The Epistles of Christ: Short Sermons for the Sundays of the Year on Texts Taken from the Epistles
Fr. Michael Andrew Chapman
B. Herder Book, 1927


FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER EASTER

TEXT: (St. James 1: 22) Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.

You have noticed, perhaps, in reading the Epistles for this Easter season, the insistence on "good works," the practical side of religion, which the Church sets before us in these excerpts from the letters of the Apostles. For Eastertide is not merely the commemoration of the historical fact of the Resurrection of our Lord from the dead, it is also the witness and the reminder that we, too, as His disciples, have risen from the death of sin and entered upon the new life of right living. If this were not so, the Easter feast could mean but little to us, as of a far-off divine event which we are bidden to admire, but which had little or nothing to do with us personally, which did not touch us vitally, and so made hardly any difference in our daily way of living.

(1) Too many people have just this impersonal and indifferent view of the great fact of Religion, regarding it as something beautiful and good, but quite outside of themselves, something to be admired but not practiced, something, of course, to die in, but not something to live by. The Apostle warns us expressly against this view, telling us that it is not enough to accept the revelation of divine truth, not enough to enroll our names among the number of believers, not enough to be "among those present" when the eternal truths are preached; but we must, if all this is to do us any good at all, in this world or the next, practice what we hear preached, really take our part in the spiritual activities of religion, really be Catholics as well as have the name of such.

(2) How often we hear it said of this man or that woman : "Oh, yes, he (or she) is a Catholic, but he doesn't work at it!" There are those who would feel insulted if you called them "Protestants" or said that they were not Catholics. Yet they do not live as if they were Catholics, and anyone not knowing them intimately would never guess that they were Catholics. Questioned as to their faith, they could pass a good examination as to their orthodoxy. Yet their belief does not show in their lives to any marked degree. They may be fairly regular about "hearing Mass" on Sundays, not so good on holy days that fall during the week, while as for the Sacraments -well, they conform to the minimum requirements, and go to Confession and Communion during Eastertide. Their children are baptized, perhaps they make their first Communion, perhaps not. Yet they are Catholics, "hearers of the word," but at best lukewarm and careless "doers."

(3) The worst of it is that they fool themselves, though they do not fool anybody else. Life runs along with them just about as it does with anyone else. They are, in the eyes of the world, fairly good people. Of course they "don't set up to be saints," and if they are great sinners, they manage at least to keep up respectable appearances. They see so many people worse off, religiously, than themselves that they begin to think all is well with them. They have the Faith ! But "the devils also believe," yet their faith does not save them. The Catholic Church has never taught that Faith alone will save a man. Something more is required than a more or less intelligent accept ante of the eternal truths. Those truths must be put into practice, if they are to be to us anything more than interesting and beautiful abstractions. The question of the really honest and earnest Christian is "what must I do to be saved?" The honest and earnest Catholic is literally up and doing and not fooling himself with the thought that everything is all right so long as he is nominally a Catholic, and so within the ark of safety.

PERORATION. It is now sufficiently long after Easter for us to cast up our spiritual accounts again. We received the Sacraments, it is to be hoped, on Easter day. We made, it is to be hoped, good resolutions; some effort to change the way of our life, to overcome evil habits, to quit dangerous company and occasions of sin. Well, that was over a month ago-where do we stand now? Have we really "risen with Christ" to newness of life, or are we deceiving ourselves again, playing with the hell-fire of sin, lapsing back into our old indifference? We have heard, over and over again, what we ought to do, how it is possible for us to reform our lives so that they may really be worth living. Are we doing it? Has Lent and Easter meant anything to us, and if not, why not? Whose fault will it be if this glorious Eastertide shall pass and find us no better than we were before? God help us all to put into practice the words we hear, to be real Catholics, not deceiving and defrauding ourselves of the happiness that should be ours in the service of God.