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Fifth Sunday After the Epiphany

"The kingdom of heaven is likened to a man that sowed good seed in his field."--Matt. 13.


Holy Writ compares the working out of our salvation and the using of divine grace to different occupations of men, such as building, fishing and commerce. In today's Gospel our Lord draws His comparison from a field which a husbandman sows with good seed. The field is the heart of man, the husbandman is the Lord, and the seeds are the communications of His grace, which through our co-operation bring forth fruit for eternal life.

Unhappily, this seed frequently fails to bring forth that fruit which Christ expected to reap when He intrusted it to our hearts. The enemy of God, the enemy of the children of God, the Evil One, endeavors to prevent the growth of the seed, and it is our duty to check his attempts. And how can this be done? We will consider this question today. O Mary, pray for us, that we may be filled with the desire to prepare our heart for the Lord, and that we may keep it closed to all evil influences! I speak in the most holy name of Jesus, to the greater glory of God!

We have but one thing to care for here on earth, and that is to serve God, to know and fulfill His holy will, and to save our souls. We shall accomplish this task by earnestly endeavoring to co-operate with the divine grace which God bestows upon us for the growth of virtue in our hearts, and by eradicating from them all evil inclinations. Christ, as I said, compares the inspirations of His grace to seed which falls into the hearts of men. And how early, how ceaselessly, and in what manifold ways this seed falls into our hearts!

First, the sight of the entire world reminds us daily and hourly of the power, greatness, majesty, wisdom, and goodness of God, and is a perpetual admonition to serve God, and gather fruit for eternity, to employ for this end all the means which God has given us, to ask Him for help, return thanks for benefits received, and render Him all the honor in our power.

Were we always to bear in mind how perfectly nature fulfills the will of God, how with all its strength it strives after perfection; further, were we to remember how every breath we draw, every drop of water we drink, every morsel of bread we eat, each thread of our clothes is a gift of God, what an incentive would not these thoughts be to serve God, to praise Him and to do His holy will!

In the life of St. Paul of the Cross we read that when he walked through the fields he sometimes would beat the grass with a stick, and say to the flowers: "Be silent! " Me felt ashamed at the sight of them, and thought: Oh, that I served God as perfectly as you do, and that the virtues of my life were as fragrant as you. How precious is the seed which God by the hand of nature sows upon the field of our heart to animate us in the service of our Creator!

Let us consider the effects of interior grace, and the influence it exercises over us, as also the instruction we receive as children of the Church.

First: In regard to the bestowing of His graces, what has God not done, and what is He not daily doing for us? The good seed fell upon our youthful hearts with every word which our parents spoke when instructing us in our faith and encouraging us to live rightly. Think too of all that you were told as children at school or in the Church, to encourage you to lead a virtuous life. Add to this the festivals of the Church, the good example of many of her children, the lives of her saints, and the countless good books which place the beauty of virtue before your eyes! All this is seed which falls ever anew upon the hearts of the children of the Church. So, too, all that we hear from the mouth of the priest in the pulpit, the very words I address to you now, are good seeds falling into the hearts of those who listen.

Moreover, all the inspirations of grace are greatly increased if we walk prayerfully in the presence of the Lord, and are zealous in receiving holy Communion. How abundant would our spiritual harvest be, were we to receive into our hearts the seed that falls upon it, and by our co-operation aid it to grow and ripen! Call to mind what doctors in theology tell us, that for each grace well applied, the Lord bestows a still greater one. It is, however, necessary to take care lest there be mixed with the good seed which falls into our hearts some of the bad seed which Satan is constantly endeavoring to sow. As regards the outer world, he is anxious to prevail upon us to esteem and seek inordinately the enjoyment of temporal good, and instead of praising, glorifying, and loving with all our hearts the Creator, to offend Him by misusing His gifts even to idolatry. Oh! how many weeds sprout up in the garden of our heart through this misuse, and how great the danger which menaces man, if he be not careful to root out the weed of inordinate love for creatures, lest it stifle the good seed and overgrow the ground of his heart!

I have said before that every word which was addressed to us in our youth, and which instructed us in our faith, was a good seed dropped into our hearts. Satan knows this, and tries to prevent the sowing of these seeds. He endeavors to create obstacles which will prevent parents from fulfilling their duties, so that the children grow up without instruction or the habit of prayer. He causes them to give scandal to their children by word and conduct, and thus sow the seed of evil. It is a subject for wonder that sometimes children are better and more pious than their parents.

School is the place where youth ought to be instructed in their religion, and trained to walk in the way of virtue; it is next to the family circle the place where the good seed ought to be sown most abundantly and fostered most carefully, and yet school is not unfrequently the most active field of Satan for the sowing of evil. Children are sent to godless schools, where they imbibe the spirit of the world, where, hearing our holy religion abused, and coming in contact with children of depraved morals, they take into their hearts seeds of immorality and irreligion.

In a short time the youth that have been under such influences avoid the church, and feel disgust at prayer and the word of God. They prefer to hear the frivolous conversation of children of the world and frequent their society; they read no longer good books, but peruse such as are filled with vain and worldly tales, perhaps even with immorality. Alas, what a vast amount of evil seeds falls into such hearts! And who is there to eradicate the tares? Those whose duty it is are careless, asleep. Satan has plenty of time to tend and water the sprouting tares.

As Christ says in to-day's Gospel, while the husbandman is sleeping the enemy comes and sows cockle. Sleep is the emblem of carelessness, and how fraught with danger is this our sleep for those whom God has placed under our guidance! Why is it that so many children, instead of progressing in virtue, grow in frivolity and wickedness? The carelessness of the parents is the cause. They sleep, fulfill not their duty, and the enemy cometh; they do not keep watch over the conduct of their children, and Satan enrolls them as his own.

Therefore if we earnestly desire to exclude from our hearts the seeds of evil, and to stifle the germ of sin within us, we must watch, and while rooting out the tares of evil, cherish and watch over the seed that produces the harvest which the hands of angels will one day collect for the granaries of heaven! Amen!

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"Suffer both to grow until the Harvest"--Matt. 13[/i]


 
The question which the reapers and servants addressed to their master in today's Gospel seems quite natural; for as their master had sown only good seed in his field, they had reason to be astonished that weeds sprang up which threatened to choke the wheat. Their question: "Wilt thou that we go and gather it up," appears praiseworthy; they were anxious to undo the evil that had crept in. Their master refused the request; and why? The spiritual meaning of this parable supplies the answer, and hence I say: Now God tolerates, but one day He will separate.

God suffers the wicked to live unpunished among the good, and He allows this in consequence of His infinite wisdom and justice. Let us consider our reasons for this assertion. O Mary, thou wise Virgin, as the Church salutes thee, pray for us that we may obtain the grace to recognize the ways of God, and to glorify for evermore His wisdom and justice! I speak in the most holy name of Jesus, to the greater glory of God!

If we consider how and why God created man, how much He has done to induce him to serve and love his Creator and be saved; if consulting history and past experience we see how man, instead of living a holy life seems only to exist for the purpose of offending God, and if furthermore we reflect that God allows this to continue for thousands of years, we must be astonished!

Faith, however, enlightens and teaches us that God created man free and to His own likeness; that He put him upon this earth as in a place where he has by his own life to determine his future eternity. When through the fall of Adam we lost heaven and our supernatural destination, God did for us what of ourselves we could never have been able to do. The Son of God became man, and paid the price of our Redemption. But as man's first fall into sin did not deprive him of freedom, he was obliged on his part to do all that the grace of God enabled him to do. He was required to make, by a voluntary co-operation, the merits of the Redemption his own. God as the Creator of nature as well as of grace did not wish to disturb the natural order of things, and He willed that the kingdom of God upon earth should be extended among men by men. He gave them the liberty to do this and thus increase their reward in heaven, or not to do it and then suffer in the world to come a deserved punishment.

Unfortunately, a great number of people do not accept the grace of Redemption, or, as I said before, they misuse it to offend God. Hence the tares in the great field of humanity. I say the Lord suffers this state of things, and in order to manifest His wisdom, goodness and justice does not punish the wicked immediately. And how? St. Augustine answers this question when he says: "God is patient and suffers the sinner to remain among the good that he may he converted by their presence and example, and that the latter may be tried and sanctified through patience in persecution."

Hence God suffers the wicked to remain among the good principally for their own benefit, to lead them into the path of righteousness, since nothing strikes the sinner more than the contrast between wickedness, as he sees it in himself, and virtue, as reflected in the lives of the just. Besides, the example of others shows them that it is possible to lead a virtuous life, if they only choose to do so.

St. Augustine, reading one day before his conversion of the austere lives which St. Anthony and thousands of holy hermits led in the deserts of Egypt, said to himself: "If they could live thus, why can not I?" And if he was so miraculously converted to God by merely reading the lives of the saints, what would have been his feelings had he witnessed their holiness and lived among them!

Ask yourself husband, wife, father, mother, sister, brother, friend, does not the example of those around you, who lead a pious and virtuous life, constantly admonish you of your duty and incite you to live as they do? This is even true of those sinners who refuse to hear a sermon or go into a church. The example of the good and pious with whom they come in contact supplies the place of church and sermon. If they would only allow themselves to be influenced, they have sufficient inducement to be converted.

But supposing the wicked to be obstinately perverse in their evil ways while living among the good, I say, secondly, with St. Augustine, that God suffers their conduct in order that the good, under the guidance of Providence, may draw profit from it for their own salvation and augment their glory in heaven. Think of the millions of martyrs who are now in heaven. Had God not permitted Nero, Antiochus, and the other persecutors of the just to live and pass their days in cruelty, we would have no countless throng of martyrs, nor would these have gained the glory which they now enjoy in heaven.

And even if we are not persecuted by the wicked unto the shedding of our blood, there is the unbloody martyrdom of patient endurance, which we undergo by having to endure their company and bear with their contumely. You know this well, pious wife of a godless husband, and you, pious husband of a wicked wife, and you too parents, children, servants, masters and neighbors. Under such circuмstances how many occasions have we to practice patience, humility, confidence in God, to call faith, hope and charity into action? We can say with St. Francis of Sales: "It is the wicked, our enemies, who work most diligently to adorn our heavenly crowns."

We read in the life of St. Ludwina, who was bedridden thirty-eight years, that one day longing to die and be with Christ she saw an angel who said to her: "Thy crown is not yet ready." Soon after a band of wicked people invaded her room, and calling her an imposter dragged her out of bed and beat her. Then the angel reappeared and said: "Ludwina, thy crown is finished; enter into the joys of heaven," whereupon she expired.

I say thirdly: God suffers to remain among the good even those who, He knows, will never be converted. And why? To glorify through them His justice. The wicked often possess some good qualities: They care for their families, are kind to the poor and perform other good deeds. God rewards them here upon earth by bestowing upon them temporal wealth. One day He will come and separate the good from the bad, and the wicked, having had their reward in this world, can expect only everlasting pains in the flames of hell.

But some one asks: Are the good not in danger of being corrupted by companionship with the wicked? Yes and no. Yes, if they do not avoid and flee temptation. No, if they shun evil and profit by the grace which God gives them to conquer sin and enhance by their victories the luster of their crown in heaven. Christ said: No one is able to take from Me the sheep which my Father gave Me. Therefore, by allowing the wicked to remain among the just, God glorifies His wisdom, goodness, patience and fidelity.

I shall use a comparison and conclude. God's Providence in the salvation of souls may be likened to a magnificent carpet whose beauty and richness we are not now permitted to see fully. But it will be exposed to the view of all on the last day, when the fineness and intricacy of its texture, the wonderful harmony of its colors, will strike the wicked with fear and fill the good with joy. In this world we see the wrong side of this divinely woven carpet with its confused, torn threads and dark stripes. When, however, on the last day the ways of eternal wisdom are unfolded to us, then we shall see how all combine to the glory of God and the good of His saints; and then we shall be separated from the company of the wicked forever! Amen!

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Bad Company

"While men were asleep, his enemy came and oversowed cockle among the wheat, and went his way." (Matth. 13 : 25.)


At the request of his disciples, my dear brethren, our divine Lord explained to them the parable of the cockle and the wheat, read in today's Gospel. The field in which both are sown, (he gave them to understand), is the world; the good grain signifying good and just souls, whilst the cockle represents the wicked and reprobate. Christ Himself is the sower of the good seed; but he who scatters the cockle, is the Evil One, the sworn enemy of God and man. The time of the harvest will be the end of the world; when the cockle, i. e., sinners, shall be cast into the bottomless pit of hell, there to burn in everlasting fires; but when the good grain, i.e. the faithful servants of God, shall be transported into the heavenly Jerusalem, there to enjoy the Beatific Vision, and shine like stars for all eternity.

1. Man, my dear brethren, came forth from the hands of his Creator, perfect in the order of grace, as well as in that of nature. His passions were entirely subject to reason, and reason was the mistress of all his actions; but when he violated God's command, his intellect became obscured, his will depraved, and his passions violently rebellious. Sad, indeed, were the effects of Adam's sin for us, his children! Thereby, alas! the order established by divine Providence was perverted, the slave became master, and the master, slave; and degraded, as we are, from our high estate, it is only by a long and persistent struggle that we are able to bring our passions into proper subjection. "The life of man," says holy Job, "is a continual warfare on earth." Yes, brethren, if we wish to do anything for our poor souls, if we wish to secure our salvation, we must fight continually and courageously against our corrupt nature, arming ourselves with God's grace, which can always be obtained in prayer and the holy Sacraments.

 2. But, dear brethren, were our struggle confined merely to the combat with our own unruly passions, our case would not be so deplorable; we have also to struggle against another deadly foe,--namely, the world, and the scandals and bad examples with which it abounds. Our present age is, unhappily, a most perverse one. Iniquity and crime are ever on the ascendant among us: and the laws of justice and morality seem to have been altogether obliterated from the minds of men. What is your own experience in this matter? Cast a rapid glance at the condition of modern society,--at the state of affairs going on daily around you. Things seem to have changed names in these disordered times. Virtue is called vice, and vice virtue. How, then, shall we be able to bear up against the current, and secure that great and only affair, for which we were created,--our eternal salvation? If one thing only is necessary, and all other things are only vanity and affliction of spirit, where shall we find a remedy for our modern evils, dear brethren, an antidote for the evil influence of scandal and bad example? Perhaps, you will suggest, the utter extinction, the complete annihilation of all sinners and workers of iniquity? No, Jesus Christ, in this day's Gospel, decrees that both the wheat and the cockle, the good and the bad, shall "grow up to the time of the harvest." The wicked, (as St. Augustine explains,) are permitted to live, either that they may have time to amend their lives, or that they may be an occasion of merit to the just.

 3. Shall we separate ourselves altogether from these unworthy ones, and refuse to mix with them at all? No, dear brethren, such a course is neither possible nor expedient. To carry it into execution we would be forced, (as St.Paul says, when treating of the matter), to quit the world altogether. Ah! my beloved, our wisdom and our salvation lie in this case, as in most cases, in the golden mean. Without exhausting our strength on the uprooting of the cockle, we must avoid, as much as possible, the company of the wicked, and all familiarity with evil. If necessity, or just cause, however, should throw us unwillingly into such associations, we must firmly resist their scandalous influence, putting on, as the Apostle says, the armor of light--that is, having recourse to God by prayer, beseeching His grace, that we may not be seduced or drawn into sin.

 4. Happy are they who act in this circuмspect manner! Seeing evil committed they are not scandalized thereat; because the love of God is rooted deeply in their hearts. But alas! my brethren, where shall we find these edifying Christians now-a-days? Ah! I would venture to assert, as St. John Chrysostom did in his own day, that there is scarcely one amidst every one hundred thousand,--all the rest are so imperfect and frail that our Saviour compares them to weak children. With such innate weakness and imperfections, then, with all the fatal tendencies of corrupt nature towards evil, how shall we be able to keep company with the wicked and impious, and yet have strength to repel the almost irresistible force of their bad example? Ah, miserable that we are, without wishing or perceiving it, if we continue to frequent the society of sinners, little by little we become followers of all their false maxims, imitators of all their vices, and admirers of their dissipated and irregular habits. This is an undisputed fact, confirmed by daily experience. The woman, (be she old or young), who frequents the company of other vain, frivolous and ambitious women, acknowledged devotees of fashion and folly, becomes in a short time an admirer of all their wild absurdities, and, unconsciously to herself, adopts the very language and habits of her empty-headed associates. In like manner, the man who keeps company with gamblers, drunkards, libertines, and profligate worldlings, soon, in his turn, begins to gamble, drink, and frequent the vile haunts of unlawful pleasure. Of deliberate contact with every vice the common saying is true: "He who touches pitch must expect to be defiled;" or that other proverb so well known to you all: "Show me your company and I'll tell you what you are." "Friendship," as St. John Chrysostom says, "either finds or makes friends equal."

5. In the Confessions of St. Augustine we read that, having before his conversion frequented bad company, he not only became vicious and dissipated like his associates, but even gloried in his vices, and felt ashamed of practising virtue; and performing good works. "I was ashamed," said he, "to appear virtuous." Alas! how many of both sexes, especially among the young, give expression to the same sentiment, if not by word of mouth, at least by their conduct and mode of life. Yonder, for example, is a young man who once wished to lead a pious life; who gladly frequented the house of God and the holy Sacraments; who found a certain pure delight in prayer, in the hearing of sermons, and the reading of good books. But, alas! because that young man frequented the company of the wicked, who never go to either Church or Sacraments, who scoff at prayer and pious practices, and openly indulge in the most degrading vices, dragged down into the mire of sin by their bad example, and fearing to be regarded as narrow-minded and scrupulous, he too has become a stranger to the house of God. Prayer and the Sacraments are utterly neglected; and this modern Augustine cries out in the midst of his vice and misery, "I am ashamed to appear virtuous."

So with many a virtuous young woman, who trusts to her own strength and good resolutions, and chooses for her companions, those silly gad-abouts of women who are seen in doubtful places of amusement at the most unseasonable hours; who are bold and free in their intercourse with men and, on all occasions, are altogether forgetful of that modesty which is the brightest Jєωel of their sex. Too soon does she begin to imitate them in gratifying her vanity and love of luxury, no matter by what anti-Christian means; and she even goes so far in the end as to enter the house of God, as they do, with as worldly motives as they frequent the ball-room and theater, seeking before thy very sanctuary, O outraged God! fresh fuel for their vanity and lust!

 6. Thus, also, with the upright man who seeks with pleasure and deliberation the society of the deceitful and the fraudulent. "If others can amass riches by a few little doubtful tricks and manoeuvres,"--he questions--"Why not I?" And soon society is corrupted by the presence of another rogue and embezzler. Ah! dear brethren, too true is that comparison of St. Basil's, wherein he says, that as the air which is breathed in pestiferous places insensibly infects the inhabitants thereof, in like manner the good are poisoned by contact with evil company before they perceive the danger in which they stand. The word of God Himself, declares that "whoever shall frequent the company of a proud man, will also become proud;" and that "he who loves the danger will perish in it." Would you know, dear brethren, why the Jєωιѕн people, the chosen and favored people of God, violated the divine commandment to such an extent, as to forsake the true God, and adore in his stead, idols of wood, stone, and metal? The Holy Ghost Himself gives us the reason: "Because they mixed with the Gentiles and the pagans, and learned their evil works." And St. Bernard declares that St. Peter denied our Lord, "because he was at that time in the company of the enemies of his divine Master."

 7. Ah! my brethren, how cautious we should be in our present perverse age, an age already foretold by the Apostle when he said that, "dangerous times will yet be at hand!" How many have we now-a-days amongst us, maliciously and wickedly bent upon the corruption of others? How many scorpions always seeking to wound the incautious with their poisonous sting! Good God! What blasphemies are uttered by these impious men! "There is no God," they boldly exclaim: or, if there is, He has no concern for the welfare of His creatures . . . Heaven is a mere romance; eternity a fable. Virtue is an illusion; the truths of our holy religion, the maxims of the Gospel, are only dreams and vain inventions . . . Humility lowers the dignity of manhood, and piety degrades it . . . Mass, Sacraments, rosaries, prayers, sermons, and pious books, are nothing more than the mad mummeries of fanatics and fools!"

Such, dear brethren, are some of the modern blasphemies uttered all around us by ''an evil and adulterous generation." Ah ! beloved brethren, beware of these blasphemous sinners; they are not merely evil through human weakness,--they are cunning, malicious demons under the form of men. Nay, I will say more; they are worse than the demons themselves, since, by their false maxims and perverse counsels, so flattering to human passions, they effect greater havoc in pure souls, than all the infernal spirits put together. The latter may tempt us by their evil suggestions, but they may not give us personally a bad example.

Indeed, if they appeared to us bodily, and sought to appeal to our senses, we would flee with horror from the terrible apparition. Not so with the agents of hell; for such are all evil companions. They present themselves before us with a pleasing aspect; they insinuate something that flatters self-love and our evil propensities, and under the pretext of friendship, they seduce us through our passions, and thus drag us deeper into the abyss of vice, than all the united powers of hell could do. Hence it is, that the Evil One makes every effort to enlist wicked men and women in his service, being well aware that he could effect a wider ruin among souls by one such sinner, than he could by a hundred of his own infernal spirits.

 8. Will you tell me, after all this, that it is a harmless thing to keep bad company? And you, who are forced by your state or occupations to associate against your will with evil company, what precautions are you taking to avoid being seduced by their corrupt example? Ah! dear brethren, far from exaggerating, or deceiving you, in this matter, I have but given you the doctrine of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, enforced by the example of His Blessed Mother and His Saints. Be not deceived by self-love or your passions; the keeping of evil company, and the influence of bad example are the principal sources whence proceed the torrents of iniquity, with which the world is at present inundated. There may be now here before me persons who habitually keep bad company, as well as those whose scandalous and dissipated lives are the occasion of their sin. To each of these classes I address myself to-day.

O all you bad Christians who indulge in evil associations, do you wish to rise from your present state of tepidity and lukewarmness, and return to God with your whole hearts and souls? Do you wish to avoid all future sins, and thus secure your eternal salvation? If you do the first step towards repentance must be the giving up of bad company. Otherwise, you will daily sink deeper and deeper in the slough of vice, you will openly give over the possession of your poor souls to the devil both in this life and in the life to come.

A closing word to parents and superiors--and then I have done. O Christian fathers and mothers! are you continually on your guard to prevent your children from associating with dangerous companions? Remember that God has intrusted these little ones to your charge, that you may bring them up in His fear and love. You will have to give a rigorous account of their souls on the day of judgment; our Lord Jesus Christ will strictly examine as to your diligence in preserving them from every evil association and occasion of sin. What, then, will He say on the Last Day to those parents, who not only have used no efforts to keep their children away from bad company, but have been themselves the ministers of Satan to them, instilling evil principles into their minds, or scandalizing them by their disorderly, irreligious lives? Ah! He will say to them: "It would have been better for you if you had never been born. Instead of securing the salvation of their souls you have plunged them by your bad example and counsels into eternal ruin! You and they are alike everlastingly lost. Depart, then, depart forever from my presence into the quenchless fires of hell!"

O Christian masters and superiors, you too must watch continually over your dependents lest they be seduced and corrupted by evil, immoral companions. Let the keen eye of holy vigilance be ever open in the household, in the shop, in the factories, and on the streets. Let every Christian vie with his neighbor in giving edification, parents with their children, and children with their parents; brothers with their sisters, and sisters with their brothers; masters with their servants, and servants with their masters; and thus may we all, dear brethren, by our united efforts spread the kingdom of God daily, more and more, and counteract the efforts of those who by their disedifying lives are endeavoring to spread abroad the kingdom of Satan and of Sin. That you may be the better able to effect your holy purpose, have continual recourse to Mary, the loving Mother of God, and our fond Mother, also. She is the model of perfection, and no human being ever led a more exemplary life than she. Let us then, by imitating her virtues, and by frequently invoking her powerful intercession, render her propitious in our regard.

Call upon her continually and confidingly; for her maternal heart is ever burning with solicitude for our temporal and eternal welfare. Her devout client is ever a match for the united powers of hell; since we read in her sacred office, that "she is terrible as an army set in array." Recommend yourselves also daily to her spouse, the good and benevolent St. Joseph--to your angel guardian--and your holy patron Saints, that they may obtain for you all the grace you need; especially, the grace to avoid all dangerous society, or, if you are forced to frequent it against your will, the grace to be protected from all its evils and enervating influences. Thus, at last, my beloved, having fought the good fight, having brought your unruly passions under due subjection, you may, one day, reap the reward of your labors in heaven, by being admitted to the eternal society of Jesus and Mary, and of all the Angels and Saints. Amen.







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