TENTH SERMON.
ON THE REMORSE OF THE DYING ON ACCOUNT OF TIME LOST THROUGH IDLENESS.
Subject.
The time lost in idleness or useless occupations will be a sore thorn in the side of the dying.—Preached on the nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost.
Text.
Illi autem neglexerunt, et abierunt alius in villam suam, alius vero ad negotiationem suam.—Matt. xxii. 5.
“But they neglected, and went their ways, one to his farm, and another to his merchandise.”
Introduction.
Such is the way of the world. The heavenly Father has prepared in His kingdom for His only-begotten Son a marriage-feast, to which He has invited all men, that they may share with Him in all imaginable joys; for as far as He is concerned the Almighty God sincerely wishes all men to be saved. But what occurs? “He sent his servants to call them that were invited to the marriage: and they would not come.” That is, there are some who do not desire to go to heaven; for of their own accord they hasten to hell, by spending their time in sin and vice. Others are careless about heaven: “But they neglected, and went their ways, one to his farm, and another to his merchandise.” These are the idle; and we have seen last Sunday that they deserve to be taken out of the world by a premature death. These people would indeed willingly appear at the heavenly marriage-feast; but they do not wish to put themselves to any trouble about it, since they spend the precious time given them by God for the sole purpose of serving Him and gaining heaven, in idleness or in useless occupations, or in mere temporal cares, without directing their intention to God or to the salvation of their souls. And they think so little of it all! But their thoughts about the matter will be very different when they come to the end of their lives. Alas! what remorse, fear, and despair will then be theirs, as I now proceed to show.
Plan of Discourse.
The time lost in idleness or useless occupations will be a sore thorn in the side of the dying: such is the whole subject. That we may not feel this thorn when it is too late to amend, let us use the present time for the salvation of our souls. Such shall be the conclusion.
Grant us Thy grace thereto, O Lord! We ask it of Thee through the intercession of Mary and of our holy guardian angels.
The peasant who leaves his land until led has just reason for regret at harvest time. The most pleasant time of the year for peasants is generally harvest time, when they gather in with joy and gladness the fruits of their toil and labor. The greatest loss they can suffer in temporal things, the one which causes them most sorrow and anxiety, is an unfruitful year, which robs them of all they hoped to gain by unremitting industry. But even under that trial pious Christians are not without consolation. What matter? they say; it is not our fault; we have done our best; the Lord of heaven, who alone can give the increase to the seeds we have planted, has so willed it, and this year has been pleased in His all-just and all-wise decrees to give us nothing. May His holy will be done! May the name of the Lord be praised and blessed under all circumstances! But suppose, my dear brethren, that one who has much land in his possession neglects to till it through sheer laziness; what must be his feelings when at harvest time he sees his neighbors busy mowing and bringing home their crops, while he has not even a straw that he can call his own? Should not the sight cause him sorrow and pain?
And is almost in despair when be sees his neighbors reap abundantly. And that all the more if the harvest has been an unusually plentiful one; such as we read of in Tartary, where one single seed produces five hundred, and the crops are so abundant that there are not barns enough to hold them, so that a great part of them must be allowed to lie on the fields for the birds and beasts. Or as Francis Lopez tells us of India; where in a certain province the harvest was so great in one year that two or three hundred fruitful ears of corn grew from a single seed. What state the lazy peasant would be in if he saw all this! Unhappy man that I am, he would say; what have I done! What have I not lost through my idleness! In one year I might have become rich without any more trouble than what it would cost to scatter a few handfuls of seed, for which I might now bring many hundred bushels home, so that I should have had enough to support myself and my family for years. Now I alone, amongst all the neighbors, must go away empty handed, and see all the others grow rich, while I have nothing. So might that man complain under such circumstances, although his condition is not by any means a desperate one, since he can make up by increased diligence next year what he lost. How would it be with him if he had not a single grain of seed, nor any credit or other means of procuring any, so that he has no prospect before him but perishing of hunger with all his family? And that because he neglected to cultivate his land, because he was unwilling to work! How great would not be his remorse, his sorrow, nay, his despair?
The time of this life is given to us as the seed of eternity. My dear brethren, now to my subject; “the present time,” says St. Jerome, “is the time for sowing;”[1] the time that God has given us to work out our salvation. The seed is the use we make of that time; “the seed of eternity,”[2] as St. Bernard calls it. The fruit cannot be hindered in its growth by bad seasons, heat or cold, rain or inundation, wind or weather, worm or insect. It all depends on how we sow the seed, that is, employ our time.
That should bear everlasting fruit. If it is well sown, if our time is well employed, what fruit may we expect? A hundred bushels perhaps from a single grain? My meaning is: suppose, O mortal, that but one moment is granted you in this life, how much do you think you can gain by it, short as it is? A hundred thousand acres of land? That would be a great deal to your mind, and at that rate you would become rich in a quarter of an hour. But after all it is nothing; it would be altogether too trifling a gain from such precious seed as a moment of time. For you must look far higher, and expect much more. What then? A kingdom? No; more than that. The whole world with all its wealth and riches? Ah, if you had gained it and nothing more by your one moment of time, you would have reason to complain and call yourself foolish for not having employed your time better. For everything that passes with time is not worth time. Tell us, O holy Apostle St. Paul, what thou thinkest of the value of time. “That which is at present momentary and light of our tribulation, worketh for us above measure exceedingly an eternal weight of glory.”[3] This one moment produces for us an everlasting weight of glory, an eternity of joys, the possession and enjoyment of an infinite Good; such is the fruit of a moment of well-spent time. I take as witnesses to the truth of this all those who are now happy in heaven. A momentary good thought, a single word, a work directed to the honor and glory of God, an act of patience and mortification, of repentance, of the love of God, such was the seed they sowed; an eternal crown of glory, a superabundance of delights, an everlasting dwelling in heaven, an infinite Good whom they will possess forever; such is the fruit they have reaped from it. The same fruit, my dear brethren, we may gather and heap up every moment of our lives if we only wish.
A great blessing for us to use this time well. What consolation and happiness for one who, being in the state of grace, labors diligently for the good of his soul! If the joy of the blessed in heaven could be disturbed by any feeling of remorse or regret, it would be at the thought of having lost but a single moment while on earth by not devoting it to the service of God; and nowhere would there be greater unrest than in heaven, through the desire all its inhabitants would have for a little more time on earth in order to gain more glory even by suffering all conceivable torments. Yes, holy souls, if you were not satisfied with the will of God, you would be capable of a feeling of envy in that place where charity is to be found in perfection; you would envy our good fortune, and would desire to be in our place, or with us, that by making a good use of your time you might increase your glory in eternity. So much profit can time bring us, my dear brethren, when it is well employed.
An irreparable loss to misspend it. From this we can see how great is the injury we do ourselves by making a bad use of time. Come forth from hell, ye lost souls, and tell us what the loss of time has caused you to suffer; for you can give impartial testimony in the matter! This loss, they say, is as great as the Good from which we are forever excluded; great as our misery; terrible as the fire that the divine anger fans to torment us! If I could give you back one of those afternoons that you wasted in immoderate drinking, and in playing dice and cards; one of the evenings that you spent in dangerous company; one of the mornings that you lost by lying too long in bed, or in spending too much time in dressing, or in idle thoughts; one of those nights that concealed your impurity from the eyes of men; nay, if I could give you but one moment of that time; what would you do? Ah, you would free yourselves from an unhappy eternity by true repentance, and gain a joyful eternity in heaven! But, unhappy souls, in vain would you expect that much! You must go on in your despair! There is not an hour, or a quarter of an hour, or a minute, or a moment for you! Your tears and sorrow are too late. During your lives you could thereby have freed yourselves from everlasting misery; now time is no more for you! O bitter despair! (which I have dilated on on another occasion, my dear brethren, when I wished you a good time.)
Hence it will be a source of great torment to a dying man to think of what he has lost through idleness when he might have gained great profit for his soul. Now you may understand how great will be the mental anguish and pain that will pierce the heart of the dying man who has passed a lifetime in useless occupations or idleness, doing nothing for his soul: and what his feelings will be when he looks back on the years he has wasted. Alas! what pain of heart will be his! I have lived twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, or more years; in each year there were twelve months, in each month four weeks, in each week seven days, in each day twenty-four hours, in each hour sixty minutes, in each minute as many moments. All this beautiful time is over. In any moment of it I could have gained eternal glory in heaven! Ah, would that I had abstained from sin! Would that I had always kept in the grace of God! Would that I had been more regular in frequenting the sacraments, in making use of the golden opportunities afforded me, in performing works of piety, charity, and mercy! Would that I had always occupied myself in something useful according to the Christian law, that I had directed my daily duties and trials by the supernatural intention to my last end, to God and heaven! What a rich treasure of merit and eternal joys I should have amassed, that the just Judge would give me now! But alas! it is too late, and I have lost all forever! Poor and naked I must go into the house of my eternity, while others, amongst whom I might have been, enter it with joy and exultation, as the Lord says of them by His prophet David: “They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. Going they went and wept, casting their seeds. But coming they shall come with joyfulness, carrying their sheaves.”[4] And I must look on with empty hands and tearful eyes!
And to remember how uselessly he spent his time. The time that the divine liberality bestowed on me was a rich property that I could have left to my soul as an inheritance; but how much remains to me of it when I reckon up all that I have spent for other purposes than the good of my soul? The heirs receive no more of a legacy than what is left after all debts have been paid; deducto œre alieno, according to the terms of the law; and moreover whatever the testator has given away during his lifetime must be deducted also, as well .as what he has left to others in his will. Oh, what a number of creditors surrounds my death-bed, to whom I have irrevocably made over the time of my life! How much time have I not spent in sleep, in idleness? In dressing? In immoderate eating and drinking? In receiving and paying useless visits? In gratifying my curiosity at the door and the window? In playing cards, amusements, and sinful talk? In excessive care for temporal things? In sensuality and impurity and all kinds of sin and vice? Ah, my poor soul, if all that time has to be taken away, how small thy inheritance will be! And what wilt thou live on during eternity? Thou shalt resemble the poor woman whose husband spends at the ale-house all he has earned during the week—and there are only too many nowadays who do that—so that she has nothing but her tears for herself and her starving children!
For which he must give a strict account to his Judge. And in what state wilt thou be to present thyself before thy Judge, when He shall say to thee: “Give an account of thy stewardship”?[5] Tell me how thou hast worked the land I lent thee; what fruit thou hast garnered from the precious seed of time. “What answer will you make on that day?“is the question that St. Anselm asks of the dying man who has spent a useless life, “when you shall be required to give an account of all the time conceded to you during life, and of the manner in which you passed it?”[6] Oh, truly, the Judge will not need other witnesses against you to pronounce on you the sentence of condemnation; for the time you spent so ill will be your accuser and witness, so that you shall lose your case. “He hath called against me the time.”[7] He shall bring up as witness against me the time in which I could and should have done good, but which I used only to secure my own condemnation. And that time in which I could have avoided evil, escaped hell, and gained heaven, but that I have squandered in idleness—that time shall be my greatest torment in everlasting flames!
In vain will he then wish to have the lost time back. O vanished years! where are ye? If I might only call you back now! Ah, unhappy me! I must exclaim with that secretary of Francis I., king of France, as he lay on his death-bed; unhappy me! I have spent so many years, and used up so many reams of paper in the service of my king; would that I had spent but one day and used but one sheet of paper to write thereon a general confession for the good of my poor soul! Would that I had but one hour of the many I have wasted, that I might regain lost time and appease my Judge before I die! But what caps the climax of my grief and sorrow is that I cannot now expect another moment of time! I hear resounding in my ears the words: “Time shall be no longer,”[8] the season for sowing is gone by; not a grain can be planted any more with the hope of a harvest. I am about to journey into eternity, where I have nothing to look for but a tardy repentance, torments, and despair!
What torment this thought causes on one’s deathbed. Shown by examples. In this condition of fear and anguish will depart the soul of the man who has wasted his time during life in idleness or in vanities useless for his salvation. Bromiard writes that a certain holy Father saw once in the house of a dying sinner a swarm of hideous demons coming to the bed-side to carry off the wicked man. He cried out, mercy! mercy! but one of the devils answered him in an audible voice: “It is too late now to beg for mercy.” And so it was. The unhappy man gave up the ghost in that moment. Humbert, a holy priest belonging to a religious order, while meditating on eternity, heard a mournful voice calling out in most piteous tones. He asked who it was, and what was the matter. “I am a soul,” was the answer; “I have just departed, and have been condemned by God; I am sent here by divine command to warn you and others of the great value of the short time of your life. Know then that of all the torments that a man can endure in his last moments, nay, of all the pains and tortures of hell itself, there is none more acute than that which is caused to the dying and the damned by the thought of lost and misspent time. And that shall be the subject of our vain regrets during eternity. Ah, would that God would give us the smallest particle of time, to repent of our sins and atone for the past! But, O despair! time shall be no more!” With this exclamation the unhappy soul vanished.
How foolish, then, the conduct of most people in wasting their time! My dear brethren, this salutary doctrine, this wholesome thought, which comes too late for the dying, is meant for us who are still alive and well, and can still make a good use of the present time. We must therefore make provision now, that we may not on our death-beds have cause to fear a long eternity of despair and wailing. “The present time is the time for sowing.” What is not sown then can never bear fruit, nor be garnered in, but is and remains lost forever. The present time is not a time for idling or loitering; it is not a time for useless talk, amusements, gambling, long sleep and vain pleasures, much less for sin and vice; for it is intended by God, who has given it to us out of His great mercy, for the sole purpose of working out the salvation of our immortal souls, and preparing ourselves for a happy death. St. Bernard says that it is enough to stop the current of his blood partly through pity, partly through indignation, to hear people say: let us talk to pass away an hour;[9] let us play, amuse ourselves, walk about to pass away the time. And have you nothing better to do? Is that the way to use the time that the Creator has granted you to do penance, to obtain pardon, to acquire grace, to merit glory?[10] Will you waste in useless talk and frivolity the precious hour that God has bestowed on you for such a lofty purpose? What must we think when we hear young people, especially when they are of different sexes, say to each other in their young years, like the idlers in the Book of Wisdom: “Come, therefore, and let us enjoy the good things that are present, and let us speedily use the creatures as in youth. Let us fill ourselves with costly wine, and ointments; and let not the flower of the time pass by us. Let us crown ourselves with roses, before they be withered.”[11]
Shown by a simile. O foolish mortals! what are you saying? If you saw a gardener picking the blossoms off the trees in spring, and making them into a nosegay because they are beautiful, what would you think of him? You would say that he is either mad or an unfaithful servant, inasmuch as he thus destroys all prospects of fruit. Is not that the case? Because it is from the blossom that the fruit has to come, and if that is destroyed, there can be no fruit. “Let not the flower of the time pass by us,” you say; what are the flowers, the blossoms of this time? They are the works done in this life, from which the fruit is to grow for eternity; if you break off these blossoms, and use the time only for your own comfort, sensuality, and pleasure, what sort of fruit can you have from time for eternity? Certainly no other but the sad and despairing remembrance of lost time.
It comes from want of a lively faith. O lively faith! thou art wanting in those idle men! Experience teaches in countless ways that human life is very short; that its years are uncertain; that God has appointed for one ten, for another twenty, for a third thirty, forty, fifty, sixty years; that no one knows how many years he has to live; now, if we only believed practically, and often reflected deeply on the fact that on the good or bad use of this uncertain time depends eternal happiness in heaven or eternal misery in hell, would it be possible for a Christian who professes to fear hell and desire heaven to squander away so wretchedly the beautiful time of his life, instead of using it to work out his salvation? No, exclaims St. Gregory, that would not be possible if faith were not wanting. Hear his own words: “He who considers in the spirit of faith the course of the present time numbers his days by good works, dreading lest a single moment should pass by without labor and fruit for his soul.”[12]
Exhortation to use the time given us to work out our salvation. “Therefore, whilst we have time let us work good.”[13] Such is the conclusion to which St. Paul exhorts us. Nothing remains of the time that we have lived up to this; perhaps the greater part of it has been wasted; and, once for all, the time that we do not devote to God and our soul is lost forever. Oh, how great the loss of all the graces and merits we might have gained in that time! But as we cannot recall it, let us at least try to make up for it by renewed diligence, like the traveller who, having lost his way in the forest and wandered about for hours on the wrong path, walks much more quickly when he has found out his mistake, in order to arrive at his destination in time. The time we have still to live is uncertain, and will pass like an arrow shot from a bow. God has appointed the moment of our death as the end of our time. The sinner in hell hates God, curses, blasphemes, and commits other sins; yet his torments are not increased on that account, because he has reached the term of time during which he could merit punishment by sin. A just soul in purgatory practises the most perfect faith and hope regarding the joys of heaven it has not yet seen; it hopes for salvation as firmly as if it had already gained it; it loves God above all things, although it feels the heavy weight of His chastising hand; it is fully resigned to God’s will in its severe torments; yet by all those virtues which it practises every moment it does not lessen or shorten its punishment, nor bring itself a step nearer to heaven. Why? Because it has already passed the term during which it could merit. “The dead know nothing more,” says the wise Ecclesiastes, “neither have they a reward any more.”[14] They receive their reward of what they have done during life, and it is according to that that God will pay them. But they have no further reward to expect for what they do after death. Hence, as my merits shall be in the last moment of my life so also shall my reward be; and after that moment I shall not have another to make a good confession, to awaken sorrow for my sins, to gain an indulgence or to acquire grace. If an angel were to come and tell us the day of our death, saying to each one in particular: you have still a year to live; you, half a year; you, three months; you, four weeks; you, five days; after that time shall be no more; how should we act during that, time? How carefully we should purify our conscience, if it accused us of any sin? How we should avoid all dangerous occasions! How diligently we should perform the duties of our state! In a word, how zealous we should become in the divine service! Why do we not do all this now, since we are not sure of a single moment in the day? Why do we put off our conversion to a future time, which perhaps we shall never see?
Conclusion and resolution. No, my God! quite different is the resolution I now make, as I did on a former occasion, in the words of Thy servant David: “And I said: Now have I begun.”[15] Now will I begin to make a good use of the time given to me; now will I scatter the precious seed, that I may reap a rich harvest; now will I begin to do what I have unfortunately not done yet, to serve Thee alone, O God! and serve Thee faithfully. Now, in the present time, I say; for to no purpose should I turn my sorrowful gaze to the past, of which nothing now remains to me but regret for the bad use I made of it. O accursed idleness! what a priceless treasure thou hast stolen from me! O useless visits, company-seeking, gambling, sleep! what have you brought me in, when I could have given to God, my soul and heaven, to my great advantage, the time sacrificed for your sake? Ah, my regrets are too late; the time is past! In vain should I rely on future time, for I cannot promise myself that I shall see it. Therefore I will be all the more diligent and fervent in using what I have—the present. “I have said: Now have I begun,” such is my firm resolution. Heavenly Father, who hast created time by Thy Almighty power! Christ Jesus, who hast redeemed it by Thy precious blood! Holy Ghost, who hast sanctified the good use of it! give me the grace to use it in future as becomes such a Creator, such a Redeemer, such a Sanctifier! O most Blessed Trinity! I now offer Thee all the years, months, weeks, days, hours, and moments of the rest of my life. Perhaps my offering is very small indeed; for it may be that the time of my life will be very short; but small as it is, in any case I devote it wholly to Thee! With firm confidence I trust in Thy help to carry out this resolution of mine, so that not a moment may ever again be given to idleness, vanity, or sensuality, to the service of the devil and sin, but that all may be for Thee alone and Thy honor and glory. Then having sown the good seed during this short life, I may garner in the desired fruit in a long and joyful eternity. Amen.
Another introduction to the same sermon for Sexagesima Sunday.
Text.
Dum seminat, aliud cecidit secus viam, et conculcatum est.—Luke viii. 5.
“As he sowed, some fell by the wayside, and it was trodden down.”
Introduction.
The parable of the sower and the seed needs no special explanation; for Our Lord Himself applies it very clearly to the word of God, which is sown in the hearts of those who hear it, and, according to their disposition and character, produces either no fruit at all, or very little, or else brings in a most abundant return. Yet the holy fathers, who have received a special light from God to interpret the gospels, apply this parable also to the time of our lives on earth, and to the good or bad use we make of it. “The present time is the time for sowing,”[16] says St. Jerome. The seed is the use we make of time, “the seed of eternity,”[17] as the same Saint calls it. Alas! my dear brethren, I now must exclaim with sorrowful heart, how wantonly this seed is scattered on the wayside by countless mortals, where it will be trampled under foot and produce no fruit! For they squander in idleness, or useless occupations, or sinful pleasures, the precious time lent them by God to serve Him alone and save their souls. And they make as little account of this as if a fowl had eaten a grain of corn! But how very different, etc. Continues as above.
- ↑ Tempus præsens tempus serentis eat.
- ↑ Semen æternitatis.
- ↑ Id enim quod in præsenti est momentaneum et leve tribulationis nostræ, supra modum in sublimitate æternum gloriæ pondus operatur in nobis.—II. Cor. iv. 17.
- ↑ Qui seminant in lachrymis, in exultatione metent. Euntes ibant et fiebant, mittentes semina sua. Venientes autem venient cum exultatione, portantes manipulos suos.—Ps. cxxv. 5, 6, 7.
- ↑ Redde rationem villicationis tuæ.—Luke xvi. 2.
- ↑ Quid respondebis in illa die; cum exipetur a te omne tempus viventi tibi impensum, qualiter fuerit a te expensum?
- ↑ Vocavit adversum me tempus.—Lam. i. 15.
- ↑ Tempus non erit amplius.—Apoc. x. 6.
- ↑ Licet fabulari donec pertranseat hora—St. Bern., Serm. ad Scholares.
- ↑ Quam tibi ad agendam pœnitentiam, ad obtinendam veniam, ad acquirendam gratiam, ad promerendam gloriam miseratio Conditoris indulgeat?
- ↑ Venite ergo, et fruamur bonis quæ stint, et utamur creatura tanquam in juventute celeriter. Vino pretioso et unguentis nos impleamus; et non prætereat nos flos temporis. Coronemus nos rosis antequam marcescant!—Wis. ii. 6–8.
- ↑ Qui fide cursum præsentis temporis pensat, dies cum operibus numerat, ne a labore vacua transeant vitæ momenta, formidat.—St. Greg., Moral. l. 8, c. vii.
- ↑ Ergo dum tempus habemus, operemur bonum.—Gal. vi. 10.
- ↑ Mortut nihil noverunt amplius, nec habent ultra mercedem.—Eccles. ix. 5.
- ↑ Dixi: nunc cœpi.—Ps. lxxvi. 11.
- ↑ Tempus præsens, tempus serentis est.
- ↑ Semen æternitatis.