SEVENTY-SECOND SERMON
ON ST. HELEN, FINDER OF THE CROSS OF CHRIST.
Subject.
1. St. Helen with great zeal sought for the cross of Christ, and found it, to her great joy; we, too, should seek and take up our cross as a sign of life. 2. St. Helen held the cross of Christ in constant honor and love; so should we, too, esteem our cross. Preached on the feast of St. Helen.
Text.
"She is a tree of life to them that lay hold on her; and he that shall retain her is blessed." (Prov. 3:18)
Introduction.
These words are applied by Solomon to wisdom; yet not without reason do SS. Ambrose, Bernard, John Damascene, and other holy Fathers apply them to the cross of Christ. " The cross is precious," says St. Bernard, "and is indeed the tree of life to those who lay hold of it. Oh, truly, it is a tree of life, since it alone was found worthy to bear the fruit of salvation! " For on what else but the cross is our hope of salvation founded? Happy city of Treves, that in preference to all other places hast brought forth and brought up her who found this precious treasure after it had lain hidden in the earth for a long time, who drew it out of the dust and held it up to receive the homage of the world! You understand already, my dear brethren, to whom I address this congratulation. This great festival brings before our minds a daughter of Treves who has brought more honor and glory to this city than all the heroes, princes, and kings who were born or have dwelt here, namely, that dear mother of Treves who now in heaven holds her careful and protecting hands over you, bearing the cross in her arms the great and holy Empress Helen. This is that blessed woman who has laid hold of the tree of life and retained it to her great good fortune. A renown for her than which none can be greater; a treasure for us and all Christians than which none can be more precious! more than happy city of Treves, if you, too, on this day lay hold of the cross, with your mother Helen, and retain it! This is to be the exhortation I shall give you now in this panegyric.
Plan of Discourse.
St. Helen sought the cross of Christ with the utmost eagerness, and laid hold of it with joy; we, too, should seek and lay hold of the cross as a sign of life; the first part. St. Helen, after having laid hold of the cross of Christ, retained it in constant love and esteem; so should we, too, honor our cross; the second part; from which will follow that we shall ~be fortunate, like Helen.
Do Thou, God, who wert nailed to that cross, grant us, by the intercession of Thy Mother, who stood by Thy cross, of the angels who wept by Thy cross, and of St. Helen, who honored Thy cross, the grace to lay hold of our cross with zeal and desire, and to bear and retain it with joy; that the words may be verified in us, too: " She is a tree of life to them that lay hold on her; and he that shall retain her is blessed."
To describe the zeal and joy with which the holy Empress Helen seized and embraced the cross of Christ I believe that all we need do is to remember the desire with which she longed for it, the care and trouble with which she sought it, the great difficulties she had to overcome for the sake of it. For the good that is gained by great desire and labor is always possessed with greater joy. With regard to her desire, it was so strong and in tense that she gave herself no rest, night or day, looked on the imperial palace as a gloomy prison and dungeon, the life at court as most wearisome, and all regal pleasures and delights as disgusting and bitter as long as that treasure was hidden from her. Where it was there was her heart also; thither were turned her thoughts; thither flew her sighs, and all the inclinations of her mind; she could not and would not be satisfied until her desire was fulfilled.
The trouble and difficulty she had in seeking it were so great and manifold that they might easily have deterred the bravest and most determined hero; nay, at first they were almost enough to make her despair of success. For the object of her search was a rough piece of timber, a tree that was in those days an object of horror to the world a mean, disgraceful cross, on which one had hung who was esteemed as a criminal and an object of execration. The place where this wood was sought for was in former days the place of public execution, but in her time a place of crime, devoted to the worship of false gods, inhabited by the worst enemies of the cross who, in order to blot out all recollection of it from the minds of men, had erected there a shameful statue of Venus, to whom they offered their impure sacrifices. The way leading to this place was hundreds of miles long; it led over the raging sea, over high and rugged mountains, beset with idolaters, and through Jewish countries in which there were a thousand dangers, discomforts, and annoyances to be met with. The hope of finding it was very small indeed; for it had already lain hidden in the earth for three hundred years, where it had been buried out of diabolical hatred and envy by the enemies of the Christian name; nor were there any means of finding out where it was concealed. Finally, who was the person who sought it? A weak woman, an empress brought up in luxury Helen, who was at the time in her eightieth year. But, in spite of all, she it was who brought her love and desire for the cross so far as to venture what no one had hitherto attempted. In spite of her advanced age she laid aside all imperial pomp and circumstance, left her home and father land, travelled by sea and land, dug through the mountain, and sought, found, laid hold of, and retained the desired wood of the cross.
Oh, who can describe the joy, the delight that then filled her heart; the consolation that inundated her spirit! sweet tears that were then forced from her eyes! love that made her spread out her arms to embrace the cross! who can measure you?
No one unless she who had experience of them. We can form some idea of this from the state of the poor man who has suddenly found a rich treasure; from the joy of the traveller who, after having undergone many dangers of shipwreck, has at last arrived in harbor; from the joy of him who, after long journeying to and fro, at last reaches his fatherland; from the delight experienced by the man who, after much labor and trouble, at last has in his hands the good he so longed for. I leave all this to your own pleasing meditations, and go on to the moral lesson.
My dear brethren, the cross is found; why, then, have I urged you all, in my Plan of Discourse, to seek it with Helen? Why run and toil in search of what lies before us? I am not now speaking of the material cross on which Our Lord died, but of another, which most people hate even more than the Jews and heathens hated that of Christ of one, the bare name of which excites horror and loathing; of one that, as St. Bernard says, is the most terrible of all things to men; of a sign, namely, that is not less contradicted than the cross of Christ: namely, the cross that is made for us by everything that displeases and troubles us; in a word, I mean the trials and contradictions of the world, which are usually called crosses. It seems to me that 1 hear myself interrupted by the question: What! shall we seek such crosses with desire? Alas, they come to us daily of their own accord! We need not, like Helen, go long journeys in search of them, nor cross the sea, nor dig in the earth for them; they are with us, although we have not sought them. Sickness and bodily pain, trouble and anguish of mind, poverty and temporal misfortunes, loss of good name by detraction and calumny, and many other crosses of the kind are guests that come uninvited, that we must daily behold with weeping eyes, and bear with sweating hands, and grieve for with sorrowing hearts. Would that we could only free ourselves from them! How easy it is to find them! So it is, my dear brethren, and I acknowledge such to be the truth. What else have we to expect in this miserable, sorrowful life of ours? And I am of the opinion that few are free from these trials. We know only too well by experience, and are sure of what Thomas a Kempis says in that golden book of his on the Imitation of Christ, which I advise all who seek comfort in their afflictions to read daily: "All our mortal life is filled with miseries, and is marked round about by crosses." There are few who have not something to suffer and a cross to bear. Many a one laughs outwardly, yet he is wanting in something where we least suspect. Even that most fortunate of men, Solomon, who was, as it were, sunk in a sea of all imaginable pleasures, finds affliction of spirit, as he himself confesses: "I saw in all things vanity and vexation of mind." Therefore I will lose no more time in recommending you to seek the cross in sorrow.
Otherwise, if perhaps you have none to bear, I should set before you the example of those holy souls who vied with Helen in seeking troubles and trials with the greatest desire, who prayed for them most fervently, and were almost displeased when they delayed to come, or did not remain long; who went to meet pain, and complained of those who prevented them from suffering; who, as St. Gregory testifies, looked on temporal prosperity and wealth as an evil sign. I should wish to let you hear the sighs of Pope Innocent I., who, although he was full from head to foot of ulcers and sores sent him from heaven, cried out: my God, send me worse and more painful sicknesses, if Thou wilt only grant me grace to bear them! I should like to tell you of the desire of the holy martyr Ignatius to be eaten up by the lions and tigers: Ye wild beasts, when shall I belong to you? If you refuse to seize me I shall force you to do so, and shall excite all your rage against me; I will rush upon you, that you may open your mouths to devour me; and if you decline, I myself will open your jaws, and will put my head between them, that you may not spare me. I should like to describe for you the cries with which the holy Levite St. Lawrence ran after the holy martyr Xystus, desiring to be beheaded and slaughtered for the honor of Christ; the prayer of that pious old man, of whom Hermetius writes that every year he was visited by grievous trials, but one year passing by in which he had not much to suffer, he complained of it to the Lord in bitterness of heart, saying: my God, what sin have I committed that Thou hast no mercy on me this year? All these people knew well what a great treasure is hidden under the cross, under trials; therefore they were so eager in seeking and desiring them.
But up to this we have not been in need of forming such desires! We have crosses enough! All the better, then! Let us
rejoice with David: "I met with trouble and sorrow." Lay
hold on them with courage; take up your cross bravely: "It is
a tree of life to them that lay hold on it." Have you never remarked when a ship strikes on a rock in mid-stream how it is
broken into pieces, and the unfortunates who are on board have
nothing but a plank to trust their lives to? What a noise they
make! How they fight and quarrel about the possession of the
plank! Each one tries to have it for himself. Why? Because
it is a means of saving his life. Such is the light in which we
should consider the trials and contradictions of the world; for
by them we, after that sad shipwreck of original sin, can gain
eternal life. " No one," says St. Augustine, " can cross the sea
of this world unless he is carried by the cross." And in an
other place: " It is necessary that they for whom eternal life is
prepared should be chastened here." According to the teaching of all the holy Fathers, the cross is the surest ladder to bring
us to heaven, the key which will open the door thereof to us.
The cross is the sign that God has given to all whom He loves
and has selected for eternal life: "For whom the Lord loveth
He chastiseth; and as a father in the son He pleaseth Himself."
I will not dwell longer on the proof of this, as I have already
spoken about it sufficiently. Once for all it is and must be true,
as the God of truth Himself says in words I have often quoted
for you: "Through many tribulations we must enter into the
kingdom of God." Happy they who acknowledge this truth
and lay it to heart!
My dear brethren, what, then, shall we do? Shall we look with weeping eyes and saddened thoughts on the cross that we have daily to bear, and that the well-meaning providence of God has sent us? Or shall we not rather take it up eagerly, and retain it as our own property, and not try to pass it on to others, or to leave the desire of it to them? Do we not love eternal life? If so, shall we cast from us the tree of life? If we reject this ladder we shall never be able to ascend into heaven. If we throw away this key we shall never be able to open the door of the heavenly mansions. It is the tree of life to them that lay hold on it; not to those who merely find it, that is, contemplate it outwardly, but to those who take it up. But why should I go to such lengths to persuade you of this? It seems to me that you interrupt me again: Take up what? you ask; bear what? If that be all that is necessary, we are sure of eternal life! Truly, we must take up our cross; we are compelled to do it, whether we like or not! We cannot cast away the heavy wood; it lays on our shoulders always; we feel only too keenly how hard it presses. Again I believe you. But is that enough for your eternal happiness? No; something more is required: "He that shall retain her is blessed," says the Holy Ghost in the words of my text; and I add that he who shall retain the cross shall be eternally happy.
Second Part.
St. Helen was not satisfied with finding the cross of Christ, nor with laying hold of and taking it up; she always held it in love and veneration, and, according to St. Paulinus, spent all her treasures in building a costly temple in which to preserve it; she spread the veneration of it throughout the world, and placed all her happiness, joy, and fame in the possession of it and in the homage she and all Christians paid it, saying with St. Paul: "God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ; " and the same words are read in the Introit of the Mass of this feast in honor of St. Helen.
Do not flatter yourselves, then, afflicted Christians, if you have laid hold of the cross and suffering, or rather, if the cross has found you and is weighing you down! Trials are indeed the tree of life to those who lay hold on them, that is, to those who are visited by them; for they have in them a salutary means of gaining eternal life. But how can the means help one if he does not keep and use it as he ought? What would it help you, if you have suffered shipwreck, for one to throw you a plank if you do not hold fast to it with both arms? You will certainly go to the bottom as well, nay, quicker with it than without it unless you lay hold of it properly. Take a piece of bread in your hand; look at it well; you have there something that can preserve your life; but if you only look at it, and do not eat it, of what good to you will it be? In spite of the bread you will have to suffer hunger.
So, too, how can it help you to be tried in various ways if you
cry out and complain? for then you merely consider the outward appearance of trials; you look on them as intolerable; they
trouble and displease you; but you do not use the cross in the
proper manner for the good of your soul. In that way it will be
of as much good to you as the blows are to the stubborn horse
that kicks against them; or as the stones thrown at the barking
dog, that shows his teeth, and barks back at them; or as the cross
was to the wicked thief on Calvary, who had to hang on it
against his will, and died in despair. It is the tree of life to them
that lay hold on it, and he that shall retain it is blessed. The
cross must, after the example of St. Helen, be held in honor,
that is, it must be accepted from the hand of God with resignation; it must be kept willingly, readily, constantly, acknowledging that it is for us the surest and best means of salvation;
it must be borne with pleasure, joy, delight, and exultation, or,
if that is not possible, at least with Christian patience, with resignation of our will to the holy will of God.
Oh, now we have come to where the greatest fault lies in us! Most people are burdened with the cross, but, alas! how few, how few there are who hold it in honor as we have said, and thus gain their souls salvation! For this reason, perhaps, the Holy Ghost speaks of those who lay hold of it in the plural, saying: " Them that lay hold on her," while in the following clause He speaks of but one: " He that shall retain her is blessed; " thus showing the small number of those who bear their crosses, as they ought willingly and contentedly. What else is the meaning of that inordinate sorrow, that crying and lamenting that go so far beyond the limits of decency, those despairing thoughts and ideas, those impatient words, sighs, curses, cries, that murmuring and complaining against, as they say, the pitiless Heaven, those imprecations that fall from many who are in affliction? What else but that they bear their trials unwillingly, and because they cannot help themselves, and that if they could they would keep the cross at a great distance. They are like the wheels of a wagon that always keep on creaking and rattling. Is not this a state of things that we may well deplore and bewail? unhappy and thrice miserable mortals! To have to suffer, and to suffer without merit or profit! To have to suffer, and to suffer without human or divine consolation! To have to suffer, and in suffering only to increase one's sorrow! To have to suffer, and often by the suffering that was intended as a means of gaining heaven to condemn one's self to hell! A consideration that is enough to make me shed hitter tears when it occurs to my mind. holy souls, if we were only as enlightened as you, how far different the use we should make of our crosses, and with what pleasure, joy, and love we should lay hold of and embrace them!
Yet I must acknowledge that there are many who willingly take up the cross, who retain and bear it with joy; not, however, every cross, but only that which they wish to bear; not that which God desires to send them, according to their state, as St. Augustine beautifully remarks, speaking of the words of the psalm I have quoted for you, " I met with trouble and sorrow," " There is," he says, "one kind of trouble that you find your self; another that finds you." The trouble that you find your self, that is, the mortifications that many practise voluntarily, out of devotion and the love of God, or the suffering that suits their temperament, they bear readily; but other trials that find them, that is, those misfortunes that God sends, that are not according to their nature and inclination, they can and will not bear; in such trials they show neither patience nor joy nor contentment! Many a woman, hearing others complain of losses, will say: Oh, I should care little for that if I only had my husband still with me; but he is dead, and I am desolate; that I cannot endure. Another says: I could indeed endure that; but this domestic trial, this secret poverty that presses so hard on my children and myself is intolerable! A third: Things might go as they will if I were only quit of this pain, if I only had my health! A fourth: I can bear anything but an attack on my honor; that I cannot stand! A fifth: I do not mind what people say of me, as a general rule; but I cannot understand why so-and- so should plague me to such an extent. The crosses of others appear light to us; but when our own shoe pinches, that is, when we have the cross on our shoulders, we feel it sharply enough. People are often seen going early in the morning and late in the evening to church, through rain and snow, and cold and heat, to assist at public devotions; they spend hours on their knees, watch, pray, and fast often, sleep on the bare ground, emaciate and chastise their bodies, and are heard to cry out with Peter: Lord, I am ready to go even to death with Thee. If you ask them why do they practise such austerities they have a beautiful answer ready: Oh! they will exclaim, we must suffer some thing for God's sake; heaven suffers violence; the door leading into it is narrow! There is the cross that one finds himself. Truly, it is a practice that is very laudable, meritorious, and pleasing to God thus to deny one's self. Meanwhile something unforeseen happens to those who are thus austere with them selves; a difficulty or an annoyance comes to them from another; a word is spoken that they do not like; and at once all is upset; patience is changed into discontent, joy into anger and displeasure. But what is the matter? We must suffer something for God's sake! Heaven suffers violence! Yes, but that is quite another matter! What has happened now is more than I can bear! So that in some cases the Lord should ask us beforehand what kind of a cross is most pleasing to us! But not in this does true virtue consist; the great God must not be dictated to; not what we will, but what is pleasing to Him, whatever be its name, we should bear with patience and contentment, and bear it as long as He wills. He is blessed who thus retains his cross. " My brethren," says the apostle St. James, "count it all joy when you shall fall into divers temptations." Rejoice, not only when you fall into this or that trial, but when all sorts of troubles come upon you.
Oh, what happiness the cross she found and honored brought to our St. Helen! It was not the imperial crown but that cross that made her glorious and illustrious before the whole world. And what happiness did she not find by its means in the next life! "What reward, "asks St. Augustine, "will God give to His faithful servant who gave such honor to the instrument of His death? " My dear brethren, how happy we, too, shall be nay, how happy we are already, if we always honor our crosses! For a time, but how short a time! we shall be miserable and suffering in the eyes of the world; but in the sight of God we shall be as dear children who do Him the greatest honor by bearing His cross, and stand high in His grace and favor. And what happiness will follow in a long eternity! Then we shall know that what we have to suffer here is nothing, as the Apostle says: " The sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come that shall be revealed in us." Then we shall know what a grievous injustice we have done the Lord - nay, even ourselves, when we refused and rejected the cross.
p. 410 omitted
In a word, every annoyance disturbed me, made my mind uneasy, and my will rebellions; I have avoided the cross as the greatest evil in the world, although I should have rejoiced at it as tho chief proof of Thy love, and the best means of increasing my glory in heaven. Oh, what a mistake have made! how many useless tears I have shed!
In future, O Lord, will make a more sensible use of the cross, I will let those weep who do not hold with Thee; I will let those fear and dread who have everything they wish for here below; but I will rejoice that by the sign of the cross Thou hast registered me in the number of Thy dear children in the Hook of Life. I now offer myself to Thee, ready to bear any cross; T will not refuse any; behold, my hands are stretched out in readiness to seize tho cross; my arms are open to embrace it; my shoulders are bent to carry it, as Thou wilt lay it on me. till the end, with joy, or at least with patience. And if perchance no cross comes in my way, like St. Melon will seek it. will seek it in tho troubles of my daily business, which I will always perform with u good intention in Thy honor; I will seek it in others, whose faults will hour with patience and charity; I will seek it in my self, in my own inclinations and passions, which I will constantly mortify Mini restrain, that they may not hinder me from following perfectly Thy divine law; that thus I may find the tree of life, retain it till death, and. with the holy mother of Troves, St. Melon, attain to the possession of that eternal happiness promised by Our Lord to those who seek the cross and retain it. Amen.