By Henry Aloysius Barry
How many christians review their Catechism from time to time, through life, to refresh their memories and to preserve the christian alphabet, like a musician who practises his scales? Hence chaos, platitude, generalities in thought and speech and all through ignorance of the christian alphabet. Flotsam and jetsam we float along, creatures of environment and impulse; our personal faith is purely emotional or sentimental, whereas, if we delved into Godhead, drilled into its boulders, rationalized and searched out—under God's help, of course — we should build our lives far deeper than sentiment, we should fix it upon a broader, solider foundation and an enlightened mind would guide our way.
Practical Christianity suffers from poor circulation in our case. It needs the Holy Ghost, the spiritual battery. How is its circulation to be kept up? If one were to say to the wide world, meditate! I fancy the world would grin—perhaps some not of the world. How will men know God? Is it indeed by intuition? Nay, but by reasoning matters out, by exerting the mind to debate and argue it into solid conviction with the help of faith! This is the chief province of preaching. Religion otherwise conceived is ephemeral. One may be somehow impressed but not convinced; this is one of the sad discoveries of human experience, a sad reminder of the divorce of the mind from the will. Hence recrudescence and fluctuation in virtue. Our house trembles in the blast of temptation and often falls. To be true, one's practical religiousness A ought to be built on deep principle and be systematic, and,— with all due respect to faith, — scientific, for, it is a serious business, a sacred science. It has its balance sheet and the account we are to render of the talents God has bestowed on us. We] ought to advance in knowledge of God. As a matter of plain fact most of us are satisfied with a crumb; more of God would cloy. We have a faint appetite for heaven and no set, serious, well-defined purpose to save our souls and to know daily how far we have succeeded in this tremendous business of life. (A.) All mankind may be united to God, not, of course, by that unity, technically speaking such as the Three Divine Persons have in Godhead. Union is the most a creature may have with God —"My yoke is sweet."
Two can draw a load better than one, and bear a larger burden. In practice, how often do we reject this christian wisdom in spite of the clear invitation, " Come to Me, all ye that labor or that are heavily burdened and I will refresh you." We remain alone, isolated, unrefreshed, jaded, parched, sick of our lot, fencing with despair; we are ankle-deep in the slough of despondency or we encounter a steep accline and we cannot get on with our load, — this earthly load. Why? Precisely because we live aloof from the centre of gravity, we live out of union with God, we do not yoke ourselves with God. We cut ourselves loose from the Trinity and perish. Here is man's best, aye only, strength—with God, "Dominus Tecum." This was Mary's glory and force. The angel told her so and tells us so — "the Lord is with thee,"-a daily momentary union with God, in Him, by Him, with Him and for Him, a constant presence within and without, the very air we breathe in at each pulsation of the heart. Solve that union and there is death—of the soul! "Who shall separate me," shouted St. Paul in a cloudburst of holy chivalry. He was yoked to God; he felt the power of two persons and one of them divine. In the sunlit hours and labors, in the moonlit slumber, 'mid the day treacheries and amid the shadows of evil that haunt the night, our fondest hope should be that the angel might ever be able to whisper,—"The Lord is with thee." "O God, take not Thy Holy Spirit from me." comforting word to be sure, O, Angel, which atones for all our hunger, our mental distress and all the rankling vicissitudes of life. (B) One may and ought to have union with one's fellowmen, aye, union, if not unity, with all mankind's various identities—"thou shalt love the Lord thy God, and thy neighbor as thyself."
How many christians review their Catechism from time to time, through life, to refresh their memories and to preserve the christian alphabet, like a musician who practises his scales? Hence chaos, platitude, generalities in thought and speech and all through ignorance of the christian alphabet. Flotsam and jetsam we float along, creatures of environment and impulse; our personal faith is purely emotional or sentimental, whereas, if we delved into Godhead, drilled into its boulders, rationalized and searched out—under God's help, of course — we should build our lives far deeper than sentiment, we should fix it upon a broader, solider foundation and an enlightened mind would guide our way.
Practical Christianity suffers from poor circulation in our case. It needs the Holy Ghost, the spiritual battery. How is its circulation to be kept up? If one were to say to the wide world, meditate! I fancy the world would grin—perhaps some not of the world. How will men know God? Is it indeed by intuition? Nay, but by reasoning matters out, by exerting the mind to debate and argue it into solid conviction with the help of faith! This is the chief province of preaching. Religion otherwise conceived is ephemeral. One may be somehow impressed but not convinced; this is one of the sad discoveries of human experience, a sad reminder of the divorce of the mind from the will. Hence recrudescence and fluctuation in virtue. Our house trembles in the blast of temptation and often falls. To be true, one's practical religiousness A ought to be built on deep principle and be systematic, and,— with all due respect to faith, — scientific, for, it is a serious business, a sacred science. It has its balance sheet and the account we are to render of the talents God has bestowed on us. We] ought to advance in knowledge of God. As a matter of plain fact most of us are satisfied with a crumb; more of God would cloy. We have a faint appetite for heaven and no set, serious, well-defined purpose to save our souls and to know daily how far we have succeeded in this tremendous business of life. (A.) All mankind may be united to God, not, of course, by that unity, technically speaking such as the Three Divine Persons have in Godhead. Union is the most a creature may have with God —"My yoke is sweet."
Two can draw a load better than one, and bear a larger burden. In practice, how often do we reject this christian wisdom in spite of the clear invitation, " Come to Me, all ye that labor or that are heavily burdened and I will refresh you." We remain alone, isolated, unrefreshed, jaded, parched, sick of our lot, fencing with despair; we are ankle-deep in the slough of despondency or we encounter a steep accline and we cannot get on with our load, — this earthly load. Why? Precisely because we live aloof from the centre of gravity, we live out of union with God, we do not yoke ourselves with God. We cut ourselves loose from the Trinity and perish. Here is man's best, aye only, strength—with God, "Dominus Tecum." This was Mary's glory and force. The angel told her so and tells us so — "the Lord is with thee,"-a daily momentary union with God, in Him, by Him, with Him and for Him, a constant presence within and without, the very air we breathe in at each pulsation of the heart. Solve that union and there is death—of the soul! "Who shall separate me," shouted St. Paul in a cloudburst of holy chivalry. He was yoked to God; he felt the power of two persons and one of them divine. In the sunlit hours and labors, in the moonlit slumber, 'mid the day treacheries and amid the shadows of evil that haunt the night, our fondest hope should be that the angel might ever be able to whisper,—"The Lord is with thee." "O God, take not Thy Holy Spirit from me." comforting word to be sure, O, Angel, which atones for all our hunger, our mental distress and all the rankling vicissitudes of life. (B) One may and ought to have union with one's fellowmen, aye, union, if not unity, with all mankind's various identities—"thou shalt love the Lord thy God, and thy neighbor as thyself."
