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THE SEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST ~ WOLVES IN SHEEPS’ CLOTHING

(Read Matt. vii, 15-21.)

 

CONSIDER FIRSTLY who those are, who seem to you to be harmless lambs but who are ravening wolves ready to devour you. They are in the first place those irregular appetites of self-love which nestle within you and deceitfully urge you to seek for honours, ease , and the gratification of your natural inclinations by avoiding humiliations and crosses. Nest they are exteriorly friends and companions, who by their bad example and counsels persuade and entice you to live less strictly, to make no account of those who have authority over you, and to live a life of ease and of independence.

APPLICATION: Instead of being on your guard against such and flying from them as if there were wolves, have you not up to the present time drawn near to them, receiving and treating them as if they were faithful and your best friends?

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS: Deliver me from the unjust and deceitful man. Send forth thy light and thy truth. (Ps. xlii, 1, 3.)

 

CONSIDER SECONDLY that it is difficult to detect the deception of these desires of self-love, and of such companions. They entice you to evil under the appearance of good. They persuade you to seek renown and honour, as that you may work more efficiently for the good of your neighbour; to seek ease and recreation so that your health and strength may not be weakened; to neglect your spiritual exercises so as not to fatigue your mind overmuch. Through such apparent good motives, so flattering to self-love, how many are there not, who have come to abandon virtue and to embrace a life of vice.

APPLICATION: You desire never again to be deceived by these ravening wolves disguised in sheep’s clothing. It behoves you then to set yourself to know them, and to discover their deceits by the light of faith and of the gospel truths. Consider also the very grave harm which you have in the past drawn from yielding to your self-love, and conforming yourself to the example of bad companions.

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS:  With the holy, thou wilt be holy: and with the innocent man thou wilt be innocent. (Ps. xvii, 26.)

 

CONSIDER THIRDLY that in order the more to guard yourself against the deceits of bad example and of disorderly inclinations, to secure eternal salvation and escape eternal damnation, it is not enough to profess openly a good Christian life if the exercise of real virtue be wanting. In like manner it suffices not, to save a tree from being cut down and burned, that it should bear an abundance of beautiful leaves. Not every one that saith to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven: but he that doeth the will of my Father who is in heaven. (Matt. vii, 21.)

APPLICATION: As to your life in general and your actions in particular, you must not therefore make rules for yourself merely from the example of others. Still less must you let yourself be guided by the inclinations of self-love. You must regulate yourself in all things according to the will of God, set forth in His commandments and in the teachings of His holy gospel.

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS: I have longed for thy salvation, O Lord: and thy law is my meditation. (Ps. cxviii, 174.)

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MONDAY AFTER THE SEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST ~ JOY IN SUFFERING

Be glad in that day and rejoice; for behold your reward is great in heaven. (Luke vi, 23.)

 

CONSIDER FIRSTLY that it is not without reason that our Lord charges you to rejoice and be glad, in the midst of the afflictions you bear for the love of Him. For they will win for you such an immense reward in the glory of paradise, where you will rejoice in all the glory which constitutes the happiness of God Himself: I am the reward exceedingly great. (Gen. Xv, 1.) The husbandman rejoices greatly in the labours and fatigues, which he undergoes in the time of the sowing, because of the fruit he hopes to reap at that of the harvest.

APPLICATION: Ought you not then to rejoice much more than you do in suffering these afflictions for God which come to you from illness, pains, mortifications and even persecutions? In paradise these sufferings will gain you a reward of glory, the least degree of which would counterbalance all the punishment of the damned, and would be sufficient to extinguish all the torments of hell. You know not how to rejoice in your afflictions because you keep your thoughts fixed merely on the evil you are suffering. Strive to think of the reward that they will bring if you bear them for the love of Jesus. Thus you will have a great motive to rejoice and to be glad in the very act of suffering in that day, as the saints did. For they went and wept, casting their seeds, but coming they shall come with joyfulness, carrying their sheaves. (Ps. cxxv, 6.) They wept because our sensitive and weak nature cannot but feel the evils which it suffers: but they rejoiced both in mind and spirit by reason of the hope of the fruit to come. Going

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS: Going, they went and wept, casting their seed, but returning they shall come with joy, carrying their sheaves. (Ps. cxxv, 6.)

 

CONSIDER SECONDLY that in the gospels the glory of paradise is called by many names, namely, reward, crown, and inheritance. Here our Lord uses the word reward, for your reward is very great in heaven (Matt. v, 12), to make you understand the certainty of attaining it. For you are never more sure of gaining the glory of paradise than when willingly suffering in this life, in order to become like to Jesus Who suffered and was crucified for you. Whom he foreknew he predestined to be made conformable to the image of his son. (Rom. viii, 29.) There is no assurance of reward greater than that which is due to recompense for labour, which is not denied even by men. In other good actions there may be a mixture of self-love, but in these of suffering for God, this certainly is not to be found.

APPLICATION:   Can you then doubt that God will give you the reward which He has promised you? Which God who lieth not hath promised. (Titus I, 2.) God is not as man that he should lie. (Num. xxiii, 19.) And is not a reward so great and so certain, enough to animate you to suffer willingly and gladly in this life?

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS:  I have inclined my heart to do thy justifications for ever, for the reward. (Ps. cxviii, 12.)

 

CONSIDER THIRDLY what labour people endure in the world, in courts, and elsewhere, in the hope of a reward which for the most part they never obtain. And even when they fully attain their ambitions, it is always, at best, of earth and earthly, that is to say, their reward is a good which is not a true good, not certain, and not lasting. Not true because it cannot satisfy and because it is always mixed with bitterness; not lasting because at death it perishes entirely.

APPLICATION: You on the contrary may have to suffer for Christ, and that even severely, but it is only for a short time and the reward will have no end. It will far exceed all you have to suffer, it will be full, containing a good which will render you perfectly happy. In the midst of all your sufferings endeavour to think of heaven which you will reach before long. With that thought in your mind, you will have greater motive for rejoicing and being glad at the prospect of reward, than of being sad and sorrowful because of your afflictions: Behold your reward. Behold it and contemplate it as if it were now present. 

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS:  As for me, I will appear before thy sight in justice: I shall be satisfied when thy glory shall appear. (Ps. xvi, 15.)

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TUESDAY AFTER THE SEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST ~ DUTIES TO GOD, OUR NEIGHBOUR, OURSELVES

Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you. (Matt. vi, 33.)

 

CONSIDER FIRSTLY that by the mouth of the prophet Micheas, (vi, 8.) God required three things of you for your true good. The first regards yourself: Do judgment, that is exercise a rigorous judgment on yourself by a careful examination of your actions, pronounce a faithful sentence, and inflict due penalty.

APPLICATION: Examine carefully your actions, your words, your thoughts and your most secret affections. Then pass sentence on yourself, but let it be impartial. Oh how easy it is for you to flatter yourself, to excuse your defects, to accuse those who are not in fault at all! Finally impose upon yourself a penalty which may compensate for the wrong done, and which will serve to restrain you from it in the future. If you will judge yourself in this manner, you will not then be judged by God.

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS: I meditated in the night with my own heart: and I was exercises, and I swept my spirit. (Ps. lxxvi, 7.)

 

CONSIDER SECONDLY your next duty, Love mercy, and this regards your neighbour. You must show your mercy by ceasing to criticise his defects, by condoning his faults, by compassionating and helping him in every occurrence as far as lies in your power.

APPLICATION: Notice here that the prophet says we are to love mercy. For if you truly love to show mercy, you will know how to find out your neighbour’s needs and give him prompt help, according as opportunities allow you.

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS:  To the righteous a light is risen up in the darkness: he is merciful, and compassionate and just. (Ps. cxi, 4.)

 

CONSIDER THIRDLY your principal duty, and that is in regard to God. To walk solicitous with thy God. Throughout the whole course of this your mortal pilgrimage you must never separate yourself from Him. Cleave to Him and wherever He goes always remain in His company even when He leads to Calvary. Do not be like those who cruelly abandon Him when the meet with the cross, and follow Him only to Thabor in the time of His consolation and of His glory.

APPLICATION: Examine yourself and see if you are careful to obey God, to honour and to please Him. Be careful above all not to lose Him by reason of the many insidious enemies who would rob you of Him. This solicitude is praiseworthy and necessary, but it must be accompanied by a distrust in yourself and by an entire confidence in God. He will never fail to give you strength to follow Him, and to resist all that would take Him from you.

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS: I have chosen the way of truth: thy judgments I have not forgotten. I have cleaves to thy testimonies, O Lord. (Ps. cxviii, 30, 31.)

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WEDNESDAY AFTER THE SEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST ~ GAINING HEAVEN

The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence and the violent bear it away.  (Matt. xi, 12.)

 

CONSIDER FIRSTLY that the kingdom of heaven is not merely given but is to be acquired by force of arms. For this reason it was that Job said, The life of man upon earth is a warfare. (Job vii, 1.) Do you then expect to take it without any effort? This is not possible. Consider how much labour and penance, and even blood, it cost the saints. Behold the very King of glory what has He not done and suffered in order to merit it, not for Himself, for it was already His, but for all of us? Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and so enter into his glory? (Luke xxiv, 26.)

APPLICATION:  What have you done up to the present moment to follow the example of Christ? He intended to inspire and to encourage you by His own great sufferings to fight manfully to gain so great a kingdom.

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS: If armies in camp should stand together against me, my heart shall not fear: if battle should rise up against me, in this will I be confident. (Ps. xxvi, 3.)

 

CONSIDER SECONDLY that the kingdom of heaven must be acquired by way of warfare, and by that of violent offensive. The violent will bear it away. You must use this violence against yourself and even towards God. Against yourself in the total denial of self, combating and resisting your disorderly desires. Towards God, make use of it in prayer as if it were necessary for you to bear away heaven from His hands as it were by force, and this you can do only by means of prayer. The soldier who makes an assault does violence to himself by forcing himself onwards, and does violence to those who try to repulse him.

APPLICATION: In this way you must do violence to God in prayer, and to yourself by resisting your ill-regulated and disorderly inclinations.

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS: To thee, O lord, will I cry: and I will make my supplications to my God. (Ps. xxix, 9.)

 

CONSIDER THIRDLY that although you possibly possess not generosity of soul enough to use all the violence that is needed towards yourself and towards God, heaven may still be yours, and after this manner. Let yourself as it were be pushed and driven forward by the force of others. Bear in peace for the love of God all the violence of adversity, of persecutions, and of infirmities which God sends you Himself or through others to make you sure of heaven. He who enters a building where there is a great crowd of people, and allows himself to be carried along by the impetus of the crowd, goes forward as rapidly as he who uses great force to make his way.

APPLICATION: You are weak, perhaps, in spirit and cannot of yourself use the violence that is needful in order to enter heaven. Let then the infirmities, the afflictions and persecutions, which perhaps at times fall heavily on your shoulders, supply and help you to enter into an eternal reward.  

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS:  I am poor and needy; help me, O God. Thou art my helper and deliverer. (Ps. lxix, 6.)

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THURSDAY AFTER THE SEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST ~ THE REWARD OF SUFFERINGS

In the world you shall have distress: but have confidence, I have overcome the world. (John xvi, 33.)

 

CONSIDER FIRSTLY why God permits the devil to assault you, and why you are tried by afflictions. It is to prove whether you really love Him. When all goes as you would wish, you easily tell God that you love Him. But let yourself be tried by the rebellion of your senses, by some infirmity, by some humiliation, by some interior desolation, and behold you are immediately quite other than what you were. If Satan derided all Job’s virtues until he had been tried, how then can you make great account of yours?

APPLICATION: Let then God prove you as He will. For the time of this life is a time of trial. The life of man on this earth is a temptation, as the version of the Septuagint renders it.

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS: Our heart hath not turned back; neither hast thou turned away our steps from thy way. For thou hast humbled us in the place of affliction. (Ps. xliii, 19, 20.)

 

CONSIDER SECONDLY that if you should stand firm under this probation you will be blessed, and will receive a crown. He shall receive the crown of life, as St. James tells us. (I, 12.) What glory will be yours when in the day of your triumph the Lord places the crown on your head! Men have in times past fought and striven their utmost to obtain a crown of laurel which withers and perishes in a short day.

APPLICATION:   Will you not then fight against the evil inclinations of the flesh, against the dictates of the world, and against the assaults of the devil, in order to obtain the imperishable crown of glory: the never fading crown of glory? It is called a crown of life, because it is never subject to death.

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS: I have inclined my heart to do thy justifications for ever for the reward. (Ps. cxviii, 112.)

 

CONSIDER THIRDLY that this precious crown of life is certain and cannot fail to be yours. For God has promised it to you, and that many times over, in the holy scriptures: Which God hath promised. (James, ib.) You would believe some prince were he to promise you some precious object as a rewards for running a race, even though you had never seem it. Will you not then believe the promise of God also? If He but once showed you that crown which is destined for you, what courage it would give you, what enthusiasm, what joy! But for your greater good and merit He wills not to show it to you.

APPLICATION: You must then have great faith in God. You must not wish to see your crown till it be fully finished. The greater your sufferings shall be, so much the richer and more beautiful will it be, for it is not only a gift, but likewise a recompense of merit. 

AAFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS:  Thou hast set on his head a crown of precious stones. He asked life of thee: and thou hast given him length of days for ever and ever. (Ps. xx, 4, 5.)

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FRIDAY AFTER THE SEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST ~ ALL LOST BUT JESUS CHRIST

He that followeth me walketh not in darkness. (John viii, 12.)

 

CONSIDER FIRSTLY how clear was the light of faith and the Gospel doctrine, which shone in the mind of the Apostle, when in this light all his greatest gains seemed to him to be but loss. I count all things to be loss for the excellent knowledge of Jesus Christ. (Phil. iii, 8.) So it id with all who are illuminated as was the Apostle. How they wonder that in the past they could have followed the maxims of the worldly people, in valuing empty and useless emulation, points of precedence and vain applause!

APPLICATION: If after you have begun to lead a more fervent Christian life, you are not surprised at your having even up to the present sought after those things, that you once gave up for the love of Christ, it is a sign that you are not living by that light. The light if justice hath not shined unto us. (Wisdom v, 6.)

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS: Better is a little to the just than great riches of the wicked. (Ps. xxxvi, 16.)

 

CONSIDER SECONDLY  that the Apostle not only reckoned as loss all those things he had counted gain, but went further still and regarded all those things loss that were not of Jesus Christ; namely, nobility of birth, eloquence, talents, and all other such gifts. He had formed this judgment of estimating as loss all things which the world prizes most highly, by the light of that wisdom which he acquired in the school of Jesus Christ. The Master had made known to him that whoever does not renounce himself, and all that is his, cannot be His follower. He that doth not renounce all that he possesseth, cannot be my disciple. (Like xiv, 33.)

APPLICATION: Strive to attain this wisdom, which is of the very highest. If you attain to it, not only will the things you once possessed in the world, but even all that could possibly be yours, appear to you as loss.  Christ poor and naked upon the Cross will take the place of all these things for you, and will satisfy you more than all else.

AAFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS: If riches abound, set not your heart upon them. (Ps. lxi, 11.)

 

CONSIDER THIRDLY what estimate the Apostle made of all the good things of this life when he added: I count them but as dung (ib.). For he saw the vast difference there is between the things of this world and the things of his Saviour Jesus Christ. The good things of this world are dung from their very foulness, if they belong to the concupiscence of the flesh. If they belong to the concupiscence of the eyes which is avarice, they are dung from their sordidness. If they belong to the pride of life which is ambition, they are dung because they so soon wither away and perish.

APPLICATION: The Apostle rejects all things of earth in order to possess Jesus Christ. How then could you think of leaving Christ, and not keeping close to Him, in order merely that you might have the things of earth, which are only so much dung?

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS: How sweet are thy words to my palate! More than honey to my mouth. (Ps. cxviii, 103.)  

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SATURDAY AFTER THE SEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST ~ THE SOLDIER OF CHRIST

He that shall loss his life for my sake shall save it. (Luke ix, 24.)

 

CONSIDER FIRSTLY that every true Christian should be a soldier of Jesus Christ. He must combat either as the martyrs did against tyrants, as the Doctors of the Church did against errors, or as all the faithful must do against the desires of the flesh and the assaults of the evil one. You may think that these three kinds of combats do not concern you, but it is not so. For if it be not always necessary to be in action, it is always necessary to be prepared for the fight. For this reason the Apostle St. Paul does not say fight but labour. Labour as a good soldier of Christ. (2 Tim. Ii, 3.) Soldiers are not idle in time of peace.

APPLICATION: Though perhaps not liable now to persecuted by tyrants, yet you must imitate the martyrs of Christ by preparation, by keeping alive in yourself the faith as much as if you had to defend it before a public tribunal. Despise life, hate and mortify your body, even as if you are set now about to pass to a better life. But if you are set upon the love of ease, if you cherish too delicately your body, how can you boast of being a soldier of Christ?

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS: Do manfully and let thy heart take courage. (Ps. xxvi, 14.)

 

CONSIDER SECONDLY that it may never be yours to fight against errors as did the Doctors of the Church. All the same, as a soldier of Christ you should be prepared and well instructed in your religion. Thus you will be able to fight against the many false maxims which are heard even among Christian people against the truths and practices of the gospel, as for example that it is shameful to forgive your enemies, to be too yielding, to control yourself, to humble yourself, and similar principles.

APPLICATION: Can you profess  yourself to be a soldier of Christ, and yet not show yourself ready to disapprove of and to condemn errors, which are spread by the followers of the world against the gospel truths taught by Jesus Christ? Labour as a good soldier of Christ.

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS: Give me understanding, and I will search thy law. And I will keep it with my whole heart. (Ps. cxviii, 34.)

 

CONSIDER THIRDLY that you have not only to fight against your evil inclinations, that are allied to the devil, when they assault you, but that if there is a little truce, you have to stand like a true soldier, always with your arms in your hand. When you think yourself most secure, then you must stand most of all on your guard. For God sometimes allows you to be assaulted most fiercely in order to punish you for your negligence. Actual fighting is never absolutely continuous and uninterrupted for any soldier, but the bearing of labour is always so.

APPLICATION: In order then to comport yourself as a good soldier, you must not fight as a mercenary whose only aim is his pay. You have voluntarily entered the service of your King, having the one aim, whilst fighting against the enemies of God, to please Him alone. He watches from heaven how His faithful followers bear himself in his dangers: that he may please him to whom he hath engaged himself. (2 Tim. Ii, 4.)

AFFECTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS: I will love thee, O Lord, my strength: Praising, I will call upon the Lord: and I shall be saved from my enemies. (Ps. xvii, 2, 4.)

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