dear brethren, what clearer or better proofs of the great perfection of Matthias could we wish or desire to have than the directing of this lot to him by the eternal Wisdom? For whereas in the estimation of the Christian assembly he was before held only on an equality with Barsabas, he is now exalted above him by the decision and decree of the Almighty. This one circumstance surpasses all other kinds of praise, says Denis, that he was chosen for the high dignity of apostle in preference to one who on account of his great name for virtue was surnamed the Just. This alone is worth more than all else that could be said in his praise; for by a divine decree he was chosen as the holiest of all that assembly of holy men; so writes St. Bonaventure.
And in what, my dear brethren, did his sanctity especially appear? How did he merit such a great grace from God, and attain to the rank of apostle? There are, I find, two virtues which all spiritual writers especially recommend in him, namely, a most profound humility and a most zealous love of God. The first of these is the foundation, the latter the perfection of all virtue. It was by means of them that he won the heart of God, and gained His favor and affection. For on the one hand, the Almighty Himself tells us what great pleasure He has in the humble; how lie is, so to speak, in love with them, and determined to exalt them. Does not the spirit of God rest on the humble? And it is the foundation of the dispensations of Providence that he who humbles himself shall be exalted. And on the other hand, it is not possible for the Almighty to refuse the marks of His love to one whom He knows to love Him truly. Matthias was not, like the other apostles, a lowly, unlearned man, but, as we have seen, he was unusually well read in the Holy Scriptures, and so experienced in spiritual matters that he might justly have been considered as one of the lights of his age. Now when a man has great learning he usually extols himself above others in his own mind, and indulges in a kind of vanity and self-complacency, as St. Paul says: " Knowledge puffeth up;" but, according to the testimony of all who have written his life, Matthias, in spite of his learning, was as retiring and kept himself as hidden from the world as if he were the least and most ignorant of all. And hence some are of the opinion that the name Matthias " the little one of God " was given him by Divine Providence to signify his humility to the whole world. In the history of his life in the Bollandists I read the following words: "Although he was most learned, he was not at all puffed-up; but, according to the meaning of his name, endeavored in all things to show him self truly lowly and humble, remembering the words of the Wise Man: The greater thou art, the more humble thyself in all things. " Oh, that we could have seen how, when Peter offered the prayer for success in their choice of an apostle, St. Matthias, like the public sinner in the temple, who did not dare to lift up his eyes, retiring into a corner of the supper-room, where the assembly was held, and with downcast eyes but with heart raised to God begged of the Almighty to choose the most worthy, never dreaming in the least that the choice would fall on himself! And this very humility was the cause that Heaven cast its eyes on him alone and no other. "To whom shall I have respect," says the Lord, by the Prophet Isaias, " but to him that is poor and little?" So that we may with reason say, " the lot fell upon Matthias, that is, grace on the humble. For according to the testimony of the Holy Ghost, God is wont to bestow His special favors on the humble: " God giveth grace to the humble." a Such, too, seems to be the reason why the Church has chosen as the gospel of the Mass of this feast that part which speaks of the humility of the followers of Christ, and in both Mass and Office she applies to St. Matthias the words of Our Lord: " I confess to Thee, Father, . . . because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to little ones." And with regard to his burning love of God, it is evident from the fact that he was appointed to the apostolate by Him who requires this love as a special mark of His disciples: " By this shall all men know that you are My disciples, if you have love." Now if that is the characteristic of Our Lord's disciples, how wonderful must not that love have been in Matthias, since Our Lord chose him in preference to all the other disciples to take the place of the traitor Judas! Denis the Carthusian says, in a word, that he was filled with love. Not with a vain and fruitless love, but with one that was true and perfect; one that impelled him to use all the powers of his soul and body for the glory of God and the salvation of others. St. Bonaventure considers St. Matthias love of God as a virtue in which he specially excelled all the others.
Glorious indeed was that union in the one soul of two such excellent virtues a profound humility and a burning charity! These were the virtues which raised Matthias to the dignity of apostle, preserved him in it, and finally brought him to eternal glory in heaven. These were the spurs that always urged him on in the way of perfection, and impelled him to study unceasingly the sanctification of his soul. Humility caused him to ascend daily higher and higher in charity, through fear lest he might grow cold therein, and, like Judas, lose his place and his soul; charity, on the other hand, caused him always to think little of himself, and to sink deeper in his own estimation, lest if he should extol himself he might be separated from Our Lord, and sink deeper into the abyss. As we read in the Lives of the Fathers, his favorite saying was: " If pride ascends to heaven it shall be cast down to hell; so if humility descends to hell it shall be raised up to heaven." Humility and charity together filled him with an insatiable zeal for converting souls and spreading every where the name and glory of Christ, and although he had converted many Jews and heathens, endured many hardships, labors, and persecutions, and wrought many miracles, yet this humble and loving apostle thought he had done nothing, and looked on himself as an unprofitable servant, according to the words of his Saviour: " When you shall have done all these things . . . say: We are unprofitable servants." He had already preached in Judea, Palestine, and Morocco " with great success and profit to souls," as we read in his Life; but not content with this he returned to Judea, to begin anew, as it were, his apostolic labors. This he did with such zeal that he was taken by the Jews, condemned to death, and by a twofold martyrdom stoning and decapitation sent to receive the eternal crown of glory that Judas lost, and that he won by his humility and charity. " truly lowly and truly great man," I must here exclaim in the words of Authbert, in his panegyric on St. Matthias, quoted by the Bollandists; " who wert great, not because thou wert exalted but rather because thou didst become humble;" and because he united such an ardent charity with humility, therefore he is now exalted forever in heaven.
Let us reflect on this a little, my dear brethren. As we have seen, St. Matthias seems to have been disregarded and passed over by Our Lord in the first calling of the apostles; he was a true follower and disciple of Christ, but was not reckoned among the twelve chosen preachers of the gospel. Nevertheless by his holiness, innocence, humility, and charity he brought things to such a pass that first, by the unanimous vote of the assembled Christians, he was presented, with Barsabas, who alone seemed to be equal to him in sanctity, as a candidate for the apostolate in the place of Judas, and then, by the infallible decision of God, was preferred to Barsabas. My dear brethren, what conclusion are we to draw from this? If St. Matthias was able to offer the Almighty, as it were, a pleasing violence, and to force from Him what was at first denied him, and thus by his own merits to ascend to a throne of glory in heaven that the mere generosity of God would other wise not have given him without extraordinary co-operation on his part, then there is no doubt that they are wrong who say that our salvation or reprobation depends alone on deliberate choice or rejection on the part of God, and that man by his own works can neither further the one nor prevent the other. Foolish people who imagine such things or allow such thoughts to disturb them! Every one knows that we must distinguish be tween those works that indeed concern us, but that God alone accomplishes without our co-operation, and those for the accomplishment of which we have indeed need of divine grace, but which nevertheless, after this grace has been freely offered, are left to our own will. With regard to the first, it would be use less for us to trouble about them, for in such cases we should leave ourselves altogether to Divine Providence; therefore Our Lord in the gospel reproves with good reason those who torment themselves with useless cares: " Which of you, no matter how learned, rich, or powerful he may be, "by taking thought, can add to his stature one cubit?" But with regard to the other class of works, which God has left to our own free will, it would be clearly a great folly not to set about them ourselves, but to leave them altogether to God. For if our diligence or carelessness in this respect had no influence, they would not be works of our free will, but would depend solely on God. A work of this kind, my dear brethren, as every true believer acknowledges, is our salvation or damnation, our holiness or wickedness, our advance in perfection or our falling away therefrom. So says the Wise Man expressly: " God made man from the beginning, and left him in the hand of his own counsel. He added His commandments and precepts. If thou wilt keep the commandments . . . they shall preserve thee. He hath set water and fire before thee; stretch forth thy hand to which thou wilt. Before man is life and death, good and evil; that which he shall choose shall be given him." God has made the sun and moon, the heavens and the earth, not only without our co-operation, but even without the least consent on our part; in the same way He has placed one in preference to another in a Catholic land, caused him to be born of Catholic parents, to be brought up in the Catholic faith (a happiness for which he to whom it is granted cannot be grateful enough to God for all eternity); but that he saves his soul in preference to another, or gains a higher place than another in heaven that is a work for which God indeed gives His help generously to every one, but the success or failure of it He has so left in our hands that the failure can in no wise be attributed to Him, but rather to the sloth and carelessness of the individual. " He who created you without you," are the well-known words of St. Augustine, " will not save you without you." He has created you out of sheer goodness, and will not reject you without fault on your part. Therefore when the young man came to Christ, as we read in the gospel, and said to Him, " good Master, what good shall I do that I may have life everlasting?" Our Lord did not tell him that he should not trouble himself about the matter, and leave the care of it to God, but: " If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.": It depends on yourself, on your own free will. And when the young man aspired higher, and seemed not to be content with ordinary holiness and glory in heaven, for the second time Our Lord did not refer him to the will of God, but to his own will: "If thou wilt be perfect, go, sell what thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven." Happy mortals, in whose power it is to make themselves sure of heavenly bliss nay, to ascend as high in heaven as they please! On the other hand, how culpable the carelessness of those who do not profit by their privilege, and who squander the good fortune they have in their hands! Let no one dare to say to me again,, with heretics or cold-hearted Catholics, who seek to palliate their sloth and indifference by laying the blame on others let no one say that it depends on the generosity of God, and on the greater grace given to one rather than to another, that one should be chosen for eternal life and another excluded from it; that one should be called to extraordinary sanctity, while another is left among the common crowd.
If God has not through sheer generosity given you great graces, such as He has bestowed on others, do not despair on that ac- count! A diligent workman often earns as much in time as would be given to a good friend out of sheer love. And what God has given to others as a gratuitous gift He is ready to give you as a reward for your labor. We have convincing proof of that in our St. Matthias, who certainly must not be less esteemed than the other apostles because he was not at first chosen for that state by Our Lord, without any merits of his own. But as among soldiers they who rise from the ranks by their knowledge of and experience in war are generally more esteemed than those who become officers by money or on account of their noble birth, without having given any special proofs of bravery, so to any one with sound reason it must redound to the greater praise of this apostle that he attained that high position by his own efforts, to which the others were elevated by mere generosity. Take courage, my dear brethren! you who think that God has not be stowed such great gifts on you as on many others whose holiness and perfection you admire. The graces that the divine generosity has not hitherto given you God will not refuse you, according to His most faithful and unfailing fidelity to His promises, if you try to make yourselves worthy of them by your merits. Even those high places of honor which the cherubim and seraphim occupied shortly after their creation are open to us if by constant co-operation with divine grace we only endeavor always to make a step in advance. In a word, we shall be as perfect in holiness and as high in heaven as we ourselves wish, for there is no want in the earnest will of God in this respect. On the other hand, no matter how high the favor and grace bestowed by God on man, the latter will certainly fall into shameful ruin unless he works with grace, and thus seeks to keep himself safe in his state. This is the second part of my sermon, and it is proved especially by the sad fall of Judas, whose place in the apostolate our St. Matthias occupied.
Second Part.
Who could have believed it possible that out of the twelve whom Christ had selected by a most wise choice to be the foundation and corner-stone of His Church one would shamefully fall away and make, as it were, a fissure in the spiritual edifice? Who can think, without trembling, that one of those whom Christ treated as His dearest friends, who were always with Him, to whom, before all others, He opened His heart, to whom He revealed the highest secrets of His heavenly kingdom: "To you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God; " who can think, I say, without trembling, that one of those, in spite of long-continued friendship with Christ, should at last die as the enemy of God, and be condemned to the everlasting fire of hell prepared for God's enemies? God of goodness! who would not shudder at the thought? One of the apostles chosen by Our Lord Himself in the fire of hell! A teacher of truth, a pillar of the Church, an instrument of the divine omnipotence, who, as the holy Fathers say, worked miracles as well as the other apostles; who had healed the sick, expelled demons, and by his instructions and sermons brought many to the light of truth he falls at last into the power and under the yoke of the devil, so that he is now tortured forever by those whom he once commanded!
Whence, in God's name, came such a terrible fall, such a sad ending, after so noble a beginning? Did Our Lord perhaps make a mistake when He first called Judas to the apostolate, and think him better than he was in reality? Or had He perhaps no earnest will to raise him to that dignity, and to confer on him in heaven the glory of an apostle? No; we dare not, without blasphemy, form such a suspicion, either of the uprightness or of the omniscience of the incarnate God. Not only had Christ an earnest will to maintain Judas in his dignity on earth, and to give him the same glory with the other apostles in heaven, but also when the traitor had separated himself from the chosen number, and by his unheard-of wickedness made himself unworthy of the grace conferred on him, Our Lord offered to receive him again into His friendship if he only wished to return to Him. Such is the interpretation given by many of the holy Fathers to the words:
"Friend, whereto art thou come?" As if Christ wished to say: Art thou come to beg pardon for thy sin, and to renew thy friendship with Me? If such is the case, I shall not be wanting; I hereby declare thee My friend and apostle, as thou wert before. Was there perhaps something in the life led by Judas, either be fore or after his calling to the apostolate, which caused him to lose that place of honor? No; for the holy Fathers testify that he was a holy and just man. " At first," says Tertullian, " he was not only holy, but by the zeal of his preaching he was the means of sanctifying others." Whence, then, in God's name, that terrible fall, unexampled since the fall of our first parents? The only cause of it is that Judas did not try, by his own co operation, to retain the graces and favors which Christ had most generously bestowed on him. Our Lord did not wait for merits on the part of that unhappy man to raise him so high, and give him so many graces; of His own accord, without any help on the part of Judas, He showed him more love, kindness, and favor than he could have merited, nay, hoped for. But, according to a just ordination of Divine Providence, it depended on Judas own co-operation and merits to remain to the end in that happy state, to die as an apostle beloved by God, and to attain to the high degree of glory in heaven given to an apostle. And since Judas neglected his duty in this respect, and was not careful of the graces conferred on him, he suffered a terrible fall and eternal misery.
Unhappy man! what blinded you to such an extent that you squandered away such a great good fortune? What wonderful good attracted you, or what great evil terrified you, so that the love of the one or the fear of the other induced you to leave your divine Master, to deliver Him over to His enemies, to rob yourself of eternal goods, and to hurl yourself into the abyss of hell? There was neither a great good nor a great evil, my dear brethren. We do not read of the Jews having terrified Judas by threats, or used other forms of violence to persuade him to betray Christ. His malice was so great that of his own accord he went to the high-priests and offered to render them that disgraceful service: " He went . . . to the chief priests, and said to them: What will you give me, and I will deliver Him unto you?"
Thirty pieces of silver were not of such value as to induce one of an honorable mind to commit such a deed of shame, if there was not some other hidden reason which prepared the way for so great a crime. No one becomes very wicked all at once, says the old proverb; a holy man does not at once fall into the depths of depravity. These violent changes are generally the work of small things, that grow gradually greater in time, so that at last they prepare the way for a ruinous fall. So it was with Judas; he was certainly a holy man, since he had been called to the apostolate; for a time he kept all right in that state; finally, when he was appointed to keep the purse which contained the alms given by pious people to Our Lord, who was voluntarily poor, for the needy, and to supply His own wants, Judas began at first to be economical, and as he kept the purse always, to have a love for the gold that passed through his hands; thus he began to wish that the alms might increase daily, under the pretext of being better able to help the poor. In time he began to look on as his own property the purse that was entrusted to his care; here and there he extorted a trifle, and became a thief. The gospel tells us that he was a thief, because he imagined he had sustained a loss when St. Mary Magdalene poured the precious ointment on Our Lord's head at the feast in the house of the Pharisee. This loss he was determined to make good in some way or other, and as no other opportunity presented it self, his cursed greed of gold brought him so far that he offered to sell Jesus Christ, his Lord and Master, to His sworn enemies, the most innocent Lamb to those ravening wolves, that he might regain by the blood of Our Lord the gold he had lost. Thus did a once holy apostle of Christ by such a small beginning come to such a sad end, and sink to the lowest depths of wickedness.
Christian souls, even you who think you have made no small progress in virtue! is not this sad fall enough to make the blood freeze with horror in your veins? If Judas in the school of even Christ, under the teaching of that divine Master, and after having wrought many great miracles, was not confirmed in grace, or small faults assured of his salvation, which of us can promise himself security in his state of life? If this apostle, so richly endowed with graces by Christ, from a small beginning, and through what was at first not a sinful but a somewhat inordinate love of the alms entrusted to him, fell into such an abyss of wickedness, what sin, what fault, what imperfection, no matter how trifling it seems, can we have reason to despise, or to regard without the fear of suffering a similar fall? " Behold," says St. Ambrose, " if such men as the traitor Judas was fall, even the most heroic saints must tremble," and dread to fall in a similar manner. "He that thinketh himself to stand let him take heed lest he fall," says St. Paul, no doubt terrified by the fall of Judas, which had occurred shortly before; let him who believes himself in the grace of God guard himself carefully on all sides, lest he should lose that grace. Even a slight stumble, a trifling carelessness in the divine service may be the occasion of everlasting ruin. And no one need wonder at this who considers the frailty of our corrupt nature as it ought to be considered. For since it lost after sin the inclinations to good imprinted on it by our Creator, and by a sort of natural gravitation became inclined to all kinds of evil, it seems to me like a heavy stone that is hurled from the top of a high mountain into the valley beneath. A slight push is enough to start it, and its own weight will then hurry it down wards with increasing impetuosity, so that neither hedge nor ditch nor other impediment is able to stop its way. Sad experience, with how many and terrible examples dost thou not convince us of this truth! I will not refer to them now, because the case of Judas, since it is confirmed by the indubitable testimony of the gospel, is much more convincing than any other.
But you, thoughtless souls, who after some consolation experienced in prayer, or after having made some imaginary or real progress in virtue, not only do not fear a similar fall, but promise yourselves full security, and disregard apparently small faults, think seriously of the danger that threatens you, and how quickly from a small beginning you may fall into the depths of vice! For instance (to keep to the subject in hand that the fall of Judas supplies us with), how often does it not happen that even in just dealings with our neighbor we are too exact, and insist strictly on all our rights? Is that a sin? No, my dear brethren, not by any means; but it is a beginning, from which a great change may easily spring. For a too great exactness in this respect can easily influence the mind, so that blinded by self-love we seek all sorts of pretexts for exacting something small over what is our due when occasion offers. The injustice is still small, but it is on the increase, and these small things will bye-and-bye become great, and at last we go to receive Holy Communion with our souls filled with sacrilege and profanation of the holy sacraments, as our coffers are filled with unjustly-acquired gain. There we have a real Judas, who betrays Christ for the love of money, and, as St. Paul says, crucifies Him again. So it is with other things, too; a small disorder may be the cause of a great misfortune, and of final ruin. A vain thought not driven away at once, a careless look, a too confidential conversation with a person of the other sex, a chagrin taken too much to heart on account of some real or imaginary injury oh, how often have not such things been the beginning of the eternal loss of many a pious soul that now bewails its ruin with ineffectual tears! These things at first are mere trifles, small evils, but they soon grow to be great ones, and end in everlasting destruction. In the time of Elias the heavens were closed, so that no rain fell for the space of three years, and the earth could not produce any fruit on account of the long-continued drought. Suddenly, when King Achab was in the field, Elias warned him to ascend his chariot and save himself from the rain. What had the Prophet seen to be able to predict such a storm? The heavens were as clear as before; only that there appeared ascending from the sea a little cloud. But how quickly that small cloud became a great one, from which the rain poured down in torrents! " And while he turned himself this way and that, behold the heavens grew dark with clouds and wind, and there fell a great rain." Who could have expected such a change in so short a time? Be not surprised, my dear brethren; that cloud came out of the sea, where there is no lack of water; it drew to itself and spread abroad, while the wind helped it, until several clouds united together, and a heavy fall of rain was the result. That slight dissipation, that too great familiarity, that resentment of the supposed injury oh, they were indeed trifling at first, and hardly worth notice; little clouds! But (reflect on this, my dear brethren) what wicked inclinations and desires attach themselves to those small things in time! What a dangerous wind of diabolical suggestions seizes these clouds, and drives them about, with the fogs ascending from the heart, until at last the storm breaks; and how does it break? You, alas, know best! How often has not the heart been inundated with impure love, incontinence, implacable hatred, anger, and desire of revenge, and similar vices from such small beginnings!
Ah Christians, never let yourselves be so blinded as to think little of any carelessness or other fault, no matter how small it may appear in itself; never despise those small things, for it should be enough to deter us from them to remember that even those trifles can have such disastrous results, as was the case with Judas and so many others, and to us they may also be the occasion of eternal ruin. Therefore I conclude with the words of St. Paul: " See, therefore, brethren, how you walk circumspectly. Let us with all possible diligence see that we do not begin with small vices, like the traitor, and then we shall not have grave evils to dread. Unhappy Judas, if you had only used the same care and watchfulness to keep Christ in your heart that you recommended to the Jews who brought Him before the high- priest, "lay hold on Him, and lead Him away carefully," a thou wouldst never have lost the grace of Christ, nor thy apostolic dignity and eternal glory, nor wouldst thou have come to that misfortune in which thou now eternally bewailest thy carelessness. But why should I say any more of the fall and eternal reprobation of this accursed traitor, since there is no longer any remedy for them? You, Christian souls, who by sanctifying grace bear Christ about with you, ah, "lay hold on Him, and lead Him carefully "! Do not go into any dangerous occasion of losing His grace, no matter how remote the danger may seem. Avoid even the least negligence in the divine service; be on your guard against even the least faults, as far as you can, for although the grace of God may exist with them, yet they may interrupt the order of graces appointed for you by God, and thus be the cause of great sins, which will separate you from God and God from you forever. Often recall to mind that warning of Our Lord in the Apocalypse of St. John: " Hold fast that which thou hast, that no man may take thy crown," as Judas lost his, which was given to Matthias. Judas lost it by his carelessness and contempt for little faults. Matthias received it by his zealous co-operation with and use of the graces bestowed on him, assured himself of it by his watchfulness, and now glories in it forever in heaven. Let us use a like zeal, my dear brethren, and try with equal carefulness to ensure our salvation, and we shall have a similar exaltation in heaven with Matthias, and rejoice with him in glory. Amen.