The Faith of Our Fathers Part 2
This kind of _progress in faith_ we can and do admit; but the truth is not changed thereby. As Albertus Magnus says: "It would be more correct to style this the progress of the believer in the faith than of the faith in the believer."
To show that this kind of progress is to be admitted only two things are to be proved: 1: That some divinely revealed truths should be contained in the Apostolic teaching _implicitly, less clearly explained, less urgently pressed_. And this can be denied only by those who hold that the Bible is the only rule of Faith, that it is clear in every part, and could be readily understood by all from the beginning. This point I shall consider farther on in this work. 2. That the Church can, in process of time, as occasions arise, _declare, explain, urge_. This is proved not only from the Scriptures and the Fathers, but even from the conduct of Protestants themselves, who often boast of the care and a.s.siduity with which they "search the Scriptures," and study out their meaning, even now that so many Commentaries on the sacred Text have been published. And why? To obtain more light; to understand better what is revealed. It would appear from this that the only question which could arise on this point is, not about the possibility of arriving by degrees at a clearer understanding of the true sense of revelation, as circ.u.mstances may call for successive developments, but about the authority of the Church to propose and to determine that sense. So that, after all, we are always brought back to the only real point of division and dispute between those who are not Catholics and ourselves, namely, to the authority of the Church, of which I shall have more to say hereafter. I cannot conclude better than by quoting the words of St. Vincent of Lerins: "Let us take care that it be with us in matters of religion, which affect our souls, as it is with material bodies, which, as time goes on, pa.s.s through successive phases of growth and development and multiply their years, but yet remain always the same individual bodies as they were in the beginning.... It very properly follows from the nature of things that, with a perfect agreement and consistency between the beginnings and the final results, when we reap the harvest of dogmatic truth which has sprung from the seeds of doctrine sown in the spring-time of the Church's existence, we should find no substantial difference between the grain which was first planted and that which we now gather. For though the germs of the early faith have in some respects been evolved in the course of time, and still receive nourishment and culture, yet nothing in them that is substantial can ever suffer change. The Church of Christ is a faithful and ever watchful guardian of the dogmas which have been committed to her charge. In this sacred deposit she changes nothing, she takes nothing from it, she adds nothing to it."
Chapter III.
THE HOLINESS OF THE CHURCH.
Holiness is also a mark of the true Church; for in the Creed we say, "I believe in the _holy_ Catholic Church."
Every society is founded for a special object. One society is formed with the view of cultivating social intercourse among its members; a second is organized to advance their temporal interests; and a third for the purpose of promoting literary pursuits. The Catholic Church is a society founded by our Lord Jesus Christ for the sanctification of its members; hence, St.
Peter calls the Christians of his time "a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, _a holy nation_, a purchased people."(30)
The example of our Divine Founder, Jesus Christ, the sublime moral lessons He has taught us, the Sacraments He has inst.i.tuted-all tend to our sanctification. They all concentre themselves in our soul, like so many heavenly rays, to enlighten and inflame it with the fire of devotion.
When the Church speaks to us of the attributes of our Lord, of His justice and mercy and sanct.i.ty and truth, her object is not merely to extol the Divine perfections, but also to exhort us to imitate them, and to be like Him, just and merciful, holy and truthful. Behold the sublime Model that is placed before us! It is not man, nor angel, nor archangel, but Jesus Christ, the Son of G.o.d, "who is the brightness of His glory, and the figure of His substance."(31) The Church places His image over our altars, admonishing us to "look and do according to the pattern shown on the Mount."(32) And from that height He seems to say to us: "Be ye holy, for I the Lord your G.o.d am holy."(33) "Be ye perfect, even as your heavenly Father is perfect."(34) "Be ye followers of G.o.d as most dear children."(35)
We are invited to lead holy lives, not only because our Divine Founder, Jesus Christ, was holy, but also because we bear His sweet and venerable name. We are called _Christians_. That is a name we would not exchange for all the high-sounding t.i.tles of Prince or Emperor. We are justly proud of this appellation of _Christian_; but we are reminded that it has annexed to it a corresponding obligation. It is not an idle name, but one full of solemn significance; for a Christian, as the very name implies, is a follower or disciple of Christ-one who walks in the footsteps of his Master by observing His precepts; who reproduces in his own life the character and virtues of his Divine Model. In a word, a Christian is another Christ. It would, therefore, be a contradiction in terms, if a Christian had nothing in common with his Lord except the name. The disciple should imitate his Master, the soldier should imitate his Commander, and the members should be like the Head.
The Church constantly allures her children to holiness by placing before their minds the Incarnation, life and death of our Savior. What appeals more forcibly to a life of piety than the contemplation of Jesus born in a stable, living an humble life in Nazareth, dying on a cross, that His blood might purify us? If He sent forth Apostles to preach the Gospel to the whole world; if in His name temples are built in every nation, and missionaries are sent to the extremities of the globe, all this is done that we may be Saints. "G.o.d," says St. Paul, "gave some Apostles, and some Prophets, and others Evangelists, and others Pastors and Doctors, for the perfecting of the Saints, for the work of the ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ, until we all meet unto the unity of faith and of the knowledge of the Son of G.o.d unto a perfect man."(36)
The moral law which the Catholic Church inculcates on her children is the highest and holiest standard of perfection ever presented to any people, and furnishes the strongest incentives to virtue.
The same Divine precepts delivered through Moses to the Jews, on Mount Sinai, the same salutary warnings which the Prophets uttered throughout Judea, the same sublime and consoling lessons of morality which Jesus gave on the Mount-these are the lessons which the Church teaches from January till December. The Catholic preacher does not amuse his audience with speculative topics or political harangues, or any other subjects of a transitory nature. He preaches only "Christ, and Him crucified."
This code of Divine precepts is enforced with as much zeal by the Church as was the Decalogue of old by Moses, when he said: "These words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thy heart; and thou shalt tell them to thy children; and thou shalt meditate upon them, sitting in thy house, and walking on thy journey, sleeping and rising."(37)
The first lesson taught to children in our Sunday-schools is their duty to know, love and serve G.o.d, and thus to be Saints; for if they know, love and serve G.o.d aright they shall be Saints indeed. Their tender minds are instructed in this great truth that though they had the riches of Dives, and the glory and pleasures of Solomon, and yet fail to be righteous, they have missed their vocation, and are "wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked."(38) "For, what doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?"(39) On the contrary though they are as poor as Lazarus, and as miserable as Job in the days of his adversity, they are a.s.sured that their condition is a happy one in the sight of G.o.d, if they live up to the maxims of the Gospel.
The Church quickens the zeal of her children for holiness of life by impressing on their minds the rigor of G.o.d's judgments, who "will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and make manifest the counsels of the hearts," by reminding them of the terrors of h.e.l.l and of the sweet joys of Heaven.
Not only are Catholics instructed in church on Sundays but they are exhorted to peruse the Word of G.o.d, and manuals of devotion, at home. The saints whose lives are there recorded serve like bright stars to guide them over the stormy ocean of life to the sh.o.r.es of eternity; while the history of those who have fallen from grace stands like a beacon light, warning them to shun the rocks against which a Solomon and a Judas made shipwreck of their souls.
Our books of piety are adapted to every want of the human soul, and are a fruitful source of sanctification. Who can read without spiritual profit such works as the almost inspired _Following of Christ_ by Thomas a Kempis; the _Christian Perfection_ of Rodriguez; the _Spiritual Combat_ of Scupoli; the writings of St. Francis de Sales, and a countless host of other ascetical authors?
You will search in vain outside the Catholic Church for writers comparable in unction and healthy piety to such as I have mentioned. Compare, for instance, _Kempis_ with _Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress_, or _Butler's Lives of the Saints_ with _Foxe's Book of Martyrs_. You lay down _Butler_ with a sweet and tranquil devotion, and with a profound admiration for the Christian heroes whose lives he records; while you put aside _Foxe_ with a troubled mind and a sense of vindictive bitterness. I do not speak of the _Book of Common Prayer_, because the best part of it is a translation from our Missal. Protestants also publish _Kempis_, though sometimes in a mutilated form; every pa.s.sage in the original being carefully omitted which alludes to Catholic doctrines and practices.
A distinguished Episcopal clergyman of Baltimore once avowed to me that his favorite books of devotion were our standard works of piety. In saying this, he paid a merited and graceful tribute to the superiority of Catholic spiritual literature.
The Church gives us not only the most pressing motives, but also the most potent means for our sanctification. These means are furnished by prayer and the Sacraments. She exhorts us to frequent communion with G.o.d by prayer and meditation, and so imperative is this obligation in our eyes that we would justly hold ourselves guilty of grave dereliction of duty if we neglected for a considerable time the practice of morning and evening prayer.
The most abundant source of graces is also found in the seven Sacraments of the Church. Our soul is bathed in the Precious Blood of Jesus Christ at the font of Baptism, from which we come forth "new creatures." We are then and there incorporated with Christ, becoming "bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh;" "for as many of you," says the Apostle, "as have been baptized in Christ have put on Christ."(40) And as the Holy Ghost is inseparable from Christ, our bodies are made the temples of the Spirit of G.o.d and our souls His Sanctuary. "Christ loved the Church and delivered Himself up for it, that He might sanctify it, cleansing it by the laver of water, in the word of life; that He might present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish."(41)
In Confirmation we receive new graces and new strength to battle against the temptations of life.
In the Eucharist we are fed with the living Bread which cometh down from Heaven.
In Penance are washed away the stains we have contracted after Baptism.
Are we called to the Sacred Ministry, or to the married state, we find in the Sacraments of Orders and Matrimony ample graces corresponding with the condition of life which we have embraced.
And our last illness is consoled by Extreme Unction, wherein we receive the Divine succor necessary to fortify and purify us before departing from this world.
In a word, the Church, like a watchful mother, accompanies us from the cradle to the grave, supplying us at each step with the medicine of life and immortality.
As the Church offers to her children the strongest motives and the most powerful means for attaining to sanct.i.ty of life, so does she reap among them the most abundant fruits of holiness. In every age and country she is the fruitful mother of saints. Our Ecclesiastical calendar is not confined to the names of the twelve Apostles. It is emblazoned with the lists of heroic Martyrs who "were stoned, and cut asunder, and put to death by the sword;"(42) of innumerable Confessors and Hermits who left all things and followed Christ; of spotless virgins who preserved their chast.i.ty for the Kingdom of Heaven's sake. Every day in the year is consecrated in our Martyrology to a large number of Saints.
And in our own times, in every quarter of the globe and in every department of life, the Church continues to raise up Saints worthy of the primitive days of Christianity.
If we seek for _Apostles_, we find them conspicuously among the Bishops of Germany, who are now displaying in prison and in exile a serene heroism worthy of Peter and Paul.
Every year records the tortures of Catholic missioners who die _Martyrs_ to the Faith in China, Corea, and other Pagan countries.
Among her _confessors_ are numbered those devoted priests who, abandoning home and family ties, annually go forth to preach the Gospel in foreign lands. Their worldly possessions are often confined to a few books of devotion and their modest apparel.
And who is a stranger to her consecrated _virgins_, those sisters of various Orders who in every large city of Christendom are daily reclaiming degraded women from a life of shame, and bringing them back to the sweet influences of religion; who s.n.a.t.c.h the abandoned offspring of sin from temporal and spiritual death, and make them pious and useful members of society, becoming more than mothers to them; who rescue children from ignorance, and instill into their minds the knowledge and love of G.o.d.
We can point to numberless saints also among the laity. I dare a.s.sert that in almost every congregation in the Catholic world, men and women are to be found who exhibit a fervent piety and a zeal for religion which render them worthy of being named after the _Annas_, _the Aquilas_ and the _Priscillas_ of the New Testament. They attract not indeed the admiration of the public, because true piety is unostentatious and seeks a "life hidden with Christ in G.o.d."(43)
It must not be imagined that, in proclaiming the sanct.i.ty of the Church, I am attempting to prove that all Catholics are holy. I am sorry to confess that corruption of morals is too often found among professing Catholics.
We cannot close our eyes to the painful fact that too many of them, far from living up to the teachings of their Church, are sources of melancholy scandal. "It must be that scandals come, but woe to him by whom the scandal cometh." I also admit that the sin of Catholics is more heinous in the sight of G.o.d than that of their separated brethren, because they abuse more grace.
But it should be borne in mind that neither G.o.d nor His Church forces any man's conscience. To all He says by the mouth of His Prophet: "Behold I set before you the way of life and the way of death." (Jer. xxi. 8.) The choice rests with yourselves.
It is easy to explain why so many disedifying members are always found clinging to the robes of the Church, their spiritual Mother, and why she never shakes them off nor disowns them as her children. The Church is animated by the spirit of her Founder, Jesus Christ. He "came into this world to save sinners."(44) He "came not to call the just but sinners to repentance." He was the Friend of Publicans and Sinners that He might make them the friends of G.o.d. And they clung to Him, knowing His compa.s.sion for them.
The Church, walking in the footsteps of her Divine Spouse, never repudiates sinners nor cuts them off from her fold, no matter how grievous or notorious may be their moral delinquencies; not because she connives at their sin, but because she wishes to reclaim them. She bids them never to despair, and tries, at least, to weaken their pa.s.sions, if she cannot altogether reform their lives.
Mindful also of the words of our Lord: "The poor have the Gospel preached to them,"(45) the Church has a tender compa.s.sion for the victims of poverty, which has its train of peculiar temptations and infirmities.
Hence, the poor and the sinners cling to the Church, as they clung to our Lord during His mortal life.
We know, on the other hand, that sinners who are guilty of gross crimes which shock public decency are virtually excommunicated from Protestant Communions. And as for the poor, the public press often complains that little or no provision is made for them in Protestant Churches. A gentleman informed me that he never saw a poor person enter an Episcopal Church which was contiguous to his residence.
These excluded sinners and victims of penury either abandon Christianity altogether, or find refuge in the bosom of their true Mother, the Catholic Church, who, like her Divine Spouse, claims the afflicted as her most cherished inheritance. The parables descriptive of this Church which our Lord employed also clearly teach us that the good and bad shall be joined together in the Church as long as her earthly mission lasts. The kingdom of G.o.d is like a field in which the c.o.c.kle is allowed to grow up with the good seed until the harvest-time;(46) it is like a net which encloses good fish and bad until the hour of separation comes.(47) So, too, the Church is that great house(48) in which there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay.
The Fathers repeat the teaching of Scripture. St. Jerome says: "The ark of Noah was a type of the Church. As every kind of animal was in that, so in this there are men of every race and character. As in that were the leopard and the kids, the wolf and the lambs, so in this there are to be found the just and the sinful-that is, vessels of gold and silver along with those of wood and clay."(49)
St. Gregory the Great writes: "Because in it (the Church) the good are mingled with the bad, the reprobate with the elect, it is rightly declared to be similar to the wise and the foolish virgins."(50)
Listen to St. Augustine: "Let the mind recall the threshing-floor containing straw and wheat; the nets in which are inclosed good and bad fish; the ark of Noah in which were clean and unclean animals, and you will see that the Church from now until the judgment day _contains not only sheep and oxen_-that is, saintly laymen and holy ministers-_but also the beasts of the field_.... For the beasts of the field are men who take delight in carnal pleasures, _the field being that broad way which leads to perdition_."(51)
The occasional scandals existing among members of the Church do not invalidate or impair her claim to the t.i.tle of sanct.i.ty. The spots on the sun do not mar his brightness. Neither do the moral stains of some members sully the brilliancy of her "who cometh forth as the morning star, fair as the moon, bright as the sun."(52) The c.o.c.kle that grows amidst the wheat does not destroy the beauty of the ripened harvest. The sanct.i.ty of Jesus was not sullied by the presence of Judas in the Apostolic College. Neither can the moral corruption of a few disciples tarnish the holiness of the Church. St. Paul calls the Church of Corinth a congregation of Saints,(53) though he reproves some scandalous members among them.(54)