Septuagesima, 20th February 1848
The last shall be first and the first last,
for many are called, but few are chosen. Such are the words with which the
Gospel of this day ends, which is the Parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard.
In that parable, you know well, my Brethren, the Master of the Vineyard calls
into his Vineyard all the labourers he can get together. He calls them in at
different times, some in the morning, some at noon, some shortly before the
evening. When the evening is come, he bids his paymaster call them together and
give them their wages for the day past. It is very plain what this means. The
Master of the Vineyard is our Lord and Saviour. We are the labourers. The
evening is the hour of death, when we shall each receive the reward of our
labour, if we have laboured well.
There is more in the parable
than this, but I shall not go into the details of it. I shall here content
myself with the general sketch I have taken of it, and with the words with
which it concludes, "The last shall be first and the first last,
for," etc.
Well is the hour of death
described as the evening. There is something in the evening especially calm and
solemn, fitly representing the hour of death. How peculiar, how unlike anything
else, is a summer evening, when after the fever and heat of the day, after
walking, or after working, after any toil, we cease from it, and for a few
minutes enjoy the grateful feeling of rest! Especially is it so in the country,
where evening tends to fill us with peace and tranquillity. The decreasing
light, the hushing of all sounds, the sweet smell, perhaps, of the woods or the
herbs which are all about us, the mere act of resting, and the consciousness
that night is coming, all tend to tranquillize us and make us serious. Alas, I
know that in persons of irreligious mind it has a very different effect, and
while other men are raised to the love of God and Christ and the thought of
heaven by the calm evening, they are but led to the thought of evil and deeds
of sin. But I am speaking of those who live towards God and train their hearts
heavenward, and I say that such persons find in the calm evening but an
incitement to greater devotion, greater renunciation of the world. It does but
bring before them the coming down of death, and leads them with the Apostle to
die daily. Evening is the time for divine visitations. The Lord God visited
Adam after he had sinned in the garden, in the cool of the evening. In the
evening the patriarch Isaac went out to meditate in the field. In the evening
our Lord discovered Himself to the two disciples who went to Emmaus. In the
same evening He appeared to the Eleven, breathed on them, gave them the Holy
Ghost, and invested them with the power of remitting and retaining sins.
Nay even in a town the evening
is a soothing time. It is soothing to be at the end of the week, having
completed the week's work, with the day of rest before us. It is soothing, even
after the day of rest, though labour is in store for us against the morrow, to
find ourselves in the evening of the day. It is a feeling that almost all must
be able to bear witness to, as something peculiar, as something fitly
prefiguring that awful time when our work will be done, and we shall rest from
our labours.
That indeed will be emphatically
our evening, when the long day of life is over and eternity is at hand. Man
goeth forth to his work and to his labour until the evening, and then the night
cometh when no man can work. There is something inexpressibly solemn and subduing
in that time, when work is done and judgement is coming. O my brethren, we must
each of us in his turn, sooner or later, arrive at that hour. Each of us must
come to the evening of life. Each of us must enter on eternity. Each of us must
come to that quiet, awful time, when we appear before the Lord of the Vineyard,
and answer for the deeds done in the body, whether they be good or bad. That,
my dear brethren, you will have to undergo. Every one of you must undergo the
particular judgement, and it will be the stillest, awfullest time which you
ever can experience. It will be the dread moment of expectation, when your fate
for eternity is in the balance, and when you are about to be sent forth the
companion of saints or devils without possibility of change. There can be no
change, there can be no reversal. As that judgement decides it, so it will be
for ever and ever. Such is the particular judgement. The general judgement at
the end of the world will be a time of dreadful publicity, and will be full of
the terrible brightness of the Judge. The trump of the Archangel will sound,
and the Lord will descend from heaven in lightning. The graves will open. The
sun and the moon will be darkened and this earth will pass away. This is not
the time of evening, but rather it will be a tempest in the midst of the night.
But the parable in the Gospel speaks of the time of evening, and by the evening
is meant, not the end of the world, but the time of death. And really perhaps
it will be as awful, though very different, that solitary judgement, when the
soul stands before its Maker, to answer for itself. O who can tell which
judgement is the more terrible, the silent secret judgement, or the open
glorious coming of the Judge. It will be most terrible certainly, and it comes
first, to find ourselves by ourselves, one by one, in His presence, and to have
brought before us most vividly all the thoughts, words and deeds of this past
life. Who will be able to bear the sight of himself? And yet we shall be
obliged steadily to confront ourselves and to see ourselves. In this life we
shrink from knowing our real selves. We do not like to know how sinful we are.
We love those who prophesy smooth things to us, and we are angry with those who
tell us of our faults. But then, not one fault only, but all the secret, as
well as evident, defects of our character will be clearly brought out. We shall
see what we feared to see here, and much more. And then, when the full sight of
ourselves comes to us, who will not wish that he had known more of himself
here, rather than leaving it for the inevitable day to reveal it all to him!
I am speaking, not only of the
bad, but of the good. Those indeed who have died in neglect of good, it will be
a most insufferably dreadful sight to them, and they will not have long to
contemplate it, in silence, for they will be hurried away to their punishment.
But I speak of holy souls, souls that will be saved, and I say that to these
the sight of themselves will be intolerable, and it will be a torment to them
to see what they really are and the sins which lie against them. And hence some
writers have said that their horror will be such that of their own will, and
from a holy indignation against themselves, they will be ready to plunge into
Purgatory in order to satisfy divine justice, and to be clear of what is to
their own clear sense and spiritual judgement so abominable. We do not know how
great an evil sin is. We do not know how subtle and penetrating an evil it is.
It circles round us and enters in every seam, or rather at every pore. It is
like dust covering everything, defiling every part of us, and requiring
constant attention, constant cleansing. Our very duties cover us with this
miserable dust and dirt. As we labour in God's vineyard and do His will, the
while from the infirmity of our nature we sin in lesser matters even when we do
good in greater, so that when the evening comes, with all our care, in spite of
the sacraments of the Church, in spite of our prayers and our penance, we are
covered with the heat and defilement of the day.
This, I say, will be the case
even with religious persons who have laboured to save their souls; but Oh! how
miserable will be the case of those who have never had religious thoughts!
There are persons, for instance, who cannot bear thought of any kind, who
cannot bear an hour's silent reflection. It would be a great punishment to many
a man to be obliged to think of himself. Many men like to live in a whirl, in
some excitement or other which keeps their minds employed, and keeps them from
thinking of themselves. How many a man, e.g. employs all his leisure time in
learning merely the news of the day. He likes to read the periodical
publications, he likes to know what is going on in the four quarters of the
earth. He fills his mind with matters which either do not concern him, or
concern only his temporal welfare; with what they are doing in various parts of
England, what Parliament is doing, what is done in Ireland, what is done on the
Continent; nay he descends to little matters of no importance, rather than
entertain that thought which must come on him, if not before, at least in the
evening of life and when he stands before his Judge. Others are full of
projects for making money; be they high or be they low, that is their pursuit,
they covet wealth and they live in the thought how they may get it. They are
alive to inventions and improvements in their particular trade, and to nothing
else. They rival each other. They as it were, run a race with each other, not a
heavenly race, such as the Apostle's who ran for a crown incorruptible, but a
low earthly race, each trying by all means in his power to distance his
neighbour in what is called the favour of the public, making this their one
end, and thinking nothing at all of religion. And others take up some doctrine
whether of politics or of trade or of philosophy, and spend their lives upon
it; they go about to recommend it in every way they can. They speak, they
write, they labour for an object which will perish with this world, which
cannot pass with them through the grave. The holy Apostle says "Blessed
are they that die in the Lord, for their works do follow them" (Apoc. 14).
Good works follow us, bad works follow us, but everything else is worth nothing;
everything else is but chaff. The whirl and dance of worldy matters is but like
the whirling of chaff or dust, nothing comes of it; it lasts through the day,
but it is not to be found in the evening. And yet how many immortal souls spend
their lives in nothing better than making themselves giddy with this whirl of
politics, of party, or religious opinion, or money getting, of which nothing
can ever come.
Observe in the parable the
Master of the Vineyard did but one thing. He told his servant to "call the
labourers and give them their hire." He did but ask what they had done. He
did not ask what their opinion was about science, or about art, or about the
means of wealth, or about public affairs; he did not ask them if they knew the
nature of the vine for which they had been labouring. They were not required to
know how many kinds of vines there were in the world, and what countries vines
could grow in, and where they could not. They were not called upon to give
their opinion what soils were best for the vines. They were not examined in the
minerals, or the shrubs, or in anything else which was found in the vineyard,
but this was the sole question, whether they had worked in the vineyard. First
they must be in the vineyard, then they must work in it; these were the two
things. So will it be with us after death. When we come into God's presence, we
shall be asked two things, whether we were in the Church, and whether we worked
in the Church. Everything else is worthless. Whether we have been rich or poor,
whether we have been learned or unlearned, whether we have been prosperous or
afflicted, whether we have been sick or well, whether we have had a good name
or a bad one, all this will be far from the work of that day. The single
question will be, are we Catholics and are we good Catholics? If we have not
been, it will avail nothing that we have been ever so honoured here, ever so
successful, have had ever so good a name. And if we have been, it will matter
nothing though we have been ever so despised, ever so poor, ever so hardly
pressed, ever so troubled, ever so unfriended. Christ will make up everything
to us, if we have been faithful to Him; and He will take everything away from
us, if we have lived to the world.
Then will be fulfilled the awful
words of the parable. Many that are last shall be first, for many are called
but few are chosen. Then, also, will it be seen how many have received grace
and have not profited by it. Then will be seen how many were called, called by
the influence of God's grace, called into the Church, yet how few have a place
prepared in heaven. Then will be seen how many resisted their conscience,
resisted the call of Christ to follow Him, and so are lost. This is the day
both of divine grace and of patience. God gives grace and is patient with us,
but when death comes, there is no more time either for grace or for patience.
Grace is exhausted, patience is exhausted. Nothing remains but judgement, a
terrible judgement on those who have lived in disobedience.
And oh! what a sight it will be,
what an unexpected sight, at the last day and public judgement to be present at
that revelation of all hearts! How different persons will then seem, from what
they seem now! How will the last be first, and the first last! Then those whom
the world looked up to, will be brought low, and those who were little
esteemed, will be exalted. Then will it be found who are the real movers in the
world's affairs, those who sustained the cause of the Church or who influenced
the fortunes of empires, were not the great and powerful, not those whose names
are known in the world, but the humble despised followers of the Lamb, the meek
saint, the man full of prayer and good works whom the world passed by; the
hidden band of saintly witnesses, whose voice day by day ascended to Christ;
the sufferers who seemed to be living for nothing; the poor whom the proud
world thought but an offence and a nuisance. When that Day comes, may it reveal
good for each of you, my brethren, and may the blessing, etc.
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