By Henry Aloysius Barry
Next in order is the voluptuous class of resistants, who find the moral discipline of the gospel too irksome and heavy. This state of things would excite our compassion, but when one takes occasion from his state to antagonize and question the principles that pretend to bind him, looking for flaws in the christian title, misinterpreting texts to palliate, if not justify, his course, the merely weak man has outgrown his weakness, passed on in development and reached the stage of the blasphemer. So soon as a person of this class is disposed to correct his passion, his heart will promptly speak out and in a clear strong voice proclaim the truth. Sometimes one hears surprise expressed that some Catholic, persons,who are clasped in immoral ways, should still go on fulfilling the public exercises of religion, for example, assisting at Mass. These men are weak, but they still give evidence of their belief in the truth; they do not deny the moral teachings of the Church or the efficaciousness of her sacraments; they admire, confess and love them, though they find themselves unable to fulfil them. So their conduct is not blasphemous; neither is it hypocritical. We know that the Church is the pillar and ground of truth; to antagonize her is, of course, to resist the truth and to err against the Holy Ghost. One of the favorite methods of committing such offence is to wage a war of criticism against the weaker members of the ministerial body. The ministers of Holy Mother are slanderously called ambitious, insincere and in other cases indulgent and avaricious. Surveyed by eyes color-blind from prejudice, is it any wonder that the works of the priests of God—the medium of truth—are shorn of their pure and noble character and made to part with their silent, eloquent tongue—the sonorous voice of action, in the apostolate of truth. Resistance has been offered to their hearts, and to complete the mischief resistance is offered to their deeds. The claims of the Church to miracles, to infallibility, in fact to all that our Lord claimed of power are denied to her. The Sacred Scriptures are attacked from all sides; and, yet, these same antagonists pretend to love the truth and to be engaged in this nefarious persecution in the interests of our Lord, whereas in the depths of their silent hearts they know that this is not so.—"Ever learning but never attaining to the knowledge of the truth."—A very pat epitaph for modern, paganistic universities. (II. Timothy, iii, 7.) How essential is it to not, indeed, counteract such repugnance to truth in any of its branches but chiefly in its root. The cultivation of a positive love for the truth will accomplish this end and run the vicious evil aground. The particular danger one has to meet in the pursuit of so excellent a combat will be found in circumstances where abstract or personal truth is painful to us or inconvenient. Truth is often bitter as aloes. We find this particularly so when the truth of our faults is brought home to us. No one of any experience denies that christian courage is much needed at such times; but, if by fear of its bitterness, we repel the truth and through a lack of courage fail to stand erect and face its demands and contrary to all truth and prudence challenge its reality, we deprive the spirit of rectitude, we put our moral judgment out of gear, by degrees we blunt and deaden the moral perception and in this way reduce the spiritual sensitiveness so that in the end the conscience becomes seared, hard and irresponsive alike to inspiration and warning. Let us take a mother who is attached to a daughter. The truth dawns upon her that her child is called to serve God and work out her salvation in the religious state of life. The truth in the case entails sacrifice. If the mother is generous and brave in the cause of truth she will submit to the fact. If she is overpowered by the thought of separation and refuses to believe the truth "and later on repels it she resists the Holy Ghost. The truth of evangelic perfection was flashed from the lips of our Lord upon the affluent youth—go sell all thou hast —he became sad, turned away from the truth and went his way. In our own lives, perfect obedience to truth under all circumstances imparts to the christian character a certain majestic stableness and weaves about us an Abraham-like atmosphere of imposing grandeur. The opposite disposition, namely to falter and show weakness before the exactions of truth, provokes pity from others whereas stern, unflinching adherence to duty, devotion and obedience to the demands of truth, compels the swift awe and admiration which is in all cases a heritage of heroism. If a friend—and such indeed one is, under the circumstances—calls our attention to a flaw in our character, to a little mud-spot on the mantle of our conduct, we feel pain, we are deeply chagrined. If we succumb to the truth in spite of this distress, we of course will mend our ways and stop decay right on the spot. Some would resent this personal truth; they will persuade themselves not to believe it simply because it is humiliating. Others go further in their resistance to truth and as a matter of fact and principle develop those very faults to show as it were their independence and contempt of conventionalities. The end of it all is constitutional disorder and hard repentance, "Good my Lord. —But when we in our viciousness grow hard, #the wise gods seal our eyes. In our own filth drop our clear judgments; make us adore our errors." (Antony and Cleopatra). The chastisement of such as resist the known truth will be keener than that of others in the future life. This fact is alluded to by the Prophet, "Let death come upon them and let them go down alive into hell." (Ps. liv. 16.) Other souls will be in hell, —dead as it were; their sufferings will not be so nervous, so acute, so living, so to speak, and their pangs will be of the duller sort, less sensible. In the case of those who shall have known the truth, grief and anguish will rage in a degree of fine appreciation, of terrible realization such as will greatly swell the bitterness of their awful doom. It will increase the poignancy of gnawing regrets when the soul comes to look backwards upon its particularly brilliant opportunities only to see them now taunting the lost soul as with innumerable tongues, let loose in a whirlwind of reproach.
Next in order is the voluptuous class of resistants, who find the moral discipline of the gospel too irksome and heavy. This state of things would excite our compassion, but when one takes occasion from his state to antagonize and question the principles that pretend to bind him, looking for flaws in the christian title, misinterpreting texts to palliate, if not justify, his course, the merely weak man has outgrown his weakness, passed on in development and reached the stage of the blasphemer. So soon as a person of this class is disposed to correct his passion, his heart will promptly speak out and in a clear strong voice proclaim the truth. Sometimes one hears surprise expressed that some Catholic, persons,who are clasped in immoral ways, should still go on fulfilling the public exercises of religion, for example, assisting at Mass. These men are weak, but they still give evidence of their belief in the truth; they do not deny the moral teachings of the Church or the efficaciousness of her sacraments; they admire, confess and love them, though they find themselves unable to fulfil them. So their conduct is not blasphemous; neither is it hypocritical. We know that the Church is the pillar and ground of truth; to antagonize her is, of course, to resist the truth and to err against the Holy Ghost. One of the favorite methods of committing such offence is to wage a war of criticism against the weaker members of the ministerial body. The ministers of Holy Mother are slanderously called ambitious, insincere and in other cases indulgent and avaricious. Surveyed by eyes color-blind from prejudice, is it any wonder that the works of the priests of God—the medium of truth—are shorn of their pure and noble character and made to part with their silent, eloquent tongue—the sonorous voice of action, in the apostolate of truth. Resistance has been offered to their hearts, and to complete the mischief resistance is offered to their deeds. The claims of the Church to miracles, to infallibility, in fact to all that our Lord claimed of power are denied to her. The Sacred Scriptures are attacked from all sides; and, yet, these same antagonists pretend to love the truth and to be engaged in this nefarious persecution in the interests of our Lord, whereas in the depths of their silent hearts they know that this is not so.—"Ever learning but never attaining to the knowledge of the truth."—A very pat epitaph for modern, paganistic universities. (II. Timothy, iii, 7.) How essential is it to not, indeed, counteract such repugnance to truth in any of its branches but chiefly in its root. The cultivation of a positive love for the truth will accomplish this end and run the vicious evil aground. The particular danger one has to meet in the pursuit of so excellent a combat will be found in circumstances where abstract or personal truth is painful to us or inconvenient. Truth is often bitter as aloes. We find this particularly so when the truth of our faults is brought home to us. No one of any experience denies that christian courage is much needed at such times; but, if by fear of its bitterness, we repel the truth and through a lack of courage fail to stand erect and face its demands and contrary to all truth and prudence challenge its reality, we deprive the spirit of rectitude, we put our moral judgment out of gear, by degrees we blunt and deaden the moral perception and in this way reduce the spiritual sensitiveness so that in the end the conscience becomes seared, hard and irresponsive alike to inspiration and warning. Let us take a mother who is attached to a daughter. The truth dawns upon her that her child is called to serve God and work out her salvation in the religious state of life. The truth in the case entails sacrifice. If the mother is generous and brave in the cause of truth she will submit to the fact. If she is overpowered by the thought of separation and refuses to believe the truth "and later on repels it she resists the Holy Ghost. The truth of evangelic perfection was flashed from the lips of our Lord upon the affluent youth—go sell all thou hast —he became sad, turned away from the truth and went his way. In our own lives, perfect obedience to truth under all circumstances imparts to the christian character a certain majestic stableness and weaves about us an Abraham-like atmosphere of imposing grandeur. The opposite disposition, namely to falter and show weakness before the exactions of truth, provokes pity from others whereas stern, unflinching adherence to duty, devotion and obedience to the demands of truth, compels the swift awe and admiration which is in all cases a heritage of heroism. If a friend—and such indeed one is, under the circumstances—calls our attention to a flaw in our character, to a little mud-spot on the mantle of our conduct, we feel pain, we are deeply chagrined. If we succumb to the truth in spite of this distress, we of course will mend our ways and stop decay right on the spot. Some would resent this personal truth; they will persuade themselves not to believe it simply because it is humiliating. Others go further in their resistance to truth and as a matter of fact and principle develop those very faults to show as it were their independence and contempt of conventionalities. The end of it all is constitutional disorder and hard repentance, "Good my Lord. —But when we in our viciousness grow hard, #the wise gods seal our eyes. In our own filth drop our clear judgments; make us adore our errors." (Antony and Cleopatra). The chastisement of such as resist the known truth will be keener than that of others in the future life. This fact is alluded to by the Prophet, "Let death come upon them and let them go down alive into hell." (Ps. liv. 16.) Other souls will be in hell, —dead as it were; their sufferings will not be so nervous, so acute, so living, so to speak, and their pangs will be of the duller sort, less sensible. In the case of those who shall have known the truth, grief and anguish will rage in a degree of fine appreciation, of terrible realization such as will greatly swell the bitterness of their awful doom. It will increase the poignancy of gnawing regrets when the soul comes to look backwards upon its particularly brilliant opportunities only to see them now taunting the lost soul as with innumerable tongues, let loose in a whirlwind of reproach.
