By Henry Aloysius Barry
The first born child of love is sacrifice, sacrifice for God and then again to endure pain and inconvenience for one's neighbor. If love is anything or means one thing more than another it is unselfishness—"charity seeketh not her own." Faith teaches us our duties, we know them well, we have the commandments of God and the cardinal virtues with the catalogue of those duties which belong to our own particular state in life; we know the spirit of our Divine Saviour, we have studied it from the Manger to the Cross in all its lights and shades, in its highways and its byways; we accept all these. The cause of weakness in christian men lies not herein. The matter is we do not carry out these high and noble principles. The will lags behind and is not afire of love; it is mathematical, hard and calculating, earthly, carnal and selfish. It looks at things divine in a business way and leaves no margin for love. Its love is not pure and perfect. It looks for excuses to dispense with its obligations. It looks around and sees other men selfish, indulgent and living purely for themselves. When the love of God that spoke to the saints and led them to the highest pitch of self-sacrifice and holy daring for God and their fellow men speaks to men in general they answer the voice of God somewhat after this fashion:— "It is impracticable"; "all very well for them, for the saints, you know, but that is not for us; if you don't look out for No. 1 in this world, you will get left in the lurch." Can we say of such materialistic, worldly-minded christians that they have "faith in the Holy Ghost;" can we say that they have the love of the Paraclete with its spirit of chivalry, its noble daring, its margin of divine trust, its lover's ardor and hopes? Our lives need the loving kiss of the Father and Son, they need the Holy Ghost, faith informed with charity, aye, burning charity. The world will sneer—
"Ah! a dreamer."
Aye, they who are "moved by the spirit of God,"
are indeed dreamers,
but their dreams are like the dreams of the prophets,
dreams of the lovers of God.
Sayest the poet:
"Ah, scorn not hastily their rule,
who try Earth to despise and flesh to mortify,
Consume with zeal, in winged ecstasies Of prayer and praise forget their rosaries, Nor hear the loudest surges of St. Bees!" —Wordsworth.
The first born child of love is sacrifice, sacrifice for God and then again to endure pain and inconvenience for one's neighbor. If love is anything or means one thing more than another it is unselfishness—"charity seeketh not her own." Faith teaches us our duties, we know them well, we have the commandments of God and the cardinal virtues with the catalogue of those duties which belong to our own particular state in life; we know the spirit of our Divine Saviour, we have studied it from the Manger to the Cross in all its lights and shades, in its highways and its byways; we accept all these. The cause of weakness in christian men lies not herein. The matter is we do not carry out these high and noble principles. The will lags behind and is not afire of love; it is mathematical, hard and calculating, earthly, carnal and selfish. It looks at things divine in a business way and leaves no margin for love. Its love is not pure and perfect. It looks for excuses to dispense with its obligations. It looks around and sees other men selfish, indulgent and living purely for themselves. When the love of God that spoke to the saints and led them to the highest pitch of self-sacrifice and holy daring for God and their fellow men speaks to men in general they answer the voice of God somewhat after this fashion:— "It is impracticable"; "all very well for them, for the saints, you know, but that is not for us; if you don't look out for No. 1 in this world, you will get left in the lurch." Can we say of such materialistic, worldly-minded christians that they have "faith in the Holy Ghost;" can we say that they have the love of the Paraclete with its spirit of chivalry, its noble daring, its margin of divine trust, its lover's ardor and hopes? Our lives need the loving kiss of the Father and Son, they need the Holy Ghost, faith informed with charity, aye, burning charity. The world will sneer—
"Ah! a dreamer."
Aye, they who are "moved by the spirit of God,"
are indeed dreamers,
but their dreams are like the dreams of the prophets,
dreams of the lovers of God.
Sayest the poet:
"Ah, scorn not hastily their rule,
who try Earth to despise and flesh to mortify,
Consume with zeal, in winged ecstasies Of prayer and praise forget their rosaries, Nor hear the loudest surges of St. Bees!" —Wordsworth.
