John Osorius, a Spaniard of the diocese of Burgos, entered the novitiate of the Society of Jesus in 1558, at the early age of sixteen. He taught moral theology, but gave himself up more especially to preaching, his talents in that line soon manifesting themselves. He preached often before the Court, and was selected to deliver orations on various public occasions. For instance, he preached twice at the fitting out of the Armada, and again on its discomfiture. His three sermons, entitled Cum nostri redirent ab Anglia re infecta, will be found in the fourth volume of his collected sermons. He was select preacher on the anniversary of the death of St. Ignatius Loyola, the founder of his order, and also on the occasion of the death of the king. He died at Medina, aged fifty-two, in the year 1594.
His sermons have been published several times.
Concionum Joannes Osorii; Antverpiæ, 1594-5, 3 vols. 8vo. Ibid., 5 vols., 1597, 8vo.
Concionum J. Osorii; Colon. Hierat. 1600, 12mo., 5 vols.; Lugduni, Pillehotte, 1601, 8vo.; Venetiis, 1601, fol.; Parisiis, M. Sonnium, 1601, 8vo., 5 vols.; Venetiis, 1604, 4to., 5 vols.; Monast. Westphaliæ, 1622, 8vo. 5 vols.
R. P. Osorii Concionum Epitome; Colon., 1602, 8vo., 3 vols.; De Sanctis, ibid., 1613, 8vo.
John Osorius was a preacher of a high order. He was eminently Scriptural, and thoroughly practical. He neither wasted his efforts on the discussion of profitless school questions, nor wearied his hearers by abstruse disquisitions on points of Canon law. His matter is always solid, and his method sound and clear. A man of refined taste and lively imagination, he could render his discourses attractive to both educated and uneducated. He seldom breaks into a torrent of eloquence, like De Barzia, but his style is polished and graceful. He had none of the fire of the Bishop of Cadiz, but in his heart burned the pure flame of a tempered zeal, not raging forth as a furnace, dazzling and scorching all around, but calmly glowing in unruffled peace, unnoticed perhaps in the glare of day, but steadily beaming as a guiding star to the wanderer in the night.
In one point he certainly resembles his countryman De Barzia, viz. in his accurate Biblical knowledge. But the use he made of Scripture was different to that made by the Bishop, as his audience was very different from that to which the Prelate addressed his Mission Sermons. Holy Scripture was the spiritual food of this Jesuit preacher, and his discourses prove his intimate acquaintance with every portion of God’s Word. His discourses do not contain, as do so many modern sermons, crude and undigested lumps of Scripture, clumsily pieced and awkwardly inserted to distend the dull oration to its conventional limits, but the words of Inspiration float lightly and fragrantly on the stream of simple eloquence, as strands of new-mown grass and cut meadow flowers on the calm brook which softly glides past the field where the mowers mow the hay.
If De Barzia roused long-dead consciences, waking them from their sepulchres with note like a trumpet, bringing them forth bound hand and foot in the corpse-clothes of evil habits, and delivering them over to the confessors to be loosed and let go, Osorius quickened the consciences but just dead, with still small voice, taking them as it were by the hand and lifting them up with tenderness, that he might restore them to their parents—to their God, who was to them a Father, to the Church, which was to them a Mother.
But with all these rare merits, Osorius had his defects. His sermons are wanting in arrangement and in unity of design. He preached on the Gospel for the day, and aimed rather at giving a running commentary on the selected passage of Scripture, than at elaborating one text and concentrating his powers upon its application. Hence, each of his sermons, which are very long, may well be broken into six or eight short discourses with separate points, but when preached in their entirety the effect is that of a surfeit. Nothing can be better than the food he provides, but it is in too great abundance, and it is too varied; briefly, in his sermons there is what the French call an embarras de richesses.
There is this excuse to be made for Osorius, that he did but follow in the wake of the Patristic and Mediæval preachers, whose public orations consisted almost invariably of Scripture expositions, partaking more of the character of our modern Bible-class lectures than our set sermons; and it was only bold men like De Barzia, who set all conventionalities at defiance, that originated the class of sermon now recognized as the normal type of a pulpit discourse. Osorius, however, could divest himself of the trammels of custom when he chose, and he has left some notable specimens of ser- mons which have but one point and subject, in his fourth volume; and I very much question whether any more noble and more vigorous have ever been composed than those written by John Osorius, the Jesuit, on the Four Last Things, the Three Foes of Man, and the Seven Last Words.
Osorius seldom relates anecdotes, and his sermons are almost entirely free from those stories which preachers of his age delighted in introducing to illustrate their subjects; but, in their place, he brings forward similes to an extraordinary extent. His sermons are studded with them, and his similes are almost invariably graceful and neat. It may be questioned whether he does not somewhat overdo it, when one sermon contains fifteen similes. Yet these are so beautiful that we could ill spare one. Perhaps we are too critical in requiring all sermons to be cut to the same shape; perhaps the beauty of the wood hyacinth may consist in the multitude of its azure bells, and the splendour of the tulip would be lost if it grew in a bunch.
But the reader shall judge for himself. I will give him a string of similes from the Trinity sermons of Osorius.
“Aristotle says that as the sun, most visible in itself, cannot be contemplated without difficulty by our eyes, on account of their weakness; so God, of supreme entity and perfection, can hardly be grasped by us, through the imperfection of our intellect.”
“When my father and mother forsake me, the Lord taketh me up, says the Psalmist; and Israel exclaimed, Make us gods to go before us. For without God we have not power to advance. What will he say to this, who enters on a state of life without God to lead him, who undertakes hard matters forgetful of God? As the ivy trails along the earth when it finds not a tree, to which it may cling and by which it may ascend, so does the soul lie prostrate till it has found God, to whom it may cling as to its beloved; and having found Him, by Him ascend, going on from grace to grace.”
“The Heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth His handiwork: they all point wondrously to their Creator, showing themselves to be creatures fashioned by His hands.
“Cicero observes: If when travelling you came suddenly in a desert upon some magnificent palace, such as that of Solomon, and were to ask how it came thither, and the answer were made that a mountain had fallen, and that its ruins had shaped themselves, somehow, into this great mansion, you would laugh them to scorn who asserted this, for the house shows plainly the handiwork of an artificer—and that he was a famous artificer to boot—who thus ranged all in such perfect order, and this, you would say, was self-evident. So, too, he who considers the workmanship of this world with attention,—the garden of earth, the abyss of sea, the heavens wondrously adorned, the variety of stars, their varied and yet harmonious motions,—he will say that it is manifest that some master artificer has arranged them, and that their conjunction cannot be fortuitous.”
“Look first at the beauteous image of the soul, and gather from it that it has a divine artificer. If you saw a boy holding a charming image in his hand, and you asked him, Whose is this image? who fashioned it? if he were to reply, I made it; you would at once say, That is not true, for it is a masterpiece of art. So, too, the wondrous power of our souls, and their wondrous perfection, point to a Heavenly artificer.”
“Who, then, is God? He is One and Three: one in nature, one in wisdom, one in goodness; but three in Person: Three Persons but One God, one wise, one powerful, one good.
“How then three Persons and not three Gods? I and thou are two persons, but one in nature and species.
“How two persons with one nature? Because in me there is that which is not in thee, and this constitutes difference in personality.
“But thou sayest, What is there in the Father which is not in the Son?
“That thou mayest understand, take this illustration.
“I have invented a science, entirely of myself; this science I teach thee; thou and I communicate it to a third. The same science is in all three; one of us knows nothing which the other knows not; one knows as much as all the three. Yet is there this difference between us, I have the knowledge of myself, having received it of none; in thee it is derived from me; in the third it proceeds from thee and me. Now suppose that, instead of a science, this were my nature which I gave to thee, and which we two communicated to the third; then should we three be one in nature, and yet with the diversity I have specified.
“Thus, as I have said, is it with our God, in whom it is the same to be, to know, to be able, &c. This wisdom and nature is in the Father self-derived, received of none. It is in the Son also, the same, but received by intelligence from the Father. It is in the Holy Ghost, but proceeding from the Father and the Son by love: therefore the Persons are three, but there are not three Gods nor three Lords, for the nature, and the wisdom, and the power, and the goodness are one, but in three Persons; therefore there is but one God, one Lord, one Wise.”
“God is the abyss of being, as signifies His name Jehovah; in Him are all perfections, of which perfections each is infinite, all are One. What then is my God? Ask every creature, and let them show you their God, and tell you what He is; not that each can declare Him perfectly, but each in part. Does it not happen to you sometimes, as you walk abroad, that you light upon a brook, and say, I will trace it to its source, and see whence this streamlet flows? Do you now act thus, and you will attain to your God. Mark what is good in the creatures you behold, in the song of birds, in the beauty of flowers, in the wealth of metals, in the sweetness of meats; these are but rills proceeding from God the abounding Fount; all these utter the things which are in God; for all creatures are but voices manifesting Him.”
Yet we must not rest in them. “It has happened that painters have pictured fruit with such accuracy that birds have come out of the sky thinking them real, in order to feed upon them; but finding them to be painted, and that there is no food in them, they fly away to seek their true sustenance. The Divine painter has traced with His brush in His creatures the beauties which live in Himself, and in them they seem to live. Yet are they but figures, not verities, for the fashion of this world passeth away. Would you know how to act, knowing that these are but pictures and not realities? Act as the bird, which finding no food in the painting seeks its real meat elsewhere. Mark this, you will find in creation no true food, no satiety, no repose; mark this and fly away to your God, He is very good, He is true food, in Him alone is repose.”
“When you hear sweet harmony, you say, I hear musicians, though you see them not; so seeing the harmony of creation, acknowledge God its source. In God are all perfections. Take the opal. Look at it fixedly from one point; it is white as snow, and you see nought save whiteness in it. Turn a little aside; it flashes out in flames as a carbuncle. Look from another point, it glows a rich crimson as the ruby; again, from another point it is all green as the emerald. Lo! you have an image of God, that most precious gem, to win which we must sell all we have. He is one, yet manifold. Moses beheld God, and He was to him like to the carbuncle, a burning fire: The Lord thy God is a consuming fire. That same God did David behold: The Lord is full of compassion and mercy: long-suffering and of great goodness. To him then was He not all white? Isaiah beheld him: Wherefore art Thou red in Thine apparel? and seeing Him executing vengeance, He was like to the ruby. John beheld Him, and a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald. Lo! what variety, and yet what unity!”
One of the most curious ideas of Osorius is the following. He says that as he lies in bed he hears the stroke, stroke, of his heart; and it sounds to him as though within were two wood-cutters engaged night and day in hewing down a tree. Nor am I wrong in thinking so, he continues, for Flux and Reflux are engaged every hour in laying their axes to the root of the tree of life. In another sermon he speaks of men fretting over the loss of worldly goods and neglecting their eternal inheritance as resembling the little boy who has built a mud castle, and who weeps when a passer-by overthrows it with his foot, though he cares nothing that a lawsuit is going on at the time by which a large inheritance is being wrested from him.
The following is singularly beautiful, to my mind. Osorius is speaking of the dower Christ has given to His Church. He says, that as when a traveller marries a wife in a far country he gives her a few presents, but says to her, O my beloved, when we come home to my own country, where all my wealth and property are, then you shall have ten thousand times better presents; so does Christ act with His Church. Here, in the far country of this earth, He gives her a few gifts and graces, but when He leads her home to His heavenly habitation, He will crown her with endless glory.
On the subject of the Ascension, he observes, very gracefully, that when a fleet is tossing on the sea, if one vessel enters the port in safety, the others pluck up courage to follow. When the soldiers see their leader mount the wall of the besieged city, they, though below, are stirred to press onward too.
And again, speaking of Christ resuming His seat in Heaven, he says that when a costly gem is given to a king, he sets it in a golden ring, which is exquisitely wrought, and which seemed a miracle of perfection before the insertion of the gem. But when the jewel is set, its glory eclipses all the graving of the ring. So was Heaven beauteous without Christ, beauteous as the setting, but now the precious gem, for whom all was made, is again in His place, and eclipses all other glories in His own effulgent beauty.
“The joy of Heaven must have been great, and the cause of the joy is manifest. Heaven has received its sun, enlightening it more than all its stars. It has gotten its precious gem adorning that ring of eternity more than its fine gold, more than all the comely forms thereon engraved. But, earth, how canst thou rejoice this day, deprived of the sun which late illumined thee? When the sun shines in this hemisphere, all things rejoice receiving light from it; but when it retires to the other hemisphere, those things which are in it begin their rejoicing, whilst those which are in ours are veiled in darkness, and droop in gloom and tears. When the ark of God was brought to Bethshemesh, that is, the house of the sun, the calves of the cows which drew it were shut up at home, and they lowed because the mothers which gave them milk were away. This day is the ark of God, which has been held captive in the house of this world, brought back into Heaven, the true house of the sun. And we, as the calves, remaining shut up in this world’s tabernacle, without our nourishment from the breast and wounds of Christ, how shall we do otherwise than low and lament?”
This beautiful and quaint passage will show how Osorius finds illustration in Scripture. I translate a few more specimens of his style.
“Behold how He loved him. St. Thomas explains this passage admirably when he says, quoting the wise man, ’Nothing doth countervail a faithful friend, and his excellency is invaluable, for a faithful friend is worthy of love: and yet, a faithful man who can find? He is a faithful friend who is stable in friendship; not forgetting a first friend when a new one arrives, nor when exalted in prosperity forgetful of the friend in poverty, nor despising the friend who is cast down.
“God will be found the most faithful friend, in that He never forgets former friends for the sake of new ones; but those whom He chose before time was, these will He love in eternity, when time is no more. Neither does the addition of new friends make the former less the friends of God, but rather the more grateful is it to Him that many should love Him. Nor is Christ like the chief butler, who, when things went well with him, forgot Joseph; but though the Lord be high, yet hath He respect unto the lowly. Christ, when mortal, chose men to be His friends; when made immortal, He called them His brethren. Go to My brethren, and say unto them, &c. (John xx. 17). Nor is the friendship of Christ capable of change through loss of the friend, as is evident from the eleventh chapter of St. John. Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus, when they were hale and sound. But what will He do when Lazarus is sick? Lord, behold he whom Thou lovest is sick; He ceases not to love because His friend is sick. Lazarus dies, the misery increases, but friendship does not decrease; for He says, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth. Lazarus is not called friend because that he loves, but because he is still beloved. Now Lazarus stinketh, and still Christ is his friend, for He weepeth because of him. Behold, they say, how He loved him! Ill, O multitude, do you speak! to Him love is present, therefore rather say, Behold how He loveth him! O most faithful Friend, Thou art He who sayest, I have loved thee with an everlasting love!
“Far otherwise are we toward Christ. He is in bonds, and lo! Peter swears that he knows Him not. O man! if you seek a true friend, seek first Christ, who changeth not. What think you is the friendship of the world? What the friendship of the flesh? You have three friends. You are in peril, for you are summoned before the king to be tried, and sentenced for high treason. You go to your first friend, and tell him your danger, and ask of him assistance. He replies that he will accompany you as far as the judgment hall, and leave you there. ‘Do you settle your affair with the king; I can do no more for you.’ Seeing that there is no help to be gotten from this friend, you turn to the second, and ask of him succour. He replies, ‘When you are executed, I will wrap your body in some old and cast-off linen, for a shroud.’ You go to the third, and he says, ‘I will be your advocate. I will assist you, and will liberate you. I will pacify the king, and, if need be, I will die in your room.’ Is not this a faithful friend? Now those who enter into compact of friendship with their flesh, which of these friends have they got? The first, which will accompany you only to the gate of death. Cherish the flesh, love it, and it will be a Delilah to you, handing you over to your enemies, leaving your soul before the Judge, without accompanying it. The world resembles the second friend, to please which you must torture yourself, but all it will give you in the end will be the shroud to enwrap your dead body. But Christ is the third friend, the faithful one, our advocate, who, to liberate us, endured death for us; He who accompanies us to the judgment, who frees us, who protects us! Let Him be our friend who truly loves us. We love God became He first loved us.”
I conclude with the following striking passage:
“Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of? Being desirous of alluring His disciples to drink of the cup, He expounds to them its sweetness, when He says that He will drink of it first. And, in sooth, if we were faithful to God, this reason would be sufficient to make us drink it readily. But, as says the wise man, most men will proclaim every one his own goodness: but a faithful man who can find? There is not a son, there is not a servant, who acts as faithlessly with his father or his master as we act towards God. Would you know that of a certainty? I tell you be loth to sin, be ready to die rather than sin.
“Ah! but you say, I like to sin. I ask you, Upon what grounds do you persist in sinning? Well, you say, God is so good; He loves me, He is ready to pardon. So this is the reason why you continue in sin! And what though you know this for certain, where is your fidelity? where is your Christian honour? Does a wife act in this manner with her husband? a son with his father? a servant with his lord? I pray you bid your wife act in this manner towards you. Say to her, ‘Be chaste.’ She will say, ‘That is no concern of mine. I know full well that you are good, that you love me, and that if I were an adulteress you would pardon me.’ And if it were so, would this answer of your wife gratify you? Why! where would be the honour of a good woman? where her fidelity? Would it be deemed sufficient by you, if she were an adulteress and were reconciled to her husband? Does any minister act thus? You say to the royal minister, ‘Beware lest thou plot treason against your master.’ He replies, ‘He is an excellent king; he loves me, he will most certainly pardon me even if I do turn traitor.’ O vilest of men! O man truly without honour! where is the fidelity which you owe to your monarch?
“Vilest Christian of the household of Faith, unfaithful and destitute of honour! how continue to sin? how do you still commit adultery against God? how are you so traitorous to your King? You say: He will pardon me. Be it so. Yet where is your fidelity? where your honour? Is it sufficient to be reconciled, to be a pardoned traitor? Is it not far better to be able to say, I never was a traitor?
“Now let us turn to the subject. If we are faithful servants of God, enough for us that He has said, The cup that I shall drink of, to make us thirst for that cup. He drank thereof before thee; wilt thou not quaff of it, out of love for Him? Is there a faithful soldier who would see his sovereign enter the battle, and fight amongst the foe, and withdraw himself, leaving his king alone, and betake himself to his sports? Hear what Uriah said, The ark, and Israel, and Judah, abide in tents; and my lord Joab, and the servants of my lord, are encamped in the open fields; shall I then go into mine house? How different also she who said, My Beloved is mine, and I am His. Bernard says, ‘In no other way can man respond to his God in these same words, except by love, and by drinking of the cup.’ God gives thee gifts; thou canst give Him nothing. I will take no bullock out of thine house. God beatifies thee; thou canst not beatify Him, except by love and suffering. God loves thee; love Him thou canst. He suffered for thee; suffer for Him thou canst. Thus mayest thou render unto Him what thou hast received of Him, and return, as it were, like for like to thy God.”