On Keeping the CommandmentsSecond Part:http://catholicharboroffaithandmorals.com/Hunolt%20Keeping%20the%20Commandments.htmlOur holy Founder, St. Ignatius, in his celebrated Book of the Spiritual Exercises, compares those who keep some but not all the commandments to those sick people who wish to get well, and to that end take the medicines that please their taste, but reject those that are prescribed by the doctors because they are too bitter or insipid, although the latter are far better for them. Who could believe that those people are in earnest about wishing for health? Consider now the will and the hope that we flatter ourselves we have of going to heaven; is it not of that kind in most cases? It is rare to find even among the most perverse one who is resolved to break all the commandments; seldom do you find a man who is not disgusted with some vice or other, or who does not find pleasure in an inclination for some virtue, or who does not endeavor to practise some work of devotion. We see, thanks be to God, many Christians who interrupt their temporal duties almost daily to hear holy Mass, and who attend sermons on Sundays and holy-days, and go frequently in the month to confession and holy Communion. Such is the case, my dear brethren. But what are we to conclude from this? That all those people are earnestly desirous of getting to heaven? Ah, I am afraid the contrary is the case; they do not wish, and they will not go to heaven. Why? Because they wish only in part; they consult their own caprices in the choice of the means they use, while they reject others that do not jump with their inclination and humor, although the latter are necessary and useful to their salvation.
Jesus and the Rich young Ruler
Preach to some, for instance, about mortification, fasting, abstinence from forbidden food, moderation in drinking--oh, in those things they find no difficulty; they think and say with the young man in the Gospel, whom Christ exhorted to keep the commandments: "All these things I have observed from my youth." Thank God! I am no drunkard or reveller; I keep the fast days prescribed by the Church as a Catholic Christian should keep them. And so they go home from the sermon comforted, with a sure pledge of their eternal salvation. But preach to them about abstaining from forbidden carnal pleasures, about guarding the eyes and other senses so as not to wound purity by look or thought, and what happens? Even what happened with that young man when Our Lord said to him: "Go, sell whatsoever thou hast and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven, and come, follow Me." At these words he went away sad, without making answer: "Who being struck sad at that saying, went away sorrowful (Mark x. 20 - 22)." That did not suit him.
If I say to a man: he who wishes to go to heaven must lead a chaste life, he is pleased with that, because he is not inclined to the vice of impurity, or lives happy in the married state; "all these things I have observed," he will answer. But if I add: he who wishes to go to heaven must make restitution of ill-gotten goods and give them back to their lawful owner, even to the last farthing, and if he has any doubt about his lawful claim to anything in his possession he must carefully set to work to solve the doubt as soon as possible, then he goes away sad; that does not suit him. The third thinks: so far I am all right; I do not remember having injured anyone in my whole life; "all these things I have observed;" but if I say to him: he who wishes to go to heaven must lay aside hatred and ill-will, and live in peace with his neighbor, and forgive his enemy from his heart, that does not please him at all; he goes away sad. A fourth thinks: that is not for me; I have not an enemy on the face of the earth, and I wish well to every one as I do to myself; " all these things I have observed." But if I say: you must also give up that intimacy, that company and occasion which is the radical cause of so many sins to you; you must renounce that vanity and love of dress that is a cause of scandal to others, and leads them into sin, then he goes away sad. A fifth thinks: this is not for me; "all these things I have observed." But if I say: you must from day to day earnestly try to lessen and altogether give up your habit of cursing and swearing, then he shrugs his shoulders, and goes away sad. The sixth thinks: "all these things I have observed; " I do not curse or swear. But you must keep your unruly tongue in check, and give up that habit of fault-finding, abusing, and talking uncharitably of others and injuring their reputation, thus sinning against charity; that is not at all to his taste; he goes away sad.
In a word, if piety and wickedness, virtue and vice, innocence and devotion, and guilt and transgression, the law of the Gospel of Christ and the laws and customs of the vain world, could be all mixed up and united together, then most people would have no difficulty, and would find courage and strength enough to tread the path to heaven. But you have to know that it is with the Christian life as with faith. If I refuse to believe a single article of faith I am an unbeliever; if I fail to observe one point of the law I am wicked and deserve hell-fire. "Whosoever shall keep the whole law, but offend in one point, is become guilty of all (James ii. 10)." It is not enough to keep one or several points of the commandments, to fulfil one or several of our Christian duties; they must all be fulfilled. When you are on a journey, does it help you to have three good and sound wheels on your carriage if the fourth is broken so that you cannot proceed? What does it avail your health to be free from fever if consumption chains you to your bed? What difference does it make to your life to be pierced with a sword or shot with a bullet? In the same way, how could it help your salvation to go with one foot towards heaven and with the other towards hell?
You say: I am not a thief or an unjust man; that is all right; robbery and injustice will not keep you out of heaven; but you are puffed up and proud on account of your wealth, and you despise others, so that it is your pride that will send you to hell. You are not guilty of adultery or incest; that is right; but you are Impure in your thoughts and desires; you are a cause of sin to others by your extravagance in dress, by your caresses and allurements; it is this latter vice and not the former that will condemn you. You are meek, charitable, merciful; a beautiful virtue! but you are addicted to an idle, comfort-seeking, and intemperate mode of life; the cause of your damnation will not be vindictiveness, harshness, or cruelty, but your intemperance and sloth in the divine service. You are not one of those who seek quarrels, and foment discord and disunion; but you are apt to rash-judge and speak ill of your neighbor. It is not a revengeful spirit, but rash-judging and an unbridled tongue that will be the cause of your ruin. You are not a public, notorious, scandalous, and abandoned sinner; but you are addicted to a secret sin known to yourself alone, and that will be reason enough for God to reject you. No matter what good works you perform, as long as you do not renounce all vices, you are, as Tertullian says, only half a Christian; you are divided between God and the devil; you have only half a wish to go to heaven. God does not allow that; He must have all or nothing. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind (Matt. xxii. 37)." Such is the command given to us. We are not told to love Him with half of our heart, soul, or mind, but with our whole heart, etc. He who does not give himself altogether to God, and keeps back something for himself, acts against God: "He that is not with Me is against Me (Ibid. xii. 30)."
Nay, I might almost say that although every sin is an abomination in the sight of God, yet it would be better for many a one and more advantageous to his salvation, to be altogether and evidently vicious than to be as we have described, and only half devout. Why? Because a great and wicked sinner has a clearer perception of his unhappy and miserable state, and is more likely to free himself from it by sincere repentance and amendment through the fear of hell, while the half-Christian, since he is not conscious of grievous or very enormous sins, and actually does some apparently good works every day, flatters himself that his devotion is all right, and lives assured of salvation without fear or anxiety, nor does he find out his mistake until he has actually entered on an unhappy eternity. It was the public sinner who stood humbly at the door of the temple, and, striking his breast, with contrite heart acknowledged his guilt: "O, God! be merciful to me a sinner (Luke xviii. 13)." On the other hand, the Pharisee boasted of his fasting, alms-giving, and other works, and thought he was a saint; but, according to the testimony of Our Lord, it was not he, but the publican who went home justified. And this is the meaning of the divine words of the Apocalypse: "I would thou wert cold, or hot: but because thou art lukewarm," half fish, half flesh, belonging half to Me and half to the devil, ". . . I will begin to vomit thee out of My mouth (Apoc. iii. 15, 16)." One cannot gain heaven with those cold-hearted wishes and empty desires.
And if there is a great number of men who, through the desire of going to heaven, resolve to employ the proper means without excepting any of them, yet even amongst those the greater number have a very weak will and resolution, so that they are easily overcome by the least difficulty, and all their intentions come to nothing. The prophet Osee compares those people to birds, when he says of Ephraim: "As for Ephraim, their glory hath flown away like a bird (Osee ix. 11)." Have you ever seen a heap of corn in an open barn during harvest time? How gladly the birds come and fly around it, and how eagerly they feed on it! But go and merely clap your hands together, or pick up a stone from the ground, nay, simply put a straw man at the door with a few rugs about him, so that the wind can blow him about, and the birds fly away at once. Silly things! why do you leave the good food? Has any one beaten you? No. There was only a noise made with the hand, or the shadow of a man, or the rustling of a rag of cloth. But why should we wonder at this, my dear brethren? They are only birds that have not reason. Let us rather be surprised at ourselves; for we often seem to fly up in desires and longings to heaven that stands open before us, but like the birds we fly off at the least shadow of difficulty, and forget all our good resolutions. "Their glory hath flown away like a bird."
Pilate was a bird of that kind. How anxious he was to save Christ from death! He was well aware of the innocence of Our Lord, and, in spite of the shouts and clamors of the ferocious rabble, he protested openly that he could find no proof of guilt in Him. He tried everything to acquit Him and let Him go free; and yet a mere breath of wind, the mere mention of the emperor's name, whose friendship he feared to lose, was enough to cause him to change his mind. Against his conscience and better knowledge "he delivered Jesus up to their will (Luke xxiii. 25)."
Salome Presenting the Head of St John the Baptist to King Herod
Herod was a bird of that kind; as the Scripture says, he had a great esteem for St. John the Baptist; he was disgusted at the cruel request for his head; a hundred times he cursed in his own mind the oath he had taken, and his only wish was to save John's life; but what sort of a resolution could you expect from such an effeminate king? As soon as Herodias began to speak he was no longer master of himself; he granted everything she asked for, although against his will: "He sent, and beheaded John in the prison (Matt. xiv. 10)."
Most Christians are inconstant, timorous birds of that kind, in the affair of their eternal salvation. If a man's sleeping faith begins to awake; if he is enlightened by a ray of inward grace; if his conscience is moved by hearing the word of God, oh, what salutary movements he experiences in his heart! what sighs and desires for heaven are sent forth by his will! what beautiful resolutions he makes! He condemns his former wicked, slothful, lazy life; now all shall be changed for the better; he will always think of his soul and its salvation; he will turn to God and occupy himself with and care for nothing but heaven; he will begin to live as a good Christian should; he avoid all sin, and strive for virtue with all his strength. What a rapid flight he takes towards heaven! How quickly, too, that woman changes! She resolves to lead a more Christian life, to make a better use of her time, to receive the sacraments more frequently, to be more regular in appearing at public devotions, to work for a future life more diligently, and to give for her salvation what she hitherto for such a long time squandered on vanity and luxury, on idleness, and on dangerous parties and company. Eh! what a beautiful and eager flight towards heaven! But what is required to interrupt this flight, to turn the bird back again? Nothing more than the name of an emperor, human respect, a threat, or a promise; nothing more than the dancing girl, a bad example, dangerous company, an alluring demeanor, a word of flattery, an attraction in the least occasion that offers, and there is an end to all the good resolutions, because they are weak, and the former mode of life is resumed. Meanwhile the years of their lives pass away, and they have nothing better than those changeable desires and weak resolutions, those daily purposes and intentions of doing everything, although in reality nothing whatever is done.
Now, my dear brethren, let each one of you ask himself by way of conclusion: have I hitherto wished to go to heaven? Do I still wish it? Have I wished it earnestly and in truth? Am I determined to carry this into effect? What have I hitherto done to this end? What am I doing now? Have I not perhaps been content with mere desires and empty longings, not using the proper means of fulfilling them? But how can such wishes or desires help me? Of what good is this weak determination of mine? Do you wish to do me a service? is a question often asked in the world; then show that you are in earnest by doing it. The ordinary compliments that people make through politeness, offering their services, do not count for much; they are empty words that one cannot depend on. If I wish to go to heaven I must show that my wish is real by keeping the commandments of God, by zeal in the practice of virtue, and indeed by keeping all the commandments, not one excepted; by fulfilling all the obligations of my state and condition, not one excepted, and by diligence and constancy in the practice of virtue. Do I do as much for heaven as I am wont to do for health's sake, or to make some temporal profit? to secure success in my domestic affairs? to get a good situation? to please a mere mortal? to satisfy my senses and love of comfort? Nay, do I do as much for the sake of gaining heaven as I have often done to commit sin? to avenge myself on my enemy? to enjoy the forbidden love of a creature? to get possession unjustly of another's property? to lose my soul for all eternity?
How many thoughts, considerations, cares, labors, journeys! how much running here and there, chagrin, and expense I have endured to gain those ends! And shall I now refuse to take the least trouble, to make the slightest effort to gain an indescribable, eternal good in heaven? To accomplish my will in those other things, I was not satisfied with using one or the other means; I did everything that lay in my power; I ventured on everything that offered the slightest chance of success; and to get to heaven shall I only do a little, and not all that is necessary? To gain those objects no watching, fasting, expense in money, begging, humbling myself seemed too much for me; nay, they were easy and pleasing; and even those very means seem difficult to me now and intolerable, and not to be endured, when there is question of using them to gain eternal happiness. What a shameful and degrading weakness!
Ah, my dear brethren, do we wish to go to heaven? If so, why do we take such little trouble about it? Do we not wish to go to heaven? What have we to seek or desire in this world? What do we hope, or fear, or love? Why do we live if all our hopes, fears, desires, longings, lives, labors, and love are not directed to that one necessary business for the sake of which alone we are on this earth, and that is the business of our eternal salvation? If we do not gain heaven, what good will all other things be to us? And must we then hear that terrible reproof from the lips of the divine Judge: (How often would I have gathered together . . . and thou wonldst not (Matt. xxiii. 37)?" How often have I desired to make you happy forever, and you would not accept My offer? O my Lord and my God! before it comes to that I will at once change my will. A hundred times have I said to Thee that I hope for heaven, but I see now that my hope was a deceitful one. A hundred times have I said that I wish to go to heaven, but I see now that my will was weak, nerveless, and half-hearted, a will that led me farther and farther from heaven. One good desire have I had after the other, but without effect; one good resolution after the other, but without fulfilment; the eyes of the mind were opened and looked towards heaven, but the feet remained fixed to the earth; my heart was attached to the world and its vanities. Now I say once for all: O my God! I will go to heaven; this is my earnest determination, and I will work for its fulfilment constantly by carefully avoiding all sin and the occasions of sin, and by diligently performing all my duties through a true, zealous love for Thee. And what is wanting to my weak will do Thou supply by Thy powerful grace, O Holy Ghost! who on this day didst so wonderfully change the apostles; that thus strengthened by Thy almighty power, I may hope with childlike confidence one day to enter heaven, where I shall see, love, and praise Thee with the heavenly Father, and His blessed Son, my Saviour, Jesus Christ, for all eternity. Amen.
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Topic: On Keeping of the Ten Commandmants (Read 324 times)