Thursday 8 June 2017

"Apparecchio alla Morte" by St Alfonso Maria de Liguori (in Italian) – XVII



CONSIDERAZIONE XVI - DELLA MISERICORDIA DI DIO
«Superexaltat autem misericordia iudicium» (Iac. 2. 13).

PUNTO I
                         La bontà è diffusiva di sua natura, cioè inclinata a comunicare i suoi beni anche agli altri. Or Iddio che per natura è bontà infinita («Deus cuius natura bonitas», S. Leone), ha un sommo desiderio di comunicare a noi la sua felicità; e perciò il suo genio non è di castigare, ma d'usar misericordia a tutti. Il castigare, dice Isaia, è un'opera aliena dall'inclinazione di Dio: «Irascetur, ut faciat opus suum, alienum opus eius... peregrinum est opus eius ab eo» (Is. 28. 21). E quando il Signore castiga in questa vita, castiga per usar misericordia nell'altra. «Deus iratus est, et misertus est nobis» (Ps. 59. 3). Si dimostra irato, acciocché noi ci ravvediamo e detestiamo i peccati: «Ostendisti populo tuo dura, potasti nos vino compunctionis» (Ibid. 5). E se ci manda qualche castigo, lo fa perché ci ama, per liberarci dal castigo eterno: «Dedisti metuentibus te significationem, ut fugiant a facie arcus, ut liberentur dilecti tui» (Ibid. 6). E chi mai può ammirare e lodare abbastanza la misericordia ch'usa Dio co' peccatori in aspettarli, in chiamarli ed in accoglierli, allorché ritornano? E per prima, oh la gran pazienza, che ha Dio in aspettarti a penitenza! Fratello mio, quando tu offendevi Dio, poteva egli farti morire? E Dio t'aspettava; e in vece di castigarti, ti faceva bene, ti conservava la vita e ti provvedeva. Fingea di non vedere i tuoi peccati, acciocché tu ti ravvedessi. «Dissimulans peccata hominum propter poenitentiam» (Sap. 11. 24). Ma come, Signore, Voi non potete vedere un sol peccato, e poi ne vedete tanti e tacete? «Respicere ad iniquitatem non poteris; quare respicis super iniquitates, et taces?» (Abac. 1. 11). Voi mirate quel disonesto, quel vendicativo, quel bestemmiatore, che da giorno4 in giorno vi accresce l'offese, e non lo castigate? e perché tanta pazienza? «Propterea exspectat Dominus, ut misereatur vestri» (Is. 30. 18). Dio aspetta il peccatore, acciocché si emendi, e così possa perdonarlo e salvarlo.
                         Dice S. Tommaso che tutte le creature, il fuoco, la terra, l'aria, l'acqua per loro naturale istinto vorrebbero punire il peccatore, per vendicare l'ingiurie fatte al lor Creatore: «Omnis creatura, tibi factori deserviens, excandescit adversus iniustos». Ma Dio le trattiene per la sua pietà. Ma, Signore, Voi aspettate questi empi, acciocché si ravvedano, e non vedete che l'ingrati si servono della vostra misericordia per più offendervi? «Indulsisti, Domine, indulsisti genti, nunquid glorificatus es?» (Is. 26. 15). E perché tanta pazienza? perché Dio non vuol la morte del peccatore, ma che si converta e si salvi.
                         «Nolo mortem impii, sed ut convertatur, et vivat» (Ez. 33. 11). Oh pazienza di Dio! Giunge a dir S. Agostino che se Iddio non fosse Dio, sarebbe ingiusto, a riguardo della troppa pazienza che usa co' peccatori: «Deus, Deus meus, pace tua dicam, nisi quia Deus esses, iniustus esses». Aspettare chi si serve della pazienza per più insolentire, par che sia un'ingiustizia all'onore divino. «Nos peccamus, siegue a dire il santo, «inhaeremus peccato (taluni fan pace col peccato, dormono in peccato i mesi e gli anni), gaudemus de peccato (altri arrivano a vantarsi delle loro scelleraggini): «et tu placatus es! Te nos provocamus ad iram, tu nos ad misericordiam»; sembra che facciamo a gara con Dio, noi ad irritarlo a castigarci, ed Egli ad invitarci al perdono.

Affetti e preghiere
                         Ah mio Signore, intendo che a quest'ora mi toccherebbe di star nell'inferno. «Infernus domus mea est». Ma ora per vostra misericordia non mi ritrovo all'inferno, ma in questo luogo a' piedi vostri, e sento che m'intimate il precetto di voler essere amato da me: «Diliges Dominum Deum tuum». E mi state dicendo che volete perdonarmi, s'io mi pento dell'ingiurie che v'ho fatte. Sì, mio Dio, giacché volete esser amato anche da me misero ribelle della vostra maestà, io v'amo con tutto il cuore, e mi pento di avervi oltraggiato, più di qualunque male ch'io avessi potuto incorrere. Deh illuminatemi, o bontà infinita; fatemi conoscere il torto che v'ho fatto. No, non voglio più resistere alle vostre chiamate. Non voglio più disgustare un Dio, che tanto mi ha amato: e tante volte e con tanto amore mi ha perdonato. Ah non vi avessi offeso mai, o Gesù mio! Perdonatemi e fate che da oggi avanti io non ami altri che Voi: viva solo per Voi, che siete morto per me: patisca per vostro amore, giacché Voi avete tanto patito per amor mio. Voi mi avete amato ab eterno, fate che in eterno io arda del vostro amore. Spero tutto, mio Salvatore a i meriti vostri.
                         E in voi confido ancora, o Maria; Voi colla vostra intercessione mi avete da salvare.



PUNTO II
                         Considera in oltre la misericordia che usa Dio in chiamare il peccatore a penitenza. Quando Adamo si ribellò dal Signore, e poi si nascondea dalla sua faccia, ecco Dio che avendo perduto Adamo, lo va cercando e quasi piangendo lo chiama: «Adam, ubi es?» (Gen. 3. 9). «Sunt verba Patris (commenta il p. Pereira) quaerentis filium suum perditum». Lo stesso ha fatto Dio tante volte con te, fratello mio. Tu fuggivi da Dio, e Dio t'andava chiamando, ora con ispirazioni, ora con rimorsi di coscienza, ora con prediche, ora con tribolazioni, ora colla morte de' tuoi amici. Par che dica Gesu-Cristo, parlando di te: «Laboravi clamans, raucae factae sunt fauces meae» (Ps. 68. 4). Figlio, quasi ho perduta la voce in chiamarti. Avvertite, o peccatori, dice S. Teresa, che vi sta chiamando quel Signore, che un giorno vi ha da giudicare.
                         Cristiano mio, quante volte hai fatto il sordo con Dio, che ti chiamava? Meritavi ch'egli non ti chiamasse più. Ma no, il tuo Dio non ha lasciato di seguire a chiamarti, perché volea far pace con te e salvarti. Oh Dio, chi era quegli che ti chiamava? un Dio d'infinita maestà. E tu chi eri, se non un verme miserabile e puzzolente? E perché ti chiamava? non per altro che per restituirti la vita della grazia, che tu avevi perduta: «Revertimini, et vivite» (Ez. 18. 32). Acciocché taluno potesse acquistare la divina grazia, poco sarebbe, se vivesse in un deserto per tutta la sua vita; ma Dio ti esortava a ricever la sua grazia in un momento, se volevi con un atto di pentimento: e tu la rifiutavi. E Dio con tutto ciò non ti ha abbandonato; ti è andato quasi piangendo appresso e dicendo: Figlio, e perché ti vuoi dannare? «Et quare moriemini, domus Israel?» (Ez. 18. 31).
                         Allorché l'uomo commette un peccato mortale, egli discaccia Dio dall'anima sua. «Impii dicebant Deo: Recede a nobis» (Iob. 21. 14). Ma Dio che fa? si pone alla porta di quel cuore ingrato: «Ecce sto ad ostium, et pulso» (Apoc. 3. 20). E par che preghi l'anima a dargli l'entrata: «Aperi mihi, soror mea» (Cant. 5. 2). E si affatica a pregare: «Laboravi rogans» (Ier. 15. 6). Sì, dice S. Dionisio Areopagita, Dio va appresso a' peccatori come un amante disprezzato, pregandoli che non si perdano: «Deus etiam a se aversos amatorie sequitur, et deprecatur ne pereant». E ciò appunto significò S. Paolo, quando scrisse a' discepoli: «Obsecramus pro Christo, reconciliamini Deo» (2. Cor. 5. 20). È bella la riflessione, che fa S. Gio. Grisostomo commentando questo passo: «Ipse Christus vos obsecrat. Quid autem obsecrat? reconciliamini Deo; non enim Ipse inimicus gerit, sed vos». E vuol dire il santo che non già il peccatore ha da stentare per muovere Dio a far pace con esso, ma esso ha da risolversi a voler far pace con Dio; mentr'egli, non già Iddio, fugge la pace.
                         Ah che questo buon Signore va tutto giorno appresso a tanti peccatori, e va loro dicendo: Ingrati, non fuggite più da me, ditemi perché fuggite? Io amo il vostro bene, ed altro non desidero che di rendervi felici, perché volete perdervi? Ma, Signore, Voi che fate? Perché tanta pazienza e tanto amore a questi ribelli? che bene Voi ne sperate? È poco vostro onore il farvi vedere così appassionato verso di questi miseri vermi che vi fuggono. «Quid est homo, quia magnificas eum? Aut quid apponis erga eum cor tuum?» (Iob. 7. 17).

Affetti e preghiere
                         Ecco, Signore, a' piedi vostri l'ingrato, che vi cerca pietà: «Pater, dimitte». Vi chiamo Padre, perché Voi volete ch'io così vi chiami. Padre mio, perdonatemi. Io non merito compassione, mentre perché Voi siete stato più buono con me, io sono stato più ingrato con Voi. Deh per quella bontà che v'ha trattenuto, mio Dio, a non abbandonarmi, quand'io vi fuggiva, per questa stessa ricevetemi ora che torno a Voi. Datemi, Gesù mio, un gran dolore dell'offese che v'ho fatte, e datemi il bacio di pace. Io mi pento più d'ogni male dell'ingiurie che v'ho fatte, le detesto, le abbomino, ed unisco questo mio abborrimento a quello, che ne aveste Voi, mio Redentore, nell'orto di Getsemani. Deh perdonatemi per li meriti di quel sangue, che spargeste per me in quell'orto. Io vi prometto risolutamente di non partirmi più da Voi, e di scacciare dal mio cuore ogni affetto che non è per Voi. Gesù mio, amor mio, io vi amo sopra ogni cosa, e voglio sempre amarvi, e solo Voi voglio amare; ma datemi Voi forza d'eseguirlo; fatemi tutto vostro.
                         O Maria speranza mia, Voi siete la madre della misericordia, pregate Dio, per me, e abbiate pietà di me.

PUNTO III
                         I principi della terra sdegnano anche di riguardare i sudditi ribelli, che vanno a cercar loro perdono; ma Dio non fa così con noi. «Non avertet faciem suam a vobis, si reversi fueritis ad eum» (2. Par. 30. 9). Iddio non sa voltar la faccia a chi ritorna a' piedi suoi; no, poiché Egli stesso l'invita e gli promette di riceverlo subito che viene: «Revertere ad me, et suscipiam te» (Ier. 3. 1). «Convertimini ad me, convertar ad vos, ait Dominus» (Zach. 1. 3). Oh l'amore e la tenerezza con cui abbraccia Dio un peccatore che a Lui ritorna! Ciò appunto volle darci ad intendere Gesu-Cristo colla parabola della pecorella, che avendola trovata il pastore, se la stringe sulle spalle: «Imponit in humeros suos gaudens» (Lucae 15). E chiama gli amici a seco rallegrarsene: «Congratulamini mihi, quia inveni ovem meam, quae perierat» (Ibid. n. 6). E poi soggiunge S. Luca: «Gaudium erit in coelo super uno peccatore poenitentiam agente». Ciò maggiormente significò il Redentore colla parabola del figlio prodigo, dicendo ch'egli è quel Padre, che vedendo ritornare il figlio perduto, gli corre all'incontro; e prima che quegli parli, l'abbraccia e lo bacia, ed in abbracciarlo, quasi vien meno di tenerezza per la consolazione che sente: «Accurrens cecidit super collum eius, et osculatus est eum» (Luc. 15. 20).
                         Giunge il Signore a dire che se il peccatore si pente, egli vuole scordarsi de' suoi peccati, come se quegli non l'avesse mai offeso: «Si impius egerit poenitentiam... vita vivet; omnium iniquitatum eius non recordabor» (Ez. 18. 21). Giunge anche a dire: «Venite, et arguite me (dicit Dominus), si fuerint peccata vestra ut coccinum, quasi nix dealbabuntur» (Is. 1. 18). Come dicesse, venite peccatori (venite, et arguite me), e s'io non vi perdono, riprendetemi, e trattatemi da infedele. Ma no, che Dio non sa disprezzare un cuore che si umilia e si pente. «Cor contritum et humiliatum, Deus, non despicies» (Psal. 50).
                         Si gloria il Signore di usar pietà e di perdonare i peccatori. «Exaltabitur parcens vobis» (Is. 30. 18). E quanto sta egli a perdonare? subito. «Plorans nequaquam plorabis, miserans miserabitur tui» (Is. 30. 10). Peccatore, dice il profeta, non hai molto da piangere; alla prima lagrima il Signore si muoverà a pietà di te. «Ad vocem clamoris tui, statim ut audierit, respondebit tibi» (Ibid.). Non fa Dio con noi, come noi facciamo con Dio; Dio ci chiama, e noi facciamo i sordi; Dio no, «statim ut audierit respondebit tibi»: subito che tu ti penti, e gli domandi il perdono, subito Dio risponde e ti perdona.

Affetti e preghiere
                         O mio Dio, e con chi me l'ho pigliata? con Voi che siete così buono, che m'avete creato, e siete morto per me? e mi avete così sopportato dopo tanti tradimenti? Ah che vedendo solamente la pazienza, che avete avuta con me, questa sola dovrebbe farmi vivere sempre ardendo del vostro amore. E chi mai mi avrebbe sofferto tanto, alle ingiurie che v'ho fatte, come mi avete sofferto Voi? Povero me, se da ogg'innanzi vi tornassi ad offendere, e mi dannassi! Queste misericordie che m'avete usate, sarebbero oh Dio un inferno più penoso per me, che tutto l'inferno. No, mio Redentore, nol permettete, ch'io v'abbia di nuovo a voltare le spalle. Fatemi prima morire. Già vedo che la vostra misericordia non mi può più sopportare. Mi pento, o sommo bene, di avervi offeso. V'amo con tutto il cuore, e son risoluto di dare tutta a Voi la vita che mi resta. Esauditemi, Eterno Padre, per li meriti di Gesu-Cristo; datemi la santa perseveranza e 'l vostro santo amore. Esauditemi, Gesù mio, per lo sangue che avete sparso per me. «Te ergo, quaesumus, tuis famulis subveni, quos pretioso sanguine redemisti».
                         O Maria madre mia, guardatemi; «illos tuos misericordes oculos ad nos converte», e tiratemi tutto a Dio.

Wednesday 7 June 2017

“Non è Amore...” by Pier Paolo Pasolini (in English)



Non è Amore. Ma in che misura è mia
colpa il non fare dei miei affetti
Amore? Molta colpa, sia
pure, se potrei d'una pazza purezza,
d'una cieca pietà vivere giorno
per giorno... Dare scandalo di mitezza.
Ma la violenza in cui mi frastorno,
dei sensi, dell'intelletto, da anni,
era la sola strada. Intorno
a me alle origini c'era, degli inganni
istituiti, delle dovute illusioni,
solo la Lingua: che i primi affanni
di un bambino, le preumane passioni,
già impure, non esprimeva. E poi
quando adolescente nella nazione
conobbi altro che non fosse la gioia
del vivere infantile - in una patria
provinciale, ma per me assoluta, eroica -
fu l'anarchia. Nella nuova e già grama
borghesia d'una provincia senza purezza,
il primo apparire dell'Europa
fu per me apprendistato all'uso più
puro dell'espressione, che la scarsezza
della fede d'una classe morente
risarcisse con la follia ed i tòpoi
dell'eleganza: fosse l'indecente
chiarezza d'una lingua che evidenzia
la volontà a non essere, incosciente,
e la cosciente volontà a sussistere
nel privilegio e nella libertà
che per Grazia appartengono allo stile.

Tuesday 6 June 2017

"The Book of Exodus" - Chapter XXX (translated into English)



Chapter 30

1 "For burning incense you shall make an altar of acacia wood, 2 with a square surface, a cubit long, a cubit wide, and two cubits high, with horns that spring directly from it. 3 Its grate on top, its walls on all four sides, and its horns you shall plate with pure gold. Put a gold molding around it. 4 Underneath the molding you shall put gold rings, two on one side and two on the opposite side, as holders for the poles used in carrying it. 5 Make the poles, too, of acacia wood and plate them with gold. 6 This altar you are to place in front of the veil that hangs before the ark of the commandments where I will meet you. 7 "On it Aaron shall burn fragrant incense. Morning after morning, when he prepares the lamps, 8 and again in the evening twilight, when he lights the lamps, he shall burn incense. Throughout your generations this shall be the established incense offering before the LORD. 9 On this altar you shall not offer up any profane incense, or any holocaust or cereal offering; nor shall you pour out a libation upon it.10 Once a year Aaron shall perform the atonement rite on its horns. Throughout your generations this atonement is to be made once a year with the blood of the atoning sin offering. This altar is most sacred to the LORD."
            11 The LORD also said to Moses, 12 "When you take a census of the Israelites who are to be registered, each one, as he is enrolled, shall give the LORD a forfeit for his life, so that no plague may come upon them for being registered. 13 Everyone who enters the registered group must pay a half-shekel, according to the standard of the sanctuary shekel, twenty gerahs to the shekel. This payment of a half-shekel is a contribution to the LORD. 14 Everyone of twenty years or more who enters the registered group must give this contribution to the LORD. 15 The rich need not give more, nor shall the poor give less, than a half-shekel in this contribution to the LORD to pay the forfeit for their lives. 16 When you receive this forfeit money from the Israelites, you shall donate it to the service of the meeting tent, that there it may be the Israelites' reminder before the LORD, of the forfeit paid for their lives."
            17 The LORD said to Moses, 18 "For ablutions you shall make a bronze laver with a bronze base. Place it between the meeting tent and the altar, and put water in it. 19 Aaron and his sons shall use it in washing their hands and feet. 20 When they are about to enter the meeting tent, they must wash with water, lest they die. Likewise when they approach the altar in their ministry, to offer an oblation to the LORD, 21 they must wash their hands and feet, lest they die. This shall be a perpetual ordinance for him and his descendants throughout their generations."
            22 The LORD said to Moses, 23 "Take the finest spices: five hundred shekels of free-flowing myrrh; half that amount, that is, two hundred and fifty shekels, of fragrant cinnamon; two hundred and fifty shekels of fragrant cane; 24 five hundred shekels of cassia-all according to the standard of the sanctuary shekel; together with a hin of olive oil; 25 and blend them into sacred anointing oil, perfumed ointment expertly prepared. 26 With this sacred anointing oil you shall anoint the meeting tent and the ark of the commandments, 27 the table and all its appurtenances, the lampstand and its appurtenances, the altar of incense 28 and the altar of holocausts with all its appurtenances, and the laver with its base. 29 When you have consecrated them, they shall be most sacred; whatever touches them shall be sacred. 30 Aaron and his sons you shall also anoint and consecrate as my priests. 31 To the Israelites you shall say: As sacred anointing oil this shall belong to me throughout your generations. 32 It may not be used in any ordinary anointing of the body, nor may you make any other oil of a like mixture. It is sacred, and shall be treated as sacred by you. 33 Whoever prepares a perfume like this, or whoever puts any of this on a layman, shall be cut off from his kinsmen."
            34 The LORD told Moses, "Take these aromatic substances: storax and onycha and galbanum, these and pure frankincense in equal parts; 35 and blend them into incense. This fragrant powder, expertly prepared, is to be salted and so kept pure and sacred. 36 Grind some of it into fine dust and put this before the commandments in the meeting tent where I will meet you. This incense shall be treated as most sacred by you. 37 You may not make incense of a like mixture for yourselves; you must treat it as sacred to the LORD. 38 Whoever makes an incense like this for his own enjoyment of its fragrance, shall be cut off from his kinsmen."

Saturday 3 June 2017

"Waiting for Christ" by Blessed John Henry Newman (in English)



"To serve the living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, Jesus, who hath delivered us from the wrath to come." Thessal. i. 9, 10.

As we approach the season of our Lord's advent we are warned Sunday after Sunday by our tender Mother, Holy Church, of the duty of looking out for it. Last week we were reminded of that dreadful day, when the Angels shall reap the earth, and gather together the noxious weeds out of the midst of the corn, and bind them in bundles for the burning. Next week we shall read of that "great tribulation," which will immediately precede the failing of the sun and moon, and the appearance of the Sign of the Son of Man in heaven. And today we are told to wait in expectation of that awful Sign, serving the Living and True God the while, as is His due, who has "converted us from idols," and "delivered us from the wrath to come."
            What St. Paul calls "waiting," or "expecting," or "looking out," that our Lord Himself enjoins upon us, when He bids us "look up and lift up our heads, when these things begin to come to pass"; as if it were our duty to be on the alert, starting up at the first notice, and straining, as it were, our eyes with eager and devout interest, that we may catch the earliest sight of His presence, when He is manifested in the heavens - just as a whole city or country from time to time is found to sit up all night for the appearance of some meteor or strange star, which Science has told them is to come. Elsewhere, this frame of mind is called watching, - whether by our Lord or by His holy Apostles after Him. "Watch ye, therefore," He says Himself, "for you know not when the Lord of the house cometh; at even, or at midnight, or at the cock-crowing, or in the morning; lest, coming suddenly, He find you sleeping. And what I say to you, I say to all, - Watch." And St. Paul: "It is now the hour for us to rise from sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we believed. The night is past, the day is at hand." And St. John: "Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth and keepeth his garments."
            Passages such as these might be multiplied, and they lead to reflection of various kinds. The substance of religion consists in faith, hope, and charity; and the qualification for eternal life is to be in a state of grace and free from mortal sin; yet, when we come to the question, how we are to preserve ourselves in a state of grace, and gain the gift of perseverance in it, then a number of observances have claims upon us, over and above those duties in which the substance of religion lies, as being its safeguard and protection. And these same observances, as being of a nature to catch the eye of the world, become the badges of the Christian, as contrasted with other men; whereas faith, hope, and charity are lodged deep in the breast, and are not seen. Now, one of these characteristics of a Christian spirit, springing from the three theological virtues, and then in turn defending and strengthening them, is that habit of waiting and watching, to which this season of the year especially invites us; and the same habit is also a mark of the children of the Church, and a note of her divine origin.
            If, indeed, we listen to the world, we shall take another course. We shall think the temper of mind I am speaking of, to be superfluous or enthusiastic. We shall aim at doing only what is necessary, and shall try to find out how little will be enough. We shall look out, not for Christ, but for the prizes of this life. We shall form our judgment of things by what others say; we shall admire what they admire; we shall instinctively reverence and make much of the world's opinion. We shall fear to give scandal to the world. We shall have a secret shrinking from the Church's teaching. We shall have an uneasy, uncomfortable feeling when mention is made of the maxims of holy men and ascetical writers, not liking them, yet not daring to dissent. We shall be scanty in supernatural acts, and have little or nothing of the habits of virtue which are formed by them, and are an armour of proof against temptation. We shall suffer our souls to be overrun with venial sins, which tend to mortal sin, if they have not already reached it. We shall feel very reluctant to face the thought of death. All this shall we be, all this shall we do; and in consequence, it will be very difficult for a spectator to say how we differ from respectable, well-conducted men who are not Catholics. In that case certainly we shall exhibit no pattern of a Christian spirit, nor shall we be in our own persons any argument for the truth of Christianity; but I am trusting and supposing that our view of Christianity is higher than to be satisfied with conduct so unlike that to which our Saviour and His Apostles call us. Speaking, then, to men who wish now to take that side and that place which they will have wished to have taken when their Lord actually comes to them, I say, that we must not only have faith in Him, but must wait on Him; not only must hope, but must watch for Him; not only love Him, but must long for Him; not only obey Him, but must look out, look up earnestly for our reward, which is Himself. We must not only make Him the Object of our faith, hope, and charity, but we must make it our duty not to believe the world, not to hope in the world, not to love the world. We must resolve not to hang on the world's opinion, or study its wishes. It is our mere wisdom to be thus detached from all things below. "The time is short," says the Apostle; "it remaineth that they who weep be as though they wept not, and they that rejoice as if they rejoiced not, and they that buy as though they possessed not, and they that use this world as if they used it not, for the fashion of this world passeth away."
            We read in the Gospel of our Lord on one occasion "entering into a certain town," and being received and entertained "by a certain woman named Martha." There were two sisters, Martha and Mary; "Martha was busy about much serving;" but Mary sat at our Lord's feet, and heard His words. You recollect, my Brethren, His comparison of these two holy sisters, one with another. "Martha, Martha," He said, "thou art careful, and art troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary; Mary hath chosen the best part." Now Martha loved Him, and Mary loved Him; but Mary waited on Him too, and therefore had the promise of perseverance held up to her: "Mary hath chosen the best part, which shall not be taken away from her."
            They, then, watch and wait for their Lord, who are tender and sensitive in their devotion towards Him; who feed on the thought of Him, hang on His words; live in His smile, and thrive and grow under His hand. They are eager for His approval, quick in catching His meaning, jealous of His honour. They see Him in all things, expect Him in all events, and amid all the cares, the interests, and the pursuits of this life, still would feel an awful joy, not a disappointment, did they hear that He was on the point of coming. "By night I sought Him whom my soul loveth," says the inspired canticle; "I sought Him and found Him not. I will rise, and in the streets and broad places will I seek Him." Must I be more definite in my description of this affectionate temper? I ask, then, do you know the feeling of expecting a friend, expecting him to come, and he delays? or do you know what it is to be in the company of those with whom you are not at your ease, and to wish the time to pass away, and the hour to strike when you are to be released from them? or do you know what it is to be in anxiety lest something should happen, which may happen, or may not; or to be in suspense about some important event, which makes your heart beat when anything reminds you of it, and of which you think the first thing in the morning? or do you know what it is to have friends in a distant country, to expect news from them, and to wonder from day to day what they are doing, and whether they are well? or do you know, on the other hand, what it is to be in a strange country yourself, with no one to talk to, no one who can sympathize with you, homesick, - downcast because no letter comes to you, - and perplexed how you are ever to get back again? or do you know what it is so to love and live upon a person who is present with you, that your eyes follow his, that you read his soul, that you see its changes in his countenance, that you anticipate his wants, that you are sad in his sadness, troubled when he is vexed, restless when you cannot understand him, relieved, comforted, when you have cleared up the mystery?
            This is a state of mind, when our Lord and Saviour is its Object, not intelligible at first sight to the world, not easy to nature, yet of so ordinary fulfilment in the Church in all ages, as to become the sign of the Presence of Him who is unseen, and to be a sort of note of the divinity of our religion. You know there are subtle instincts in the inferior animals, by which they apprehend the presence of things which man cannot discern, as atmospheric changes, or convulsions of the earth, or their natural enemies, whom yet they do not actually see; and we consider the uneasiness or the terror which they exhibit, to be a proof that there is something near them which is the object of the feeling, and is the evidence of its own reality. Well, in some such way the continuous watching and waiting for Christ, which Prophets, Apostles, and the Church built upon them, have manifested, age after age, is a demonstration that the Object of it is not a dream or a fancy, but really exists; in other words, that He lives still, that He has ever lived, who was once upon earth, who died, who disappeared, who said He would come again.
            For centuries before He came on earth, prophet after prophet was upon his high tower, looking out for Him, through the thick night, and watching for the faintest glimmer of the dawn. "I will stand upon my watch," says one of them, "fix my feet upon the tower, and I will watch to see what will be said to me. For, as yet, the vision is far off, and it shall appear at the end, and shall not lie; if it make any delay, wait for it, for it shall surely come, and it shall not be slack." Another prophet says, "O God, my God, to Thee do I watch at break of day. For Thee my soul hath thirsted in a desert land, where there is no way nor water." And another, "To Thee have I lifted up my eyes, who dwellest in the heaven; as the eyes of servants on the hands of their masters, as the eyes of the handmaid towards her mistress." And another, "O that Thou wouldst rend the heavens, and come down! - the mountains would melt away at Thy presence. They would melt, as at the burning of fire; the waters would burn with fire. From the beginning of the world the eye hath not seen, O God, besides Thee, what things Thou hast prepared for them that wait on Thee." Now, if there were any men who had a right to be attached to this world, not detached from it, it was the ancient servants of God. This earth was given them as their portion and reward by the very word of the Most High. Our reward is future; the Jew was promised a temporal reward. Yet they put aside God's good gift for His better promise; they sacrificed possession to hope. They would be content with nothing short of the fruition of their Creator; they would watch for nothing else than the face of their Deliverer. If earth must be broken up, if the heavens must be rent, if the elements must melt, if the order of nature must be undone, in order to His appearing, let the ruin be, rather than they should be without Him. Such was the intense longing of the Jewish worshipper, looking out for that which was to come; and I say that their very eagerness in watching and patience in waiting, were of a nature to startle the world, and to impress upon it the claims of Christianity to be accepted as true; for their perseverance in looking out proves that there was something to look out for.
            Nor were the Apostles, after our Lord had come and gone, behind the Prophets in the keenness of their apprehension, and the eagerness of their longing for Him. The miracle of patient waiting was continued. When He went up on high from Mount Olivet, they kept looking up into heaven; and it needed Angels to send them to their work, before they gave over. And ever after, still it was Sursum corda with them. "Our conversation is in heaven," says St. Paul; that is, our citizenship, and our social duties, our active life, our daily intercourse, is with the world unseen; "from whence, also, we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ." And again, "If you be risen with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God. Mind the things that are above, not the things that are upon the earth; for ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ shall appear, who is your life, then you also shall appear with Him in glory."
            So vivid and continuous was this state of mind with the Apostles and their successors, that to the world they seemed expecting the immediate reappearance of their Lord. "Behold, He cometh with the clouds," says St. John, "and every eye shall see Him, and they also that pierced Him. And all the tribes of the earth shall bewail themselves because of Him. He that giveth testimony of those things, saith, Surely, I come quickly. Amen, come, Lord Jesus." They forgot the long lapse of time, as holy men may do in trance. They passed over in their minds the slow interval, as the eye may be carried on beyond a vast expanse of flat country, and see only the glorious clouds in the distant horizon. Accordingly, St. Peter had to explain the matter. "In the last day," he says, "shall come deceitful scoffers, saying, Where is the promise of His coming? But of this one thing be not ignorant, my beloved, that one day with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. Seeing all these things are to be dissolved, what manner of people ought you to be, in daily conversation and godliness, looking for and waiting unto the coming of the day of the Lord?" You see the Great Apostle does not dissuade his brethren from anticipating the day, while he confesses it will be long in coming. He explains the mistake of the world, which understood their eager expectation of our Lord's coming to be a proof that they thought that He was to come in their day; but how intense and absorbing must have been their thought of Him, that it was so mistaken! Nay, it is almost the description which St. Paul gives of the elect of God. When he was in prison, on the eve of his martyrdom, he sent to his beloved disciple, St. Timothy, his last words; and he says, "There is laid up for me a crown of justice; and not only to me, but" - to whom? how does he describe the heirs of glory? he proceeds, "not only to me, but to those also who love His coming."
            This energetic, direct apprehension of an unseen Lord and Saviour has not been peculiar to Prophets and Apostles; it has been the habit of His Holy Church, and of her children, down to this day. Age passes after age, and she varies her discipline, and she adds to her devotions, and all with the one purpose of fixing her own and their gaze more fully upon the person of her unseen Lord. She has adoringly surveyed Him, feature by feature, and has paid a separate homage to Him in every one. She has made us honour His Five Wounds, His Precious Blood, and His Sacred Heart. She has bid us meditate on His infancy, and the Acts of His ministry; His agony, His scourging, and His crucifixion. She has sent us on pilgrimage to His birthplace and His sepulchre, and the mount of His ascension. She has sought out, and placed before us, the memorials of His life and death; His crib and holy house, His holy tunic, the handkerchief of St. Veronica, the cross and its nails, His winding sheet, and the napkin for His head.
            And so, again, if the Church has exalted Mary or Joseph, it has been with a view to the glory of His sacred humanity. If Mary is proclaimed as immaculate, it illustrates the doctrine of her Maternity. If she is called the Mother of God, it is to remind Him that, though He is out of sight, He, nevertheless, is our possession, for He is of the race of man. If she is painted with Him in her arms, it is because we will not suffer the Object of our love to cease to be human, because He is also divine. If she is the Mater Dolorosa, it is because she stands by His cross. If she is Maria Desolata, it is because His dead body is on her lap. If, again, she is the Coronata, the crown is set upon her head by His dear hand. And, in like manner, if we are devout to Joseph, it is as to His foster-father; and if he is the saint of happy death, it is because he dies in the hands of Jesus and Mary.
            And what the Church urges on us down to this day, saints and holy men down to this day have exemplified. Is it necessary to refer to the lives of the Holy Virgins, who were and are His very spouses, wedded to Him by a mystical marriage, and in many instances visited here by the earnests of that ineffable celestial benediction which is in heaven their everlasting portion? The martyrs, the confessors of the Church, bishops, evangelists, doctors, preachers, monks, hermits, ascetical teachers, - have they not, one and all, as their histories show, lived on the very name of Jesus, as food, as medicine, as fragrance, as light, as life from the dead? - as one of them says, "in aure dulce canticum, in ore mel mirificum, in corde nectar cœlicum."
            Nor is it necessary to be a saint thus to feel: this intimate, immediate dependence on Emmanuel, God with us, has been in all ages the characteristic, almost the definition, of a Christian. It is the ordinary feeling of Catholic populations; it is the elementary feeling of every one who has but a common hope of heaven. I recollect years ago, hearing an acquaintance, not a Catholic, speak of a work of devotion, written as Catholics usually write, with wonder and perplexity, because (he said) the author wrote as if he had "a sort of personal attachment to our Lord"; "it was as if he had seen Him, known Him, lived with Him, instead of merely professing and believing the great doctrine of the Atonement." It is this same phenomenon which strikes those who are not Catholics, when they enter our churches. They themselves are accustomed to do religious acts simply as a duty; they are serious at prayer time, and behave with decency, because it is a duty. But you know, my Brethren, mere duty, a sense of propriety, and good behaviour, these are not the ruling principles present in the minds of our worshippers. Wherefore, on the contrary, those spontaneous postures of devotion? why those unstudied gestures? why those abstracted countenances? why that heedlessness of the presence of others? why that absence of the shame-facedness which is so sovereign among professors of other creeds? The spectator sees the effect; he cannot understand the cause of it. Why is this simple earnestness of worship? we have no difficulty in answering. It is because the Incarnate Saviour is present in the tabernacle; and then, when suddenly the hitherto silent church is, as it were, illuminated with the full piercing burst of voices from the whole congregation, it is because He now has gone up upon His throne over the altar, there to be adored. It is the visible Sign of the Son of Man, which thrills through the congregation, and makes them overflow with jubilation.
            Here I am led to refer to a passage in the history of the last years of the wonderful man who swayed the destinies of Europe in the beginning of this century. It has before now attracted the attention of philosophers and preachers, as bearing on his sentiments towards Christianity, and containing an argument in its behalf cognate to that on which I have been insisting. It was an argument not unnatural in one who had that special passion for human glory, which has been the incentive of so many heroic careers and so many mighty revolutions in the history of the world. In the solitude of his imprisonment, and in the view of death, he is said to have expressed himself to the following effect: -
            I have been accustomed to put before me the examples of Alexander and Cæsar, with the hope of rivalling their exploits, and living in the minds of men for ever. Yet, after all, in what sense does Cæsar, in what sense does Alexander live? Who knows or cares anything about them? At best, nothing but their names is known; for who among the multitude of men, who hear or who utter their names, really knows anything about their lives or their deeds, or attaches to those names any definite idea? Nay, even their names do but flit up and down the world like ghosts, mentioned only on particular occasions, or from accidental associations. Their chief home is the school-room; they have a foremost place in boys' grammars and exercise-books; they are splendid examples for themes; they form writing-copies. So low is heroic Alexander fallen, so low is imperial Cæsar; "ut pueris placeas et declamatio fias."
But, on the contrary (he is reported to have continued), there is just one Name in the whole world that lives; it is the Name of One who passed His years in obscurity, and who died a malefactor's death. Eighteen hundred years have gone since that time, but still It has Its hold upon the human mind. It has possessed the world, and It maintains possession. Amid the most various nations, under the most diversified circumstances, in the most cultivated, in the rudest races and intellects, in all classes of society, the Owner of that great Name reigns. High and low, rich and poor acknowledge Him. Millions of souls are conversing with Him, are venturing at His word, are looking for His presence. Palaces, sumptuous, innumerable, are raised to His honour; His image, in its deepest humiliation, is triumphantly displayed in the proud city, in the open country; at the corners of streets, on the tops of mountains. It sanctifies the ancestral hall, the closet, and the bedchamber; it is the subject for the exercise of the highest genius in the imitative arts. It is worn next the heart in life; it is held before the failing eyes in death. Here, then, is One who is not a mere name; He is no empty fiction; He is a substance; He is dead and gone, but still He lives, - as the living, energetic thought of successive generations, and as the awful motive power of a thousand great events. He has done without effort, what others with lifelong, heroic struggles have not done. Can He be less than Divine? Who is He but the Creator Himself, who is sovereign over His own works; towards whom our eyes and hearts turn instinctively, because He is our Father and our God?
            My Brethren, I have assumed that we are what we ought to be; but if there be any condition or description of men within the Church who are in danger of failing in the duty on which I have been insisting, it is ourselves. If there be any who are not waiting on their Lord and Saviour, not keeping watch for Him, not longing for Him, not holding converse with Him, it is they who, like ourselves, are in the possession, or in the search, of temporal goods. Those saintly souls, whose merits and satisfactions almost make them sure of heaven, they, by the very nature of their state, are feeding on Christ. Those holy communities of men and women, whose life is a mortification, they, by their very profession of perfection, are waiting and watching for Him. The poor, those multitudes who pass their days in constrained suffering, they, by the stern persuasion of that suffering, are looking out for Him. But we, my Brethren, who are in easy circumstances, or in a whirl of business, or in a labyrinth of cares, or in a war of passions, or in the race of wealth, or honour, or station, or in the pursuits of science or of literature, alas! we are the very men who are likely to have no regard, no hunger or thirst, no relish for the true bread of heaven and the living water. "The Spirit and the Bride say, Come; and he that heareth, let him say, Come. And he that thirsteth, let him come; and he that will, let him take of the water of life, freely." God in His mercy rouse our sluggish spirits, and inflame our earthly hearts, that we may cease to be an exception in His great family, which is ever adoring, praising, and loving Him.

27th Sunday after Pentecost, 1856. Preached in the University Church, Dublin.