Quinquagesima, 5th
March 1848
We have in the Gospel for this day what, I suppose,
has raised the wonder of most readers of the New Testament. I mean the slowness
of the disciples to take in the notion that our Lord was to suffer on the
Cross. It can only be accounted for by the circumstance that a contrary opinion
had strong possession of their minds - what we call a strong prejudice against
the truth, in their cases an honest religious prejudice, the prejudice of
honest religious minds, but still a deep and violent prejudice. When our Lord
first declared it, St. Peter said, "Be it far from thee, Lord, this shall
not happen to Thee." He spoke so strongly that the holy Evangelist says
that he "took our Lord and began to rebuke Him." He did it out of
reverence and love, as the occasion of it shows, but still that he spoke with
warmth, with vehemence, is evident from the expression. Think then how deep his
prejudice must have been.
This same
prejudice accounts for what we find in today's gospel. Our Lord said,
"Behold we go to Jerusalem, and all that is written of the Son of man
shall be accomplished. For He shall be delivered to the Gentiles, and shall be
mocked and scourged and spat upon; and after they have scourged Him, they will
put Him to death, and the third day He shall rise again." Could words be
plainer? Yet what effect had they on the disciples? "They understood none
of these things, and this was hid from them, and they understood not the things
that were said." Why hid? Because they had not eyes to see.
And so again
after the resurrection, when they found the sepulchre empty, it is said,
"They knew not the Scripture, that He must rise again from the dead."
And when St. Mary Magdalen and the other women told them, "their words
seemed to them as an idle tale, and they did not believe them"; and
accordingly when our Lord appeared to them, "He upbraided them with their
incredulity and hardness of heart, because they did not believe them who had
seen Him after He was risen again."
This is certainly
a very remarkable state of mind, and the record of it in the gospels may serve
to explain much which goes on among us, and to put us on our guard against
ourselves, and to suggest to us the question, Are we in any respect in the same
state of imperfection as these holy, but at that time prejudiced, disciples of
our Lord and Saviour?
It will be well
to observe what the cause of their blindness was - it was a false
interpretation which they had given to the Old Testament Scriptures, an
interpretation which was common in their day, and which they had been taught by
the Scribes and Pharisees, who sat in Moses' seat and pretended to teach them
Moses' doctrine. It was the opinion of numbers at that day that the promised
Messiah or Christ, who was coming, would be a great temporal Prince, like
Solomon, only greater; that he was to have an earthly court, earthly wealth,
earthly palaces, lands and armies and servants and the glory of a temporal
kingdom. This was their idea - they looked for a deliverer, but thought he
would come like Gideon, David, or Judas Maccabaeus, with sword and spear and
loud trumpet, inflicting wounds and shedding blood, and throwing his captives
into dungeons.
And they fancied
Scripture taught this doctrine. They took parts of Scripture which pleased
their fancy, in the first place, and utterly put out of their minds such as
went contrary to these. It is quite certain that the Prophet Isaias and other
prophets speak of our Lord, then to come, as a conqueror. He speaks of Him as
red with the blood of His enemies, and smiting in wrath the heads of diverse
countries; as ruling kings with a rod of iron, and extending His dominion to
the ends of the earth. It is also true that Scripture elsewhere speaks of the
Messias otherwise. He is spoken of as rejected of men, as a leper, as an
outcast, as persecuted, as spat upon and pierced and slain. But these passages
they put away from them. They did not let them produce their legitimate effects
upon their hearts. They heard them with the ear and not with the head, and so
it was all one as if they had not been written; to them they were not written.
It did not occur to them that they possibly could mean, what nevertheless they
did mean. Therefore, when our Lord told them that He, He the Christ, was to be
scourged and spat upon, they were taken by surprise, and they cried out,
"Be it far from Thee, Lord - impossible, that Thou, the Lord of glory,
should be buffeted and bruised, wounded and killed. This shall not happen unto
Thee."
You see that the
mistake of the Apostles, and their horror and rejection of what nevertheless
was the Eternal and most blessed Truth of the gospel, arose from a religious
zeal for the honour of God; though a false zeal. It were well, if the similar
mistake of people nowadays had so excellent a source and so good an excuse.
For, so it is, that now as then, men are to be found who, with Scripture in
their hands, in their memories, and in their mouths, yet make great mistakes as
to the meaning of it, and that because they are prejudiced against the true
sense of it.
"I speak as
to win men" as the Apostle says; "Judge ye what I say." Is it
not so, my dear Brethren? Far be it from me to be severe with such, but is it
not so, that in this educated and intelligent and great people, there are
multitudes, - nay more, the great majority is such, as to have put a false
sense on Scripture, and to be violently opposed to the truth on account of this
false interpretation? The Church of Christ walks the earth now, as Christ did
in the days of His flesh, and as our Lord fulfilled the Scriptures in what was
and what He did then, so the Church fulfils the Scriptures in what she is and
what she does now; as Christ was promised, predicted, in the Scriptures as He
was then, so is the Church promised, predicted, in the Scriptures in what she
is now. Yet the people of this day, though they read the Scriptures and think
they understand them, like the Jews then, who read the Scriptures and thought
they understood them, do not understand them. Why? Because like the Jews then,
they have been taught badly; they have received false traditions, as the Jews
had received the traditions of the Pharisees, and are blind when they think
they see, and are prejudiced against the truth, and shocked and offended when
they are told it.
And, as the Jews
then passed over passages in Scripture, which ought to have set them right, so
do Christians now pass over passages, which would, if dwelt on, extricate them
from their error. For example, the Jews passed over the texts: "They
pierced my hands and my feet," "My God, My God, why hast Thou
forsaken Me?" "He was rejected of men, a man of sorrows and
acquainted with grief," - which speak of Christ. And men nowadays pass
over such passages as the following which speak of the Church:
"Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted to them"; "Thou
art Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church"; "Anointing them
with oil in the Name of the Lord"; "The Church the pillar and
foundation of the truth"; and the like. They are so certain that the
doctrine of the one Holy Catholic Church is not true, that they will not give
their mind to these passages, they pass them over. They cannot tell you what
they mean, but they are quite sure they do not mean what Catholics say they
mean, because Catholicism is not true. In fact a deep prejudice is on their
minds, or what Scripture calls blindness. They cannot tell what these passages
and many others mean, but they do not care. They say that after all they are
not important - which is just begging the question - and when they are urged
and forced to give them a meaning, they say any thing that comes uppermost,
merely to satisfy or to perplex the questioner, wishing nothing more than to
get rid of what they think a troublesome, but idle, question.
Now is it not
strange that persons who act in this way, who skip over things in Scripture,
and go by their prejudices, and by the bad teaching they have received in
Scripture, should yet boast that they are scriptural and go by Scripture, and
use their private judgement? No, they do not judge, they do not examine, they
do not go by Scripture; but they take just so much of Scripture as suits them,
and leave the rest. They go, not by their private judgement, but their private
prejudice, and by their private liking.
Now I will add
one thing more. Persons who act thus are of very different character, just as
those who stumbled at our Lord when He came on earth were very different from
each other. Both the hard-hearted Pharisees and the tender-hearted Apostles
were surprised and shocked at Christ's Passion and death. And so now two sorts
of persons are offended at the Holy Church - some are hopeless, other are
hopeful. The event shows it. We cannot decide which are the one, which the
other, except by the event; but so it is - some are driven further and further
from the Church, the more they hear and see of it, and others as time goes on
are brought nearer to it, and submit themselves to it.
This being the
state of the case, how are we Catholics to behave ourselves to such prejudiced
and erring persons? We should imitate our Lord and Master. He was most patient
with them; He abounded in long-suffering. "A bruised reed did He not
break, and smoking flax did He not quench." He did not argue, but He
quietly led them on. He displayed His wonders to them. He gradually influenced
them by His words and by His grace, and then enlightened them, till they
believed all things. Till that Apostle, who doubted most stoutly of His
resurrection, cried out, overcome, "My Lord and My God." So must we
do now - so does the Church do now. Argument is well in its place, but it is
not the chief thing. The chief thing is to win the mind, to melt the heart, to
influence the will. This the Church does. After the pattern of her Divine Lord
she draws us with cords of a man, with cords of love, with divine charity;
"she hopeth all things, endureth all things," she opens the gates of
her temple, she lights up her altars, she displays the Most Holy under the
sacramental veil, she bursts forth into singing, till the wayward soul,
overcome and subdued, says with the Patriarch, "It is enough - let me now
die, for I have seen Thy Face; Nunc Dimittis, Lord now lettest Thou Thy servant
depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation. I have heard of Thee
with the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth Thee." And, as our
Lord after His resurrection opened the understanding of the disciples to
understand the Scripture, so now are the hearts of men softened and
enlightened, and they see that the Church fulfils all the prophecies about
herself, all that is written in the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms; and thus
they fall down and worship, and confess that God is here of a truth.
Blessed are they
who thus fall down and worship. Blessed are they whom the grace of God leads on
to embrace the truth. Blessed who yield their minds to the gentle influences of
the Holy Ghost, and stop not till He has brought them on to the haven. But, my
Brethren, what I have been saying does not apply exclusively to this or that
set of men, but belongs to us all. For all of us, not this or that man only,
but all of us, Catholics or not, are led forward by God in a wonderful way - through
a way of wonders, a way wonderful to us, a way marvellous, strange, startling,
to our natural feelings and tastes, whatever our place in the Church may be. As
faith is the fundamental grace which God gives us, so a trial of faith is the
necessary discipline which He puts upon us. We cannot well have faith without
an exercise of faith.
This is implied
in the very passage which has given occasion to the remarks which I have been
making. When the disciples shrank from His words about His own death and
passion, what did He do? He met a blind man, and He took him and gave him
sight. Why did He give him this special favour? He expressly tells us. He says,
"Thy faith hath made thee whole." Here was a tacit rebuke of the
slowness to believe in His own disciples and friends, all things are possible
to him that believeth. This poor outcast is a lesson to you, O My own people.
He puts you to shame. He has had faith in Me, while ye stumble at My word, and
when I say a thing, answer "Be it far from Thee, Lord."
The office this
day gives us another instance of the same great lesson. The Church reads today
the history of the call of Abraham, and meditates upon his great act of
obedience, in lifting up his knife to slay his son. Abraham, our father, is our
great pattern of faith, and his faith was tried, first by being called on to
leave his country and kindred, next by being told to sacrifice his dearly
beloved Isaac. The first was trying enough, but what a stumbling-block the
second might have been to faith less than his. If the disciples were shocked
that the divine Antitype should be put to death, surely Abraham too had cause
of offence that his own Isaac was to be struck down and slain by him, by his
hand, by the hand of his father! Yet he went about the fulfilment of this
command, as gravely, as quietly, as calmly, as if it was a mere ordinary
action. Thus he showed his faith and gained the blessing.
Be sure, my
Brethren, that this must be our way too. Never does God give faith, but He
tries it, and none without faith can enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore all
ye who come to serve God, all ye who wish to save your souls, begin with making
up your minds that you cannot do so, without a generous faith, a generous
self-surrender; without putting yourselves into God's hands, making no bargain
with Him, not stipulating conditions, but saying "O Lord here I am - I
will be whatever Thou wilt ask me - I will go whithersoever Thou sendest me - I
will bear whatever Thou puttest upon me. Not in my own might or my own
strength. My strength is very weakness - if I trust in myself more or less, I
shall fail - but I trust in Thee - I trust and I know that Thou wilt aid me to
do, what Thou callest on me to do - I trust and I know that Thou wilt never
leave me nor forsake me. Never wilt Thou bring me into any trial, which Thou
wilt not bring me through. Never will there be a failing on Thy part, never
will there be a lack of grace. I shall have all and abound. I shall be tried:
my reason will be tried, for I shall have to believe; my affections will be
tried, for I shall have to obey Thee instead of pleasing myself; my flesh will
be tried, for I shall have to bring it into subjection. But Thou art more to me
than all other things put together. Thou canst make up to me all Thou takest
from me and Thou wilt, for Thou wilt give to me Thyself. Thou wilt guide
me."
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