Sermons from the Latins/Sermon 11
Third Sunday after Epiphany.
Submission to Ecclesiastical Authority.
"Be not wise in your own conceits" — Rom. xii. 16.
SYNOPSIS.
Ex. : I. Epistles and Gospels. II. To-days. III. Docility.
I. Self-conceit : i. In general. 2. The Romans. 3. St. Paul's reproof.
II. Submission : 1. Child and man. 2. Christ's example and teaching. 3. Leper, Centurion.
III. Naaman's : 1. History and disease. 2. Cure. 3. GiezL Per. : 1. Swimming. 2. Stephen. 3. Degrees of docility.
SERMON.
Brethren, the arrangement of those passages of Scripture which constitute the Epistles and Gospels of the various Sundays dates from the early ages of Christianity, when the word of God was studied more deeply and more reverently than it is today. It is but natural, therefore, to expect, and it is an interesting and profitable exercise to trace, in them a continuity of ideas and to discover their appropriateness for the Sundays to which they have been assigned. The present Sunday affords an excellent example. Epiphany time is devoted to the contemplation of those earlier years of Our Lord's hidden life, whose history the Evangelist summarizes thus: "Jesus went down to Nazareth with Mary and Joseph, and was subject to them." Docility, then, is the season's lesson, and quite appropriately the undercurrent of thought running uninterruptedly through the Epistle and Gospel is the lesson of docility. " Be not wise in your own conceits," says St. Paul to the Romans. " Go," says Christ to the leper just cleansed, " Go, show thyself to the priests, and offer the gift commanded by MQses for a testimony to them." " Lord, I am not worthy," cries the centurion, " not worthy that Thou shouldst enter under my roof, but only say the word and my servant shall be healed."
Brethren, that law of Nature whereby parents cherish so great love for their offspring holds good also in the realm of thought, and explains why the human mind is so vain of its own ideas and the individual so tenacious of his own opinions. How shallow was the philosophy of the so-called reformers is nowhere more clearly evidenced than in the fact that they hoped to hold together a system of religion based on the right of private judgment. But that differences should arise between man and man, were a small matter did not man at times >carry his conceit so far as to oppose his opinions to the decrees of God. If there was one thing more than any other on which the pagan Romans prided themselves, it was their strict sense of justice. In their conquest of the world this trait is continually evidenced in their harsh methods of overcoming opposition on the one hand, and on the other, their religious toleration and general magnanimity toward the vanquished. So selfwise were they in this regard that Roman converts to Christianity were slow to believe that even Christ could give them a higher ideal. St. Paul, therefore, reproves their vanity: " Be not wise," he says, " in your own conceits, for worldly wisdom is folly with God, and what is foolishness with the world is wisdom with God. Worldly justice is: evil for evil, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, but the law of God teaches us to be at peace with all men, to leave revenge to the Lord, to overcome evil with good, to love our enemies, to do good to them that hate us and to pray for them that persecute us."
Brethren, in the third chapter of his epistle to the Galatians, St. Paul says: "As long as the heir is a child he differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all, but is under tutors and governors until the time appointed by the father." Not less obstinate than the Roman were the Galatian converts, who, being Jewish, clung tenaciously to the observances of the synagogue. Accordingly St. Paul chides them, arguing that as the Old Law bears the same relation to the New that childhood does to manhood, therefore for Christians to continue in Jewish practices is as ridiculous as for a grown man to find amusement in childish toys. Paul's argument is as applicable to us as to the Galatians, for what Jews were in this respect to Christians, we are to the blessed in heaven. Sons of God though we be, and co-heirs with Christ to the kingdom of heaven, still as long as we remain on earth, we are but as children, differing nothing from servants, subject to spiritual tutors and governors until the time appointed by our heavenly Father. Even should we live to maturity or old age, God's design is that we continue as children still — children in docility, in obedience, in humility. Christ lived to the age of thirty-three, yet we nowhere read of His emancipation. As a babe unborn He deferred to the decree of Augustus Caesar; newly-born, He submitted to the rite of circumcision; as boy, youth, and man, He was subject to Mary and Joseph; He paid tribute to Caesar and practised and counselled obedience to even the Scribes and Pharisees in all things lawful, and finally He allowed Himself to be led like a lamb to the slaughter. Though He passed through all the stages of life from infancy to manhood, He never outgrew the docility of childhood. That is the lesson His life holds for us, the lesson mankind so much needs and finds so hard to learn, the lesson He sought to teach when, taking a little child and placing him before the Apostles, He said: " Unless you become as little children, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven." The disciple is not above His master, and if we be not meek and humble of mind and heart, we are not true followers of Christ. We should recognize our limitations, feeling that, being during our earthly life as minors unsound of judgment and feeble of will, we need guidance and instruction, until such time as reason and faith shall have merged into the beatific vision, and our wills become one with the Divine, free with the freedom of the children of God. When impatient of delay and tempted to reason and choose independent of authority, it is well for us to learn of the birds and flowers to await the time appointed by the Father, for the unfledged, if too venturesome, fall to earth, and the too early shoots are nipped by the lingering frost. Many of us accept Christianity, yes, but with reserve, on our own terms, and only in so far as it coincides with our own ideas. Our worship of God, we feel, should be free, spontaneous, in spirit and in truth, untrammelled by rites and ceremonies. Why one form of prayer rather than another? Why worship only in sacred places? Why this bowing and genuflecting and signing with the cross? Why these complicated sacramental ceremonies? Such may have been John's thought when he hesitated to baptize the Messias, but Christ bade him proceed: " For thus," said He, " it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness." To say nothing of Christ's words to His Church: " He that heareth you, heareth Me, and he that despiseth you, despiseth Me and Him that sent Me," her ritual, even in those parts not of divine origin, has been sanctified by the practice of ages. Though divine, the Church is still a society of men for men, and could no more accomplish her earthly mission without external forms than could a soul accomplish its earthly mission without its body. What reverence for these forms does Christ inculcate in the leper's cure! In the fourteenth chapter of Leviticus are set forth the rites employed in the official cleansing of a leper — washings, ceremonies and sacrifices most complex, lasting no less than eight days. The leper in question (for that he was self-willed is evident from his disobediently blazing abroad the miracle) may have thought: "Why show myself to the priests, or lose time and money in useless forms, now that my cure is beyond all doubt? " But it was not his to question but to obey, even as it was not his to inquire why the Lord, in effecting his cure, preferred to employ the seemingly needless ceremonies of stretching forth His hand and touching him and saying: " I will, be thou made clean." So, too, a penitent duly absolved may think it is useless labor to afterwards confess sins inadvertently omitted, yet such is the Church's law, and as a true Christian and soldier of Jesus Christ he is bound to unquestioningly obey. The bluff soldier of Capharnaum, the centurion, pagan though he was, is a striking example of respect for authority. Verily, h>e was the noblest Roman of them all! He was a commanding officer of the local garrison, a God-fearing man, who, though a Gentile, was so strongly attracted by the religion of Israel that he had built a synagogue for the Jews of Capharnaum. An attendant whom he loved, a Jew probably, grown old in his service, was ill of the palsy, and the centurion, deeming himself unworthy to approach the Christ, sent the elders of the synagogue to beg for a cure. To his amazement they brought back word that Jesus was coming forthwith. What! the great Prophet defile Himself by entering a Gentile house! Put Himself out to come so far! Obey his call like one of his own soldiers! In haste a messenger was sept to beg the Saviour not to trouble Himself, and as He still persisted in coming, the abashed centurion met Him at his gate crying: " Lord, forgive me my apparent presumption. I am a man accustomed to exercise authority, saying to one: ' Come/ and he cometh, and to another: ' Do this/ and he doth it, but far be it from me to even seem to command Thy services. Lord, I am not even worthy that Thou shouldst enter under my roof, but only say the word and my servant shall be healed/' It was a complete surrender of his will to Christ's will. Knowing how to command, he had not forgotten how to obey; exacting proper humility in others, he could be humble in the presence of his own superiors. What noble characters are often evolved by a course of military discipline! When once converted, what fervent, what humble, what blindly obedient Catholics unbelievers become! One knows not what should be the greatest: our regret that so many pure and honest souls are outside the pale of Israel, our gratitude that God takes heed of them and will bring them from the East and the West into His heavenly kingdom, or our dread lest we, His unworthy children, be cast out into exterior darkness.
Brethren, in the fifth chapter of the fourth book of Kings is a charming story in which to-day's scriptural readings and the lessons they convey are caught up like disconnected threads and woven into one — the story of Naaman the Syrian. Naaman was commander-in-chief of the Syrian army and a prime favorite at the court of his sovereign. He had fought and bled in his country's cause and repelled the attacks of the neighboring Israelites. But with all his glory and wealth he was most unhappy, for under his rich uniform he hid a loathsome leprosy. His position in the army and at court he still retained, for his malady was in its initial stages and known only to his heartbroken wife and sympathetic king. Now, in one of their border raids the Syrians took some Israelites prisoners, and among them a little girl who became maid to Naaman's wife. In one of those confidences not uncommon between mistress and scr-. vant, the little one learned of her master's affliction, and promptly declared that if he would but go to the great prophet Eliseus, in her dear native land, he would certainly be cured. How often the true faith or the grace of God finds an entrance to the homes of the unbelieving or the wicked through the word or example of a pure, honest and devout Catholic maid! Verily, God hath sent them into exile for the conversion of the nations, and hath revealed to these little ones truths which He hath hid from the worldly-wise and prudent. His wife told Naaman and Naaman told the king, with the result that presently the commander-in-chief departed with a troop of cavalry and $60,000, and a letter from his king to the king of Israel. The latter on the cavalcade's arrival was much disturbed, suspecting that the Syrian's request of such an impossible thing as the cure of leprosy was but a pretext for renewing the war. But Eliseus, hearing of what was passing, sent to the king saying, " Send the man to me that he may know there is a prophet in Israel." The prophet lived with old Giezi, his man-servant, outside the town in a little cabin, before which the Syrian troop presently drew rein. By and by Giezi came forth with the prophet's message, bidding Naaman proceed some thirty miles farther to the banks of the Jordan where, after washing seven times, he would be healed. Then was Naaman angry, and turning about he started for home saying: " I thought the prophet himself would have come out to me, and invoked his God, and touched my leprosy with his hand and healed me. And why wash in the Jordan? Are not our Syrian rivers better than all the waters of Israel? " Naaman was willing to accept a favor from Israel's prophet and Israel's God, and he had come prepared to pay for it, and now to be treated as a person of no account and to be asked to do such silly things! He was indignant and mortified. But Eliseus knew the man's pride and conceit and that the first necessity was to humble him, for God resisteth the proud and giveth grace to the humble. When non-Catholics of great wealth or education or social influence join our faith, they not infrequently come to us in the spirit of Naaman, feeling they are honoring the Church and should be lionized accordingly. Pretentious Catholics are sometimes similarly disposed, and the pity of it is that they often find clerical sycophants to suit their humor. Self-wise or purse-proud, they think the Church should come out to them, strain her dogmas and discipline to suit their advanced ideas and lofty station, invoke her God for them in polished phrases, and remove their moral leprosies by some means more dramatic than the humble confessional and the prosy devotions of the vulgar herd. Are not the rivers of Syria better than all the waters of Israel? Are not, say they, the cultivation of the arts and sciences and of letters and a high standard of culture more conducive to morality than the Church's tedious rites and ceremonies? Thus they would fain accept the essentials of religion without its accessories, and dictate to the Church and to the Lord which shall be and which shall not be the channels of His grace. They err, being wise in their own conceits, for says Samuel: " The Lord came, and a great wind rent the mountains before Him, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake, a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire, a still small voice and the Voice was the Lord." Just such a voice came to Naaman, now grown calm, when one of his officers approaching said: " Master, had the prophet asked something great of thee, all thy treasure, or some great achievement, thou hadst complied; why not do the little he asks?" It was the expression of his own better afterthought, and immediately turning he rode to the Jordan, where having washed seven times, his flesh was cleansed and restored as the flesh of a little child. So, too, sanctity follows the unquestioning acceptance of religion in its entirety. Full of faith and gratitude, Naaman returned to the man of God and laid his riches at his feet, but not a penny would Eliseus accept. There are some things that riches cannot buy or power command; certain blessings the only proper return for which is that ancient sacrifice, a humble and a contrite heart. That Naaman laid such a heart among his other treasures at the prophet's feet is clearly evident, although, being a novice in the faith of Israel, his humility was as blundering as was his pride. Doubtless he was again disappointed at not being permitted to square his account with the Lord, but it was one more reading of the lesson to him and to us, that obedience is better than sacrifice, that the Lord judgeth not as man judgeth, that if we presume to dictate to the Lord or His Church in religious matters, our efforts are likely to result in the adoration of a golden calf and the breaking of the tables of the law which the Church, like another Moses, brings down to us from the mount of God. Simon Magus sought to purchase with gold the gifts of God, and unworthy ministers of the Church have tried at times to sell God's gifts as Giezi did, with a like result. For Giezi, the prophet's servant, coveted Naaman's wealth, and after his departure, stealing out he overtook him and asked in the prophet's name for a talent of silver and two changes of raiment. Naaman forced on him double what he asked, and Giezi, returning, hid away his treasure and to Eliseus' question denied having been abroad. But the prophet said: "Was not I present in spirit when the man turned back and gave thee' the money and garments? And now thou art rich, but the leprosy of Naaman shall stick to thee, and to thy seed forever. And," concludes the text, " the old servant went out from him a leper as white as snow." If the faithful cannot purchase exemption from the laws of God and the Church, neither can the Church sell that exemption without incurring moral leprosy.
Brethren, the Redeemer bent Himself low down to raise us from the depths of our iniquities, but He raised us only to the surface, leaving to ourselves the task of striking out and swimming to the heavenly shore. And should we turn our eyes backward or downward to view with complaisance our skill or the height of our ascent, be sure a dizziness will seize us and we shall lose our way. Our gaze should cling as longingly as the dying Stephen's to the coveted shore, and to every buoy, even the smallest, set to guide us landward. There are three degrees of docility, submission to superiors, to equals and to inferiors, and if the Lord of lords practised them all, even the third and highest, is it unreasonable that we should be asked to exercise at least the first and the lowest? Be not wise therefore in your own conceits, but go show yourselves dutifully to your priests and offer them the reverence and obedience due them as the ministers of God. When tempted to be critical of your Church and her rites and ceremonies, humbly bow your head and murmur: " Lord, I am not worthy." Thankfully accept and use her time-honored, as well as her divinely instituted, means of sanctification, and have no fear but that your leprosy will be cleansed and your soul become once more as the soul of a little child. In a word: " Be you humbled under the mighty hand of God that in the day of His visitation He may exalt you " (i Peter v. 6).