FIFTY-SIXTH SERMON
ON ST. SEBASTIAN AS A PROTECTOR AGAINST THE PLAGUE
Subject.
St. Sebastian was always surrounded by the plague, but was never touched by it. Preached on the feast of St. Sebastian, Martyr.
Text.
" Nor sat in the chair of pestilence." (Ps 1:1)
Introduction.
What is the reason that of all the saints of God and intercessors in heaven St. Sebastian is especially appealed to and honored as a patron and protector against pestilence? If I could take in the whole world at a glance, I should need but one look to be able to say with truth: The whole Christian world honors and praises St. Sebastian. Most countries of Europe seem to have vied with each other to obtain a portion of his relics. The chief cities, such as Malaga, Seville, Compostella in Spain; Rome, Milan, Capua in Italy; Paris, Soissons, Toulouse, and countless other places in France; Antwerp, Brussels, Dornick, Utrecht in the Netherlands; Munich, Ebersberg, Brunswick, Wesel, Cologne in Germany, and this ancient city of ours, Treves, boast of possessing a part of his relics, which they regard as an invaluable treasure. In most parts of Christendom, as the Bollandists say, this day is held as a feast, and not profaned by servile works. Nay, there is hardly a Catholic town in the world in which there is not a church, an altar, a chapel, or an image dedicated to St. Sebastian, and placed as a sign of public devotion, either through gratitude for having been freed from pestilence through his inter cession, or through a devout confidence of future help from him if required. Whence, I ask, comes this so general devotion to and trust in this Saint? Some attribute the reason to his martyrdom, and say that God has appointed him as a special patron against the plague because he was shot through with arrows, and, generally speaking, in the Holy Scriptures by arrows are understood pestilences and contagious diseases, according to the threat uttered by the Lord: "Except you will be converted, He will brandish His sword; He hath bent His bow, and made it ready, and in it He hath prepared the instruments of death; He hath made ready His arrows for them that burn." My dear brethren, when I consider the life of St. Sebastian I seem to behold that wonderful man whom David praises so highly, and calls blessed, in the first psalm: " Blessed is the man who hath not sat in the chair of pestilence." Blessed is the man who, though always in the very midst of the plague, yet was never affected by it, so that now he is able to save others from it even after his own death. This is what I now mean to show in this brief panegyric, to his honor and for the increase of the confraternity established under his patronage.
Plan of Discourse.
St. Sebastian was always surrounded by the plague, but was never harmed by it; such is the whole subject.
God, who art wonderful in Thy saints, while we admire Thy great servant Sebastian, strengthen us with Thy grace, that we may imitate him as far as we can, and keep ourselves unharmed by any plague, especially that most dangerous plague of the soul! This we ask of Thee through the intercession of St. Sebastian, and through that of Mary, the Queen of martyrs, and of all the holy angels. Amen.
To touch pitch and not be defiled; to live in the midst of sin, and yet remain free from sin, on the one hand, and on the other, to live in the midst of a pestilence, and not be harmed by it, are both wonderful things. And, according to the words of my text, the Prophet does not make any distinction between them: "Blessed is the man," he says, " who hath not walked in the council of the ungodly, nor stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the chair of pestilence." For as the plague, once it has fixed itself anywhere, poisons the surrounding air which is breathed by those who trust themselves too close to it, so that in the time of pestilence houses are generally closed, and those who have already caught the sickness are, as it were, buried alive, and not allowed to hold any communication with others, so we learn by sad experience that the wicked, especially when by their numbers they have no punishment to fear in a community, nor shame to deter them the wicked spread abroad the poison of their vices on all who come too near to them. " With the perverse thou wilt be perverted," says God by the Psalmist; and with the sinner thou wilt become a sinner. Therefore the Wise Man often and emphatically warns us against bad company: " My son, if sinners shall entice thee, consent not to them," he says in the Proverbs; " my son, walk not thou with them; restrain thy foot from their paths." For he who touches pitch will be denied by it; he who associates with the wicked will put on wickedness as a garment. This is the reason of that great and never to be sufficiently praised care of good parents, who are concerned for the eternal salvation of their children, and who use every effort to keep them from bad and dangerous company, lest they should learn evil, and be corrupted by the wickedness of others. Unhappy souls who put themselves into such danger without necessity!
Lamentable the state of those who have to live with the wicked! Yet at the same time wonderful the power of divine grace, which can keep the servant of God innocent, holy, and pure in the midst of vice! Tobias was holy, but his holiness is all the more admirable because he was the only one among all his fellow-captives who remained faithful to the true God. When all went to the golden calves ... he alone fled the company of all, and went to Jerusalem, to the temple of the Lord, and there adored the Lord God of Israel." Job was holy and a miracle of holiness; there was not his equal to be found in the whole world, as the Almighty said of him. But why? Hear his own answer: " I was the brother of dragons, and companion of ostriches." How so? Was Job obliged to live among wild animals? No; by the dragons and ostriches he means the wicked whom he had to associate with, as the Glossa says: " He was good among the wicked;" he was pious among sinners, which is as rare as it is admirable.
My dear brethren, do you wish to know what a great saint
I speak of when I name St. Sebastian? Do you wish to have a
short sketch of the life he led before his martyrdom? Then I will allow St. Ambrose, who has written of him at length, to speak in my place. " Sebastian," he says, " was a most perfect Christian; a true worshipper of God; a man of God; a man of great prudence; true in his words, just in his judgments. He was conspicuous for his goodness. He was illustrious in all things for the gravity of his manners. He was a light in darkness." Such are the praises given to our Saint by the Doctor of the Church. He was seen, surrounded by heavenly light, and accompanied by seven angels, when once trying to confirm the tottering faith of some Christians. A dumb man to whom he restored the gift of speech said to him: "Thou art blessed, and blessed is the word of thy mouth." The heathens whom he converted knelt before him in admiration of his sanctity. Pope Caius gave him the glorious title of Defender of the Church. Thus far St. Ambrose, as we read in the Bollandists.
Glorious praise indeed, my dear brethren! But you will be much more surprised when you hear in what part of the world, what time, under what circumstances, amongst what people Sebastian won that name for holiness. Oh, ye saintly confessors, hermits, founders of Orders! the whole world stands justly amazed at and is filled with reverence for you and the lives you led when it considers the deep humility with which you thought yourselves unworthy of living on earth, and looked on and publicly professed yourselves as deserving to be thought the worst of sinners; it wonders when it considers your voluntary poverty, which induced you to leave all house and home for the sake of God and heaven; your chastity, which made you like angels rather than men; your patience in bearing so many injuries and trials, and in desiring and praying for more and more crosses, as if they were so many joys and delights; your temperance, which barely permitted you to take enough food and drink to preserve your lives; your constant mortification and self-denial, with which you tortured and chastised yourselves; the rods and scourges with which you punished your bodies; the hot tears that the love of God drew from your eyes amid unceasing watching, prayer, and meditation! True it is you were great saints, whom we are too weak and feeble to imitate, so that we can only praise the Almighty who is so wonderful in His saints! Yet it was in the gloomy forest, in the caves of the mountains, in the holes of the earth, in the hidden corners and cells of convents that you led such lives, places closed to most of the dangers and occasions of sin; places that help virtue and holiness. It is no great wonder that a beautiful garden should bring forth rare and splendid flowers, and form an agreeable object for the eye to rest on; but to see a rare exotic growing in stony, neglected ground not only excites our admiration, but our surprise as well. What a wonderful effect then, God, Thy powerful grace had in and on Thy servant Sebastian!
Where, my dear brethren, did he become holy, and indeed so holy? At court I say it again, at court he led that holy life. If I said at the court of a Christian king you would still perhaps have reason enough to be surprised; for who is ever sent to court to learn to practise the Christian virtues? What care and diligence are not required to preserve those virtues there, no matter how well grounded in them one may be! Truly, it is a rare virtue not to be proud in the midst of honors, and to remain small and lowly in one's own eyes; to keep the heart pure and untainted amongst all sorts of pleasures and delights of the senses, and in the midst of a thousand dangerous objects arid allurements; to avoid avarice in the midst of riches; to live temperately in the midst of abundance; not to offend Christian charity by even an unkind thought, and never to utter a word of detraction in the midst of envious rivals; not to lose the freedom of the children of God in the midst of the freedom of a vain life; to watch day and night for the favor of a man, and still not to neglect the service of God; that, I say, requires a rare and well-founded virtue. Who was with the princes of the people, and did the justices of the Lord; " such was the greatest praise that Moses, when at the point of death, gave to Gad. Meanwhile I do not and can not deny that pious and zealous servants of God have been found in Christian courts. And if we could see everything, we should in our own days have to admire many a beautiful and wonderful virtue amongst courtiers that they show not by outward sign; and under many a silken garment, embroidered with gold, we should find a hair-shirt. So true it is that in every state of life one can live in a Christian, holy, and edifying manner.
But what was the court in which Sebastian attained to such a high degree of sanctity? It was one that was sunk in the poisonous filth of all wickedness, a cesspool of vice, where idolatry, bestial impurity, cruelty, witchcraft showed themselves publicly, namely, in the court of a heathen emperor, the bloodthirsty tyrant Diocletian. There, among the enemies of Christ, Sebastian reached the summit of Christian perfection, and, what is still more surprising, he was in the same place raised above others in a profession, a state of life that brought him constantly under the emperor's eyes, so that he had to hide his faith and conceal his virtues from his imperial master; for he was appointed captain of the imperial guards, according to the words of St. Ambrose: "The soldiers reverenced him as a father, and all the chief men of the palace held him in the highest esteem." And when Diocletian found out that Sebastian was a Christian, he complained to him in the following words: " I have always placed you among the chief men of my court; and you, to the shame of the gods, have always kept concealed till now what you really are." Truly, my dear brethren, it was a wonderful thing in such circumstances and for so many years to be able to conceal his faith and holiness of life, so that he escaped the observation of the soldiers, the courtiers, and even of the emperor himself!
If he might have dared to acknowledge his religion publicly, we might have less difficulty in understanding how he, tolerated in the midst of idolaters, rendered such faithful and constant service to the true God. But as things were, this holiness of life had to contend with unceasing contradictions. He had to seem outwardly different to what he really was inwardly. Who would not have sworn that Sebastian, the intimate friend of Diocletian, was consequently of the same turn of mind as his master; that he was a defender of false gods, an enemy and persecutor of the true faith? He was always with the emperor; he assisted at the imperial banquets, at the shows in the amphitheatre, at the public dances, at the chase in the fields, at the gladiatorial combats, at the torturing of the Christians, nay, at the hellish sacrifices in the temples of the gods, without ever giving the least sign of out ward adoration, which he could not do in conscience, and without ever detaching his heart for a moment from the true God in heaven. He held daily intercourse with heathens, and at the same time encouraged and strengthened by his help and advice the hidden Christians who were entrusted to his care.
With what secret art he used to carry on two such offices that were diametrically opposed to each other I cannot understand. I imagine I see in him that holy man of the Old Testament, Abdias the Prophet, of whom we read in the Third Book of Kings, Achab, that most wicked king, persecuted with the utmost fury the Prophet Elias and all other Israelites who adhered to the worship of the true God. The governor of this king's house was Abdias, of whom the Scripture says: "Abdias feared the Lord very much." While the persecution lasted he went to the caves in which the prophets, a hundred in number, were hidden, and brought them food every day with his own hand: When Jezabel killed the prophets of the Lord, he took a hundred prophets, and hid them by fifty and fifty in caves, and fed them with bread and water." Meanwhile Achab thought he had no better helper in his wicked designs, no more earnest persecutor of the prophets than the same Abdias. Sebastian used the same art at the court of Diocletian. His sole reason for serving so faithfully a heathen master was that he might be able to encourage others in the worship and service of the true God. It was not the dread of torments, nor the fear of losing his office, his liberty, or his life that induced him to conceal for such a long time his name of Christian under the garb of a courtier and captain; for he afterwards heroically gave proof to the contrary; but it was rather the desire to gain many souls to Christ that by divine inspiration led him to adopt that career, as the author of his Life says: "That he might strengthen the minds of those Christians whom he saw about to give way under torture, and might give to God the souls that the devil was trying to take from him." The favor he enjoyed with the emperor and the facility of approaching him at any moment served Sebastian as a sure means of detecting his plans and unveiling his craft, so that he had time to warn the Christians either to hide, or to fly elsewhere, or to prepare for martyrdom. The money and rich salary he received yearly went to found a house of refuge for poor and needy Christians; his diligent attendance at court every day served to conceal the employment in which he spent his nights, attending on the sick, visiting prisoners, consoling the afflicted, and comforting the wavering. I wish I had a little of the eloquence with which he described the shortness of life, the vanity of the world, the pains of hell, the joys of heaven, in order to keep firm in the faith those who were beginning to vacillate through fear of torture. His exhortations and sermons may be read in the Bollandists by any one who wishes.
" Nor sat in the chair of pestilence." Thus Sebastian lived in the midst of the plague, nay, at the very fountain-head of it, and yet was not hurt by the poison; he lived in the midst of vice and danger, and yet knew how to lead a holy and pious life; until at last he betrayed himself, openly confessed what he was, and who the master was whom he served under the pretext of attending on an earthly lord, and, unmoved by the threats, promises, and caresses of the emperor who loved him so much, he was shot with arrows by his own soldiers, and at last beaten to death with clubs, thus gaining the crown of martyrdom.
Hadst thou lived in his time, Moses, what wouldst thou have thought of a prodigy that seemed impossible to thee? When King Pharao said to thee, "Go, and sacrifice to your God in this land," no, thou didst answer at once: "It cannot be so;" that cannot be done in this country, in the midst of idolaters. Why can it not be done? Behold the man who was able to do that wonderful thing! See Sebastian, in the midst of a people far worse than the Egyptians of old, worshipping the true God, offering Him sacrifice, and serving Him faithfully! " If we kill those things which the Egyptians worship in their presence, they will stone us; " this was the excuse thou madest to Pharao. Such a thought does not disturb Sebastian in the least. Let who will cast stones or shoot arrows at him, he still offers sacrifice in the midst of Egyptians, boldly and confidently adoring the true God, offering to Him his freedom, comfort, honor, and high position, the favor and good will of the emperor, his property, his life, and everything the heathens adored as their gods. What wonder, then, that Sebastian now enjoys in heaven such great and mighty power, especially as a patron and protector against pestilence, who while he was on earth remained free from all contagion in the midst of the most dangerous of all pestilences, that is, who became a saint in the midst of sinners!
But, my dear Brethren, have we assembled here to-day only to wonder at the extraordinary holiness of our Saint? Or is that altar set up in the church, and do the members of the sodality come here every Wednesday only to honor their patron with the hope of being freed from sickness and other temporal calamities by his intercession? It is true that this intention and custom are holy, and may eternal joy be the lot of those who commenced it! Happiness and salvation to all who try to further the sodality and spread it more and more! But of what advantage will it be to the honor and glory of Sebastian if we are only admirers of his holy life? And what will it help ourselves if, freed from temporal pestilence by his prayers, we are infected with a spiritual poison, and live in sin? No; it is a great error to imagine that saints are appointed protectors of a town only to free the inhabitants from temporal evils! The chief object of Our Lord in giving us such patrons is that we may imitate their lives, their virtues and holiness, and thus make ourselves more worthy of their patronage.
Must we, then, live like St. Sebastian in the midst of dangers and occasions of sin? Oh, no! such is not my meaning. Let him venture to do that who has a well-grounded virtue, a zeal for the honor of God and the salvation of souls, and an inspiration of the Holy Ghost, like Sebastian, and who is moreover situated in similar circumstances. Ah, would to God that in the midst of the clear light of the truth, where there is no persecution to fear, no plans to be secretly cogitated in order to enable us to practise our religion and do good; where we have so many examples of piety to encourage us would to God that we were not often cold and tepid in the divine service, that we did not live as heathens in the midst of Christians! "Flee ye from the midst of Babylon," says the Lord to us by the Prophet, "and let every one save his own life." Fly, as well as you can, the occasions of sin, and let every one use all diligence to save his precious, his only, his immortal soul! And if we cannot always avoid all dangers (truly, there are enough of them in every state of life!), then at least we should not deliberately seek them. Let us take the shield with which Sebastian defended himself in the midst of the wicked, namely, the fear and zealous love of God; let us dread sin above all things as we should the plague, and love God always above all; then we shall be able to appear before the altar of our Saint with greater devotion, explain to him our wants with more confidence, and more surely expect his help if we not only admire his holy life, but try to imitate it as far as we can. Amen.