The knowledge of God consists in the knowledge of His perfections, His works, His will, and the means of grace instituted by Him. St. Paul bids us “increase in the knowledge of God” (Col. 1:10). Now we only know God through a glass in a dark manner; only in heaven shall we see Him face to face, and have a clear knowledge of His perfections (1 Cor. 13:12).
1. The happiness of the angels and the saints consists in the knowledge of God.1
Our Lord tells us that “this is eternal life, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ Whom Thou hast sent” (John 17:3). This is the food of which the archangel Raphael spoke, when he said to Tobias: “I use an invisible meat and drink, which cannot be seen by men” (Tob. 12:19). In heaven the saints and angels have an immediate knowledge of God in the beatific vision. We on earth only know God through the medium of His works and of what He has revealed to us. Our knowledge, compared with that of the saints and angels, is like the knowledge of a country that one gets from maps and pictures as compared with the knowledge of one who has himself visited it.
2. The knowledge of God is all-important, for without it there cannot be any happiness on earth, or a well-ordered life.2
The knowledge of God is the food of our soul. Without it the soul feels hungry; we become discontented. He who does not possess interior peace, cannot enjoy riches, health, or any of the goods of this life; they all become distasteful to him. Yet few think about this food of the soul; they busy themselves, as Our Lord says, with the “meat that perishes” (John 6:27). Without the knowledge of God a man is like one who walks in the dark, and stumbles at every step; he has no end or aim in life, no consolation in misfortune, and no hope in death. He cannot have any solid or lasting happiness, or any true contentment. Without a knowledge of God a well-ordered life is impossible. Just as an untilled field produces no good fruit, so a man who has not the knowledge of God can produce no good works. Ignorance and forgetfulness of God are the causes of most of the sins that men commit. Rash and false oaths, neglect of the service of God and of the sacraments, the love of gold, the sinful indulgence of the passions, are all due to willful ignorance and forgetfulness of God. Thus the prophet Hosea exclaims “There is no knowledge of God in the land. Cursing and lying and killing and theft and adultery have overflowed” (Hos. 4:2–3). And St. Ignatius of Loyola cries out, “O God, Thou joy of my soul, if only men knew Thee, they never would offend Thee,” and experience shows that in the jails the greater part of the prisoners are those who knew nothing of God. When Frederick of Prussia at length recognized that the want of the knowledge of God was the cause of the increase in crime, he exclaimed, “Then I will have religion introduced into the country.” This is why the learning and the understanding of the Catechism, which is nothing else than an abridgement of the Christian religion, is all-important. But a mere knowledge of the truths of religion is not sufficient; they must also be practiced.
3. We arrive at a right knowledge of God through faith in the truths which God has revealed.3
It is true that by means of reason and from the contemplation of the creatures that God has made man can arrive at a knowledge of God (Rom. 1:20). “The heavens show forth the glory of God” (Ps. 18[19]:2). But our reason is so weak and prone to err, that without revelation it is very difficult for man to attain to a clear and correct knowledge of God. What strange and perverted views of the Deity we find among heathen nations (Cf. Wisd. 9:16–17). God therefore in His mercy comes to our aid with revelation. Through believing the truths that God has revealed, man attains to a clear and correct knowledge of God. Hence St. Anselm says, “The more I am nourished with the food of faith, the more my understanding is satisfied.” Faith is a divine light that shines in our souls (2 Cor. 4:6). It is like a watch tower, from which we can see that which cannot be seen from the plain below; we learn respecting God that which cannot be learned by mere reason from the world around. It is a glass through which we perceive all the divine perfections. It is a staff which supports our feeble reason, and enables it to know God better. There are two books from which we gain a knowledge of God; the book of Nature, and Holy Scripture, which is the book of revelation.
If any one stands in a room behind a gauze curtain he perceives all those who are passing in the street, and they see him not. But if he makes himself known by speaking, the passers-by are able to recognize him. Such is our relation to God; He sees us, but conceals Himself from our eyes. Yet He has in many ways made Himself known to men; to Abraham, to Moses in the burning bush, to the Israelites on Mount Sinai, etc.
1. God has in His mercy in the course of ages often revealed Himself to men (Heb. 1:1–2).4
God has often communicated to men a knowledge of His perfections, His decrees, and His holy will. Such revelation is called supernatural, as opposed to the natural revelation of Himself that He makes through the external world.
a. God’s revelation to man is generally made in the following way: He speaks to individuals and orders them to communicate to their fellow-men the revelation made to them.
Thus God spoke to Abraham, Noah, and Moses. He sent Noah to preach to sinful men before the Flood, He sent Moses to the Israelites when they were oppressed by Pharaoh. Sometimes God spoke to a number of men who were assembled together, as when He gave the law to the people on Mount Sinai, or when Our Lord was baptized by St. John and the Holy Spirit descended like a dove, a voice being heard from heaven: “This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased.” Sometimes God revealed Himself through angels, as for instance to Tobias through the archangel Raphael. When God spoke to men, He took the visible form of a man or of an angel, or He spoke from a cloud (as on Sinai), or from a burning bush, as He did to Moses, or amid a bright light from heaven, as to St. Paul, or in the whispering of the wind, as He did to Elijah, or by some interior illumination (Deut. 2:6–8). Those to whom God revealed Himself, and who had to bear witness before others to the divine message, were called messengers from God, and often received from Him the power of working miracles and of prophecy, in proof of their divine mission. (Cf. the miracles of Moses before Pharaoh, of Elijah, the apostles, etc.)
b. Those who were specially entrusted with the communication to men of the divine revelation were the following: the patriarchs, the prophets, Jesus Christ the Son of God (Heb. 1:1), and His apostles.5
Revelation is to mankind in general what education is to individual men. Revelation corresponds to the needs of the successive stages of human development, to the infancy, childhood, and youth of mankind. The patriarchs, who had more of the nature of children, needed less in the way of precepts, and God dealt with them in more familiar fashion; the people of Israel, in whom, as in the season of youth, self-will and sensuality were strong, had to be trained by strict laws and constant correction; but when mankind had arrived at the period of manhood, then God sent His Son and introduced the law of love (1 Cor. 13:11; Gal. 3:24). Of all those who declared to men the divine revelation, the Son of God was pre-eminently the true witness. He says of Himself, “For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, that I should bear testimony to the truth” (John 18:37). He was of all witnesses the best, because He alone had seen God (John 1:18). The apostles also had to declare to men the divine revelation. They had to bear witness of what they had seen, and above all of the resurrection of Jesus Christ (Acts 10:39). With the revelation given through Christ and His apostles, the revelation that was given for the instruction of all mankind was concluded.
c. Even since the death of Our Lord and His apostles God has often revealed Himself to men; yet these subsequent revelations are no continuation of the earlier revelation on which our faith rests.6
Instances of these subsequent revelations are the appearances of Our Lord to Blessed Margaret Mary, and of Our Lady at Lourdes. Such revelations must not be too lightly credited, as men are liable to be deceived; yet they must not be rejected without examination. Many of the saints have had such revelations, i.e., St. Francis of Assisi, to whom Our Lord appeared upon the cross, and St. Anthony of Padua, in whose arms the Child Jesus deigned to rest. These private revelations were more especially given to those who were striving after perfection, in order to encourage them to greater perfection still. Yet God sometimes revealed Himself to wicked men, i.e., to Baltassar in the handwriting on the wall (Dan. 5:5, seq.). Hence a private revelation given to any one is not necessarily a mark of holiness. These revelations, moreover, were no further continuation of the revelation intended for the instruction of the whole of mankind, which ended with the death of the last of the apostles; they are rather a confirmation of truths already revealed. Thus Our Lady, when she appeared at Lourdes, proclaimed herself the “Immaculate Conception,” so confirming the dogma which Pius IX had defined four years previously, and the countless miracles and cures that have taken place there have established the truth of the apparition. Yet it is always possible that the malice of the devil may introduce deceptions into private revelations. No one is therefore bound to give to them a firmer belief (even though they have in general been approved by the Church), than he would give to the assertions of an honest and trustworthy man.
d. Revelation was necessary because, in consequence of original sin, man without revelation has never had a correct knowledge of God and of His will; and also because it was necessary that man should be prepared for the coming of the Redeemer.7
The three Wise Men would never have found Christ if He had not revealed Himself to them by means of a star; so mankind would have lived far off from God, and would never have attained to a true knowledge of Him, if He had not revealed Himself to them. As the eye needs light to see things of sense, so human reason, which is the eye of the soul, needs revelation to perceive things divine (St. Augustine). Original sin and the indulgence of the senses had so dimmed human reason that it could no longer recognize God in His works (Wisd. 9:16). This is proved by the history of paganism. The heathen worshipped countless deities, idols, beasts, and wicked men, and his worship was often immoral and horrible, as in the human sacrifices offered by him. The gods were often the patrons of vice. The greatest men among the heathens approved practices forbidden by the natural law. Thus Cicero approved of suicide, Plato of the exposing to death those children who were weak or deformed. Their theories when good were at variance with their practice. Socrates denounced polytheism, but before his death told his disciples to sacrifice a cock to Esculapius. Many of the best of the heathens recognized and lamented their ignorance of God. Besides, without a previous revelation the Saviour would have been neither known nor honored as He ought to have been known and honored; it was fitting that He should be announced beforehand, like a king coming to take possession of his kingdom. We ought indeed to be grateful to God that He has given us the light of revelation, just as a blind man is grateful to the physician who has restored his sight. Yet how many there are who willfully shut their eyes to the light of revelation even now!
III. THE PREACHING OF THE GOSPEL
1. The truths revealed by God to men were, by God’s command, proclaimed to all nations of the earth by the Catholic Church, and especially by means of the living word, that is, by preaching.8
The command to proclaim to all nations of the earth the truths revealed by God, was given to the apostles by Our Lord at the time of His ascension.
Our Lord, before ascending into heaven, spoke to His apostles as follows: “All power is given to Me in heaven and in earth; going, therefore, teach ye all nations: baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit: … and behold I am with you all days, even to the end of the world” (Matt. 28:18–20). For this reason the apostles and their successors have never allowed themselves to be prohibited by any earthly authority from preaching the Gospel (Cf. Acts 5:29). Nor has the Church ever been turned aside from fulfilling her mission of preaching the Gospel, by the opposition of the world. Even now in many countries the State seeks to make the Church dependent on her. It is in consequence of the command given by Our Lord to the apostles, that the Popes send missionaries to the heathens, and issue Papal briefs and rescripts to Christendom; that bishops send priests throughout their dioceses, and publish pastoral letters; that parish priests instruct their people by sermons and Catechism. While the Catholic Church spreads the Word of God by means of preaching, Mahometans spread their beliefs with fire and sword, and Protestants by means of the Bible.
It is an error to suppose that Holy Scripture is the only means intended by almighty God to communicate to the nations of the earth the truths of revelation.9
It was the will of God to make use of preaching for the conversion of the world. Our Lord said to His apostles, “Go and teach all nations,” not “Go and write to all nations.” Out of the apostles only two wrote; all the rest preached. The apostles themselves were the books of the faithful (St. Augustine). St. Paul tells us that “Faith cometh by hearing” (Rom. 10:17), not from mere books. Teaching by word of mouth corresponds to human needs; every one prefers to be taught, rather than to have to hunt out the truth from books by study. If writings were the only means by which men could arrive at a knowledge of revealed truth the Christians of the first two centuries would have been at a terrible disadvantage; so too would those who cannot read, as well as the great mass of mankind in the present day, who have neither the knowledge nor the capacity to penetrate the meaning of the written Word. Yet it is the will of God that “All men should come to a knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:4). Holy Scripture soon loses its value in the eyes of those who have not the assurance of the living Word that it is truly of divine origin. St. Augustine says: “I should not believe the Gospel unless the authority of the Church moved me to do so.”
A truth which the Church puts before us as revealed by God is called a truth of faith, or a dogma.10
Either a universal council (i.e., one consisting of the bishops of the whole world) acting under the authority of the Pope, or the Pope himself, has power to declare a truth to be revealed by God. Thus the Council of Nicæa declared the divinity of Our Lord to be an article of faith; and Pope Pius IX the Immaculate Conception of the holy Mother of God (1854). Thereby no new doctrines were taught, but these truths were declared to have been truly revealed by God, and thenceforth they became dogmas of the faith. When a child advances in its knowledge of religious truth, it does not really change its belief; so the Church, the collected body of all the faithful, receives dogmas new to it, when, on the appearance of some new form of error, it sets forth, after careful examination, certain truths of religion in explicit form and imposes their acceptance on all the faithful. Before the definition of it by the Church it was only a “pious opinion,” or one proximate to faith. Such is at the present time the belief in the assumption of the body of Our Lady into heaven.11
2. The Catholic Church derives from Holy Scripture and from Tradition the truths that God has revealed.12
Holy Scripture and Tradition are of equal authority, and claim from us equal respect. Holy Scripture is the written, Tradition the unwritten Word of God. St. Paul exhorts the faithful to hold fast the traditions they have received, whether it be by word of mouth or by writing (2 Thess. 2:14).
IV. HOLY SCRIPTURE AND TRADITION
1. Holy Scripture or the Bible consists of seventy-two books, which were written by men inspired by God, and under the guidance and influence of the Holy Spirit. These seventy-two books are recognized by the Church as “the Word of God.”13
The Holy Spirit inspired in a very special way the writers of Holy Scripture; He moved them to write, and guided and enlightened them while they were writing (Cf. 2 Tim. 3:16; Matt. 15:3; Mark 12:36). The Council of Trent and the Vatican Council have expressly declared that God is the Author (auctor) of Holy Scripture. St. Augustine says: “It is as if the Gospels were written down with Christ’s own hand.” “The writers of Holy Scripture,” says St. Laurence Justinian, “were like a musical instrument on which the Holy Spirit played.” Yet they were not mere passive instruments; each writer brings his own personal character with him into what he writes. They are like a number of painters, who all paint a building which they see in the clear daylight, quite correctly, but yet with a great many points of difference, according to their respective talent and skill. Hence it follows that there are no errors in Scripture. We must not look to the individual words, but to the general sense. We must not take offence at popular expressions which are not scientifically correct, as when the motion of the sun, sunrise, and sunset, are alluded to. Moreover, since the Bible contains the Word of God, we must treat it with great reverence. Thus the people always stand up when the Gospel is being read at Mass; oaths are taken on the book of the Gospels; in Mass the deacon approaches the book of the Gospels with incense and lights. The Council of Trent imposes special penalties on those who mock at Holy Scripture. The Jews had the greatest reverence for the Scriptures and the precepts therein contained.
The seventy-two books of Holy Scripture are divided into forty-five books of the Old Testament and twenty-seven of the New. They are moreover divided into doctrinal, historical, and prophetical books.14
Old Testament. The historical books comprise (1), The five books of Moses, which contain the early history of man, the lives of the patriarchs, and the history of the Jewish people up to the time of their entrance into the Holy Land. (2), The books of Joshua and Judges, which relate their conquest of Palestine and their struggles with surrounding nations. (3), The four books of Kings, which recount their history under their kings. (4), The book of Tobias, which gives an account of the life of Tobias and his son during the captivity. (5), The books of the Maccabees, which relate the oppression of the Jews under Antiochus, etc. The doctrinal books comprise the story of Job, the Psalms of David, the Proverbs of Solomon, and the books of Ecclesiastes, Wisdom, and Sirach. The prophetical books comprise the four greater prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel, and the twelve lesser prophets, Jonah, Habakkuk, etc.
New Testament. The historical books are the four Gospels, and the Acts of the Apostles. The doctrinal books are the twenty-one Epistles, including fourteen of St. Paul’s epistles. The prophetical Book of Revelation of St. John tells in obscure language the future destinies of the Church. Most of the books of the Old Testament were originally written in Hebrew, most of the New in Greek. The Latin translation of the Bible called the Vulgate is an amended version of the translation made by St. Jerome about A.D. 400. The Vulgate is declared by the Council of Trent to be an authentic rendering of the original.
The most important books of Holy Scripture are the four Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. The four Evangelists relate the life and teaching of Our Lord; the Acts of the Apostles recount the labors of St. Peter and St. Paul.15
The writers of the Four Gospels are called the four Evangelists. Two of them, St. Matthew and St. John, were apostles, St. Mark was a companion of St. Peter, and St. Luke of St. Paul on his apostolic journeys. St. Matthew’s gospel was originally written in Hebrew, for the benefit of the Jews of Palestine. He shows how Jesus of Nazareth fulfilled the prophecies of the Old Testament, and proved Himself to be the true Messiah. St. Mark wrote for the Christians of Rome and shows Christ to be the Son of God. St. Luke wrote for a distinguished citizen of Rome, named Theophilus, in order to instruct him in the life and doctrine of Christ. We owe to St. Luke many details about Our Lady, and many parables not given by the other Evangelists. St. John wrote his gospel in his old age, to prove against the heretics of the time that Jesus Christ is truly God. He quotes chiefly those sayings of Christ from which His divinity is most clearly proved. The Gospels were probably written in the order in which they stand; St. Matthew wrote about A.D. 40, St. Mark and St. Luke some twenty-five years later, St. John about A.D. 90. The four Gospels were collected into one volume in the second century.
It can be proved from internal evidence that the Gospels were written by disciples of Christ, and narrate what is true. We can also prove from the oldest copies, from translations, and from quotations, that no change has been made in them since they were first written. The Gospels are therefore genuine, worthy of belief, and incorrupt.16
On reading the Gospels we recognize at once that they were the work of Jewish authors. The writers introduce Hebrew expressions (Luke 8:14; John 17:12). They wrote before the destruction of Jerusalem, as we gather from their intimate acquaintance with the city. If they had written in the second century, they could not have possessed this knowledge. Their style shows that they were unlettered men. The vividness of their descriptions proves them to have witnessed the scenes and events they describe. The testimony of the most ancient Christian writers, and the consent of the churches also prove the genuineness of the Gospels. The truthfulness of the Evangelists appears in their quiet and passionless manner of writing; they do not conceal their own faults, and narrate what they knew would expose them to persecution and danger of death; they all draw the self-same picture of Christ, though writing in different places and to various readers; the apparent discrepancies disprove any sort of conspiracy among them or any copying from one another. Lastly, it would be impossible to invent such a lofty type of character as that of Jesus Christ. The Gospels have not been in any way altered in the course of time. The earliest copies and translations agree with our present Bibles, e.g., the Syrian translation (called the Peshito), which dates from the second century, and the Latin (called the Itala), which dates from A.D. 370, besides numerous copies of the original text dating from the fourth century onwards. During the first two centuries the Scriptures were read every Sunday in the various Christian churches and were most carefully guarded. We also find a mass of quotations in the early Christian writers, which prove their text to have been identical with our own. The Old Testament has always been most jealously guarded by the Jews, who in their reverence for it counted the very letters. There is, moreover, no doubt that God watched over the integrity of Holy Scripture, and would no more have allowed the early centuries alone to profit by it, than He would have created the sun for the first generations of men only.
The reading of Holy Scripture is permitted to Catholics, and is very profitable to them; but the text used by them must have been authorized by the Pope, and must be provided with explanatory notes.17
In Holy Scripture we learn to know God aright; we see His omnipotence (in creation and all the wonders narrated in the Bible), His wisdom (in guidance of individuals and of the whole human race), His goodness (in the Incarnation and the sufferings of Our Lord). We have in the saints, and above all in Jesus Christ, glorious examples of virtue to incite us to the like. “The Bible,” says St. Ephrem, “is like a trumpet that inspires courage into soldiers. It is like a lighthouse, which guides us to a safe haven, as we sail over the perilous sea of life.” It also warns us against sin, shows its awful consequences, as in the story of the Fall, of the Flood, of the cities of the plain, of Saul, Absalom, Judas, Herod, etc. It contains all that is profitable to man, and a great deal more than can be found elsewhere. It is like an overflowing well that can never be exhausted. There is always something new to be found in it. But he who desires to understand and profit by it, must have something of the spirit with which the minds of its writers were full; else he will never penetrate beneath the surface, or arrive at its true meaning.
The reason why we are not permitted to read any version of the Bible that we choose is (1), Because the unaltered text and true explanation of it are only to be found in the Catholic Church. (2), Because the greater part of it is very difficult to understand.18
It is only to the Catholic Church, i.e., to the apostles and their successors, the bishops, that Our Lord has promised the gift of the Holy Spirit, and that the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Hence the Holy Scripture, out of which the Catholic Church draws her teaching, cannot possibly be altered or corrupted. Heretics have on the other hand sometimes changed the meaning of particular passages in their own favor, or have omitted whole portions if they did not please them. Thus Luther rejected the epistle of St. James, because the apostle says that faith without works is dead. The difficulty of understanding Holy Scripture is a further reason for the Church’s restrictions. How few there are who can honestly say that they thoroughly understand the epistles that are read at Mass—and these are chosen for their simple and practical character. St. Peter himself says (2 Pet. 3:16) that in the epistles of St. Paul there are some things hard to be understood, and that the unstable would pervert these to their own destruction. St. Augustine says: “There are more things in the Bible which I cannot understand than those I can understand.” The prophetical books are specially obscure. Hence the necessity of an authentic exposition of the Bible. Heretics often give half a dozen different meanings to the same passage. The Catholic Church is the authority that God has appointed to explain Holy Scripture; for to her the Holy Spirit has been given. The child brings the nut that has been given it to its mother to be cracked; so the Catholic comes to the Church for the explanation of the Bible. This is why only Bibles with explanatory notes are allowed to Catholics.
2. The truths of divine revelation, which have not been written down in the pages of Holy Scripture, but have been transmitted by word of mouth, are called Tradition.19
The apostles received from Our Lord the command to preach, not to write. Their writings are concerned more with the doings than with the teaching of Christ, hence their instructions on points of doctrine are very incomplete. They themselves say that there is much that they have delivered to the faithful by word of mouth (2 John 12; 1 Cor. 11:2; John 21:25). Accordingly we are referred to Tradition. It is by Tradition that we know that Our Lord instituted seven sacraments. It is by Tradition that we are taught that there is a purgatory, that Sunday is to be kept holy, and that infants are to be baptized. It is Tradition which teaches us what books belong to Holy Scripture, etc. Tradition comes down to us from the time of the apostles. Just as those who follow up the course of a stream gradually draw near to the fountain-head, and thus discover how far the water flows, so we can search out the historical sources of the teaching of the earlier centuries of the Church, and arrive at her true doctrine. Every doctrine that has always been believed in by the universal Church, comes down to us from the apostles. If therefore there is any doctrine of the Church that we do not find in Holy Scripture, we shall find it in the stream of Tradition, and shall be able to trace it up to the first ages of Christianity.
The chief sources of Tradition are the writings of the Fathers, the decrees of Councils, and the Creeds and prayers of the Church.20
The Fathers of the Church were those who were distinguished in the early ages of the Church by their great learning and holiness. Such are St. Justin, the philosopher and zealous defender of the Christian religion (A.D. 166), St. Irenæus, Bishop of Lyons (A.D. 202), St. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, etc. Many of these were disciples of the apostles, and are termed apostolic Fathers, as St. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch (A.D. 107). The Doctors of the Church were those who in later times were distinguished for their learned writings and their sanctity. There are four great Greek Doctors, Saints Athanasius, Basil, Gregory, and John Chrysostom; and four Latin, Saints Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome, and Pope Gregory, called Gregory the Great. In the Middle Ages there were four other great Doctors of the Church, St. Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, St. Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, St. Thomas Aquinas, and St. Bonaventure. Among the most distinguished Doctors of later times were St. Francis de Sales, Bishop of Geneva, and St. Alphonsus Liguori. We shall speak hereafter of the decrees of Councils and of Creeds as the sources of Tradition. The prayers of the Church are to be found primarily in the Missal, but also in other books used in the administration of the sacraments and other rites of the Church. Thus we find in the Missal prayers for the dead, whence it follows that the Church teaches their efficacy.
1. Christian faith is the firm conviction, arrived at with the grace of God, that all that Jesus Christ taught on earth is true, as well as all that the Catholic Church teaches by the commission she has received from Him.21
At the Last Supper Our Lord said “This is My body,” “This is My blood.” Although the apostles had the evidence of their senses that what lay before them was only bread and wine, yet they believed that the words of Christ were true. The holiness of the life of Christ, the numerous miracles that He worked, the predictions of His that were fulfilled, had convinced the apostles that He was the Son of God, and that therefore every word that He spoke was true. God promised Abraham many descendants, and then commanded him to slay his only son. Abraham obeyed, because he knew that God’s word must come true (Heb. 11:19; Rom. 4:9). This was a splendid example of faith. St. Paul (Heb. 1:1) calls faith “the evidence of things that do not appear.”
Christian faith is at the same time a matter of the understanding and the will.22
Before a man believes, he inquires whether what he is asked to believe was really revealed by God. This inquiry is a duty, for God exacts of us a reasonable service (Rom. 12:1), and warns us that “he who is hasty to believe is light in heart” (Sir. 9:4). But when once a man has arrived at the conviction that the truth which is in question was really revealed by God, then the will must at once submit to what God has laid down, even though the reason cannot fully grasp its meaning. If the will does not submit, faith is impossible. No man can believe unless he wills to believe.
2. Faith is concerned with many things which we cannot perceive with our senses and cannot grasp with our understanding.23
Faith is a conviction respecting that which we see not (Heb. 11:1). We believe in God, though we do not see Him; we believe in angels though we have never seen them. We believe in the resurrection of our bodies, though we do not understand how it can be. So, too, we believe in the mysteries of the Blessed Trinity, of the Incarnation, and of the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar. This is why faith is so pleasing to God. “Blessed are they,” says Our Lord to St. Thomas, “who have not seen but have believed” (John 20:29).
Faith never requires us to believe anything that is contradictory to human reason.24
The mysteries of faith are above and beyond our reason, but are never opposed to reason. For God has given us our reason, and it is the same God Who has given us the teaching of Christ and of the Church. He who rejects any doctrine of the Church ultimately finds himself involved in a contradiction. Hence Bacon truly says: “A little philosophy takes a man away from religion, but a sound knowledge of philosophy brings him back to religion.”
3. We act quite in accordance with reason when we believe, because we trust ourselves to God’s truthfulness, and because we know for certain that the truths of faith are revealed to us by God.25
A short-sighted man believes a man with longer sight when he tells him that a balloon is floating in the heavens. A blind man believes one with sound sight when he tells him that the map before him is a map of Europe. We believe in the existence of the cities of Constantinople, Peking, and Buenos Ayres, though we may never have seen them. In so doing we act reasonably. But how far more reasonably do we act when we believe God! Man may be mistaken, or may be deceiving us, whereas God cannot err and cannot deceive us. It is the truthfulness of God on which we rely when we make an act of faith. We must, however, previously be certain that the doctrine or fact which we are asked to believe is one that has really been revealed by God. God bears witness to Himself as the Author of the truths of faith by many actions that He alone can perform, such as miracles and prophecies. The man of good will can always find a sufficient reason for believing, a man of bad will an excuse for not believing.
We believe the words of Christ, because He is the Son of God, and can neither deceive nor be deceived. Moreover He has established the truth of what He taught by the miracles that He worked.26
It would be a blasphemy to suppose that Our Lord, Who is truth itself, could ever have, in one single instance, deceived us. Hence faith gives us a greater certainty than the evidence of our senses. Our senses can deceive us—God cannot deceive us. Christ Himself appeals to the miracles He wrought, when He says, “If any one will not believe Me, let him believe the works” (John 10:38).
We believe the teaching of the Church because Christ guides the Church to all truth through the Holy Spirit, and guards it against all error, and also because God, even up to the present day, has confirmed the truth of the teaching of the Catholic Church by miracles.27
Our Lord before His ascension said to His apostles: “Behold I am with you all days even to the end of the world” (Matt. 28:20). And at the Last Supper: “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Paraclete, that He may remain with you forever, the Spirit of truth” (John 14:16). The Holy Spirit is therefore still in the midst of the Church, just as He was on the Day of Pentecost. God moreover still works miracles in the Catholic Church. Witness, e.g., the countless miracles of Lourdes, and those that take place at the well of St. Winifred in Wales; and also those that must precede every beatification. Witness again the numerous bodies of the saints that have remained incorrupt for long years after their death, as those of St. Francis Xavier, St. Teresa, St. Elizabeth of Portugal, St, John of the Cross, and many others. Witness again the head of the Venerable Oliver Plunkett in the Dominican Convent at Drogheda, which not only remains incorrupt, but emits a most delicious fragrance. Most of these bodies were buried in the earth for years, and were found incorrupt when their graves were opened. Witness again the miracle which takes place at Naples every year, when the blood of St. Januarius becomes liquid on being brought near the silver case in which the head of the saint is kept, and again solidifies as soon as it is removed. Faith gives us a more certain knowledge than that which we gain through our senses, or that which we arrive at by our reasoning powers. Our senses can mislead us, God cannot; e.g., a stick, part of which is in the water, looks bent; a sound that strikes against a flat building seems to come from the opposite quarter to that whence it really proceeds. Our intellect, too, can deceive us, weakened as it is by original sin. As we see better with a telescope than with the naked eye when the object is far away, so faith sees further and better than reason. We must not confuse faith with opinion. Faith is certain and sure, opinion is not.
4. The Christian faith comprises all the doctrines of the Catholic faith.28
He who willfully disbelieves a single doctrine of the Catholic Church has no true faith, for he who receives some of the words of Christ and rejects others, does not really believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that He guides the Catholic Church.29
A faith which does not comprise all the doctrines of the Catholic Church is no faith at all. It is like a house without a foundation. A man who believes all other Catholic doctrines, but rejects the infallibility of the Pope, has no true faith. What insolence it is on the part of men to treat God like a dishonest dealer, some of whose goods they accept, and others reject! What utter folly to think that we know better than God! As a bell in which there is one little crack is worthless, as one false note destroys a harmony, as a grain of sand in the eye prevents one from seeing, so the rejection of a single dogma makes faith impossible. He who willfully rejects a single dogma sins against the whole body of doctrine of the Catholic Church. Hence no heretic, if he is so through his own fault, can make an act of faith, even in the existence of God or the divinity of Jesus Christ.
Although it is necessary to faith that all the teaching of the Catholic Church should be believed, yet it is not necessary to be acquainted with every one of her doctrines. But a Catholic must at the very least know that there is a God, and that God directs the life of men, rewards the good, and punishes the wicked; he must also know that there are three persons in God, and that the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity has become man, and has redeemed us on the cross.30
St. Paul tells us that “He that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is the rewarder of them that seek Him” (Heb. 11:6). This was the minimum required before the coming of Christ, and is now required of those who have never come within reach of the Gospel. In a country where the Gospel is preached the case is quite different, and no one can be admitted to the Sacraments of Baptism or Penance until he has been instructed in the above-mentioned truths.
He who has an opportunity of being instructed must also learn and understand the Apostles’ Creed, the commandments of God and of the Church, and also he must have some knowledge of the doctrines of grace, of the sacraments, and of prayer, as set forth in some Catechism authorized by the bishops of the country where he lives.31
5. Faith is a gift of God, since the power to believe can only be attained through the grace of God.32
St. Paul tells us “By grace you are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God” (Eph. 2:8). And Our Lord says, “No man can come to Me, unless it be given to him by My Father” (John 6:66). God gives us the gift of faith in Baptism; hence Baptism is called “the sacrament of faith.” Until the newly baptized child comes to the use of reason, he cannot use this power of believing, or make an act of faith. He is like a child who is asleep, who has the faculty of sight, but cannot use it until he opens his eyes. Then he can see the objects around him under the influence of the light. So the child who attains to reason is able to believe the truths of religion under the influence of the grace of God.
God bestows the knowledge of the truth and the gift of faith chiefly on those who (1), strive after it with earnestness and perseverance; (2), live a God-fearing life; (3), pray that they may find the truth.33
An earnest desire after truth is a sure means of attaining to it, for Our Lord has said that “Those who hunger and thirst after justice shall have their fill” (Matt. 5:6). And again God says through the mouth of the prophet, “You shall find Me when you seek Me with your whole heart” (Jer. 29: 13). The Roman philosopher Justinus was an instance of the fulfilment of this promise, for God rewarded his earnest desire for truth by causing him to fall in with an old man on the banks of the Tiber, who instructed him in the truths of the Christian faith. A life in accordance with the law of God will also obtain the grace of faith. “If any one shall do the will of God, he shall know of the doctrine” (John 7:17). To such a one God will give an interior light, or will send some one to instruct him, as He did to Cornelius (Acts 10:30 seq.). So Cardinal Newman prayed for long years for the “kindly light” which at last brought him to the door of the Catholic Church and the same was the case with countless other converts from Protestantism. Sometimes God in His mercy gives the gift of faith even to the enemies of the Church, as He did to St. Paul, but it is for the most part to those who are in good faith in their errors.
When God bestows upon a man the gift of faith, He either employs one of the ordinary means of grace, such as preaching, or in some cases an extraordinary means, such as a miracle.34
The ordinary means are preaching, reading, and personal instruction. St. Augustine was converted by the preaching of St. Ambrose in the Cathedral of Milan, St. Ignatius of Loyola by reading the lives of the saints, the Ethiopian eunuch by his conversation with St. Philip. Extraordinary means are those of which we find many at the beginning of the Christian era; such as the star that the Magi followed, the light that shone upon St. Paul on his journey to Damascus and the voice that he heard from heaven; the great cross that the Emperor Constantine saw in the sky, with the words “In hoc signo vinces;” the vision of Our Lady that Ratisbonne saw in the Church of St. Andrea in Rome in the year 1842. So the heathen boy Theophilus was converted by the roses that fell at his feet in the month of January, after the martyrdom of his playmate Dorothea (A.D. 308).
Many men fail to attain to the Christian faith through pride, self-will, and an unwillingness to give up the indulgence of their passions.35
It is the lack of good will that debars many from the faith. Our Lord is the true light that enlighteneth every man that comes into the world (John 1:9). It is the will of God that all men should come to the truth. Men too often shut their eyes to the light, because they are unwilling to change their evil life; “they love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil” (John 3:19). Pride is also a fatal hindrance to faith. God loves to make use of simple means to bring men to the knowledge of the truth, and this the proud resent, just as Naaman resented Elisha’ advice to go and wash in the Jordan. So Christ was rejected and despised by the Jews, and especially by the Scribes and Pharisees, because He was born of poor parents and lived in a town that was held in contempt: “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” (John 1:46). So the upper class at Rome were unwilling to receive the truth from a nation that was despised by them, and from men who were in general very deficient in culture or position. So, too, in the present day God allows His Church to be oppressed and persecuted and looked down upon. Hence there is no miracle at which the proud do not scoff. God hides the secrets of His providence from the proud, and more than this, He positively resists them (1 Pet. 5:5).
6. Faith is necessary to eternal salvation.36
Faith is like the root of the tree, without which it cannot exist; it is the first step on the road to heaven; it is the key which opens the treasure-house of all the virtues. How happy is the wanderer when he lights on the road which will carry him to his journey’s end; how far happier is he who has been wandering in the search after truth when he attains to a belief in the Catholic Church; he has found the road to eternal life. The saints always set the greatest store on the possession of the faith. “I thank God unceasingly,” said the good King Alphonsus of Castile, “not that I am a king, but that I am a Catholic.” Without faith there is no salvation. Our Lord says “He that believeth not shall be condemned” (Mark 16:16). St. Paul says that “Without faith it is impossible to please God” (Heb. 11:6). Faith is like a boat; as without a boat you cannot cross the sea, so without faith you cannot arrive at the port of eternal salvation. It is like the pillar of the cloud which led the Israelites across the desert, or like the star that guided the Wise Men to Christ. Without faith we can do no good works pleasing to God, or which will merit for us a reward in heaven. Acts of kindness, etc., done from a natural motive earn a reward in this life, but not in the next. They are like a building which has no foundation. Just as from the root placed in the ground arises the beautiful plant, with its leaves and flowers, so from the root of faith arises good works. Faith in God gives rise to a love of Him, and confidence in Him, and this enables us to labor and suffer for Him. Faith in our eternal reward encourages us in our toilsome journey through life. It gave Job his patience, Tobias his generosity to the poor, and the martyrs their constancy. Faith provides us with the means of resisting temptation; it is the lighthouse which enables the mariner to avoid the hidden rocks and quicksands. It is the shield that enables us to extinguish all the fiery darts of the wicked one (Eph. 6:16). On the amount of our faith depends the amount that we possess of the other virtues, and the amount of grace that we receive from God.
7. Faith alone is not sufficient for salvation.37
It must be a living faith; that is, we must add to it good works and must be ready to confess it openly.
A living faith is one which produces works pleasing to God. Our Lord says “Not every one who saith to Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doth the will of My Father Who is in heaven” (Matt. 7:21). He who has done no works of mercy will be condemned at the judgment (Matt. 25:41). Such a one is like the devils, who believe and disobey (Jas. 2:19). “As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also” (Jas. 2:26). Faith without works is like a tree without fruit, or like a lamp without oil. The foolish virgins had faith, but no works. Good works, such as are necessary for salvation, can only be performed by one who is in possession of sanctifying grace, and loves God in his heart. Hence St. Paul says, “If I should have all faith, so that I could remove mountains and have not charity, I am nothing” (1 Cor. 13:2). We must also be ready to confess our faith. “With the heart we believe unto justice; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Rom. 10:10). Man consists of body and soul, and therefore must honor God, not only inwardly, but also outwardly. Christ promises the kingdom of heaven only to those who confess Him before men (Matt. 10:32).
1. The external motives which move us to believe are chiefly miracles and prophecy.38
It is through these that we attain to a certain knowledge that this or that truth of faith is really from God.
The veracity of God is of course the ultimate motive of faith, for we make an act of faith in the truths revealed by God, because we know that God is true and cannot deceive or be deceived. But no reasonable man can make an act of faith in any truth, until he is quite sure that it is one of the truths revealed by God. For this reason the external evidences through which God establishes the fact that He has really spoken are for men a most important and necessary motive of faith. It was in great measure because the apostles had seen the countless miracles worked by Christ, and had seen the prophecies of the Jewish prophets fulfilled in Him, that they believed Him without doubting when He said, “This is My body, this is My blood.” The miracle of the gift of tongues at Pentecost moved three thousand men to believe in Christianity; that of the healing of the lame man at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple moved two thousand more; the wonders wrought by the apostles induced the heathen to accept the Christian faith. How many were led to believe or confirmed in the faith by the fulfilment, in the year A.D. 70, of Our Lord’s prophecy respecting the destruction of Jerusalem, and again by the failure of the attempts to rebuild the Temple in A.D. 361! Besides miracles and prophecy there are also other motives of faith, such as the constancy of the martyrs, the wonderful spread of Christianity, and its still more wonderful permanency in the face of all the persecution and opposition that the Church has had to endure, the four attributes of the Church, etc.
The greater number of miracles were performed in the early days of the Church, because they were the means God employed for the spread of Christianity.
God is like a gardener who waters his plants while they are still tender and small.
2. Miracles are such extraordinary works as cannot be performed by the mere powers of nature, but are brought about by the intervention of a higher power.
An extraordinary work is one that fills us with astonishment, because we have never seen or heard of anything like it and are unable to find any natural explanation of it: e.g., the telegraph and the phonograph were extraordinary wonders at the time of their first invention. But their unwonted character is not sufficient to constitute these things as miracles; a miracle must also surpass all the forces of nature. Thus the raising of the dead to life is not only an extraordinary fact, but it is one that no amount of skill or knowledge will enable a man to perform. Miracles are thus exceptions to the ordinary course of nature; they appear to transgress the laws of nature, but they do not really do so. The laws of nature still hold good, but they are suspended in their action by an intervening power.
There are true and false miracles.
The former are worked by the power of almighty God, the latter appear to surpass the powers of nature, but are really the effect of the employment of the powers of nature by evil spirits, who by reason of their greater knowledge and power are able to produce results that deceive and mislead us. Miracles are divided into miracles of the first class and miracles of the second class. The former are those which altogether surpass all the powers of nature, as the raising of the dead to life. Miracles of the second class are extraordinary actions which might have been performed by the powers of nature, but not in the same way or in the same space of time, as the healing of a sick man by a word, or the sudden acquisition of the knowledge of a foreign language.
3. Miracles are wrought by almighty God only for His own glory, and especially for the confirmation of true doctrine.39
Sometimes it is to show that a man is a true messenger sent by God; sometimes to bear witness to the holiness of one who is dead, or to his virtue or justice. God never works a miracle in confirmation of false doctrine.40
All important documents must bear the stamp or signature of the person sending them out, as a mark of their being genuine. God also has His stamp, by which He certifies that some doctrine is from Him, or that some messenger is sent by Him. This stamp consists in miracles. It is one that cannot be counterfeited. Our Lord Himself appeals to His miracles as a proof of His divine mission (Matt. 11:4–5; John 10:37). Elijah did the same (1 Kings 18). Miracles still continue to be worked in the Catholic Church in proof of the truth of her teaching. God also works miracles in proof of the holiness of the dead, often at their graves, as at that of Elisha (2 Kings 13:21), or for those who invoke them. Two miracles must be attested as having been worked by the intercession of a servant of God, before he is beatified, and others before he is canonized. Under the Jewish covenant the saints worked miracles chiefly during their life; under the Christian covenant they work the greater number after their death. God also works miracles to manifest His goodness and His justice, as when the water flowed in the desert to supply the thirsting Israelites, and when Ananias and Saphira were struck dead. God never works miracles in proof of false doctrine, though He sometimes permits wicked men to be deceived by the false miracles worked by the devil. Thus the devil sometimes heals the sick rapidly or suddenly through his superior knowledge of the powers of nature.41
Those whom God has created can only work miracles when God gives them the power. The saints always worked miracles in the name of God, or of Our Lord. Our Lord alone could work miracles in His own name. Bad men are sometimes employed by God as the instruments of the miracles by which He establishes the truth (Matt. 7:22–23). We must not be too ready to have recourse to the hypothesis of a miracle, if the fact supposed to be miraculous can be accounted for in any other way.
5. Prophesies are clear and definite predictions of future events that can be known to God alone.42
Prophecy also includes a prediction of future events, which depend on the free will of man, for such events can only be foreseen by God Himself. The most thorough knowledge of material causes avails nothing. They are often just the opposite of what our previous knowledge would have led us to expect, e.g., the denial of Our Lord by St. Peter (Cf. Mark 14:31), which Our Lord predicted. Prophecies may be called miracles of the omniscience of God, as distinguished from the miracles of His omnipotence, for prophecy requires an acquaintance with the heart of man such as God alone possesses (Is. 41:23). The oracles of the heathen correspond to the false miracles of which we have already spoken. They were mostly obscure and sometimes ambiguous, as when the oracle at Delphi told Crœsus that if he crossed the river Halys with his army he would destroy a mighty kingdom, but did not say whether that kingdom was to be his own or that of his enemies. Many predictions were given by the oracles and the heathen soothsayers which were not true prophecies, but were guesses made from a knowledge of the laws of nature and from the laws that regulate the general course of human development. The evil spirits, through their superior knowledge, were often able to foretell events that men could not foresee, such as the approach of a storm or pestilence, or the death of some individual.
6. God for the most part entrusts the prophesying of future events to His messengers, for the confirmation of the true faith or for the benefit of men.43
Thus God entrusted the prophets of the Jewish covenant with the prophecy of a Redeemer to come, in order to confirm the belief in Him, to convince those to whom He came that He was the true Messiah and those who have lived since His coming of the truth of the Christian religion. He sent Noah to prophesy the Flood, in order to lead men to do penance. Sometimes He revealed the future to wicked men, as when to Baltassar He foretold his coming destruction by the handwriting on the wall. Sometimes He employed wicked men as the instruments through which He foretold the future, as e.g., Balaam (Numb. 24:1 seq.), and Caiphas, as being the high priest of the year (John 11:49). But in general He only employed as instruments of prophecy His own faithful servants, revealing the future event either through a vision, or by an angel, or through some interior illumination. Thus the archangel Gabriel was sent to instruct Daniel during the Babylonian captivity respecting the time of the coming of the Messiah. The prophecies of Revelation were mostly put before St. John in the form of a vision. Such communications were given to the prophets only from time to time. None of them had a permanent knowledge of future events. Thus Samuel did not know who was to be the future king of Israel till David was actually presented to him (1 Sam. 16:6–12).
The gift of prophecy is therefore, generally speaking, a proof that he who possesses it is a messenger from God.
The fulfilment of the prophecy is, of course, necessary before we recognize it as a proof that he who utters it is a messenger from God. It must not contradict any revealed doctrine, or be inconsistent with the holiness of God. It must be edifying and profitable to men (1 Cor. 14:3). It must be uttered with prudence and calmness, for it is a mark of false prophets to show no control of self.44
VII. ON THE ABSENCE AND LOSS OF FAITH
Faith is the road to heaven. Unhappily there are very many who are wanderers and strangers to the Christian faith.
1. Those who do not possess Christian faith are either: (a) heretics or (b) infidels.
a. Heretics are those who reject some one or more of the truths revealed by God.45
Heretics are those who hold to some of the doctrines revealed by God, and reject others. Those who induce others to a false belief are called leaders of heresy, or arch-heretics. It is always pride that leads them away from the truth. Among these arch-heretics was Arius, a priest of Alexandria, who denied the divinity of Christ, and was condemned at the Council of Nicæa in A.D. 325; Macedonius, who denied the divinity of the Holy Spirit, and was condemned in the Council of Constantinople A.D. 381; Martin Luther, who assailed the divine institution of the Papacy and the right of the Church to teach; Henry VIII, King of England, who threw off the authority of the Pope and proclaimed himself the Head of the Church in England, because the Pope refused to declare invalid his valid marriage with Queen Catherine; Döllinger, who was a professor in the University of Munich, and was celebrated for his literary labors, but on the definition of the infallibility of the Pope refused to accept the dogma, and was excommunicated. He died in 1890 without being reconciled or giving any sign of repentance. Döllinger was the chief mover in the establishment of the sect of “Old Catholics.” Most of the founders of heresy were either bishops or priests. They are like the coiners of false money who put into circulation worthless metal in the place of the pure gold of truth. Or like dishonest traders, who mix the pure wine of the Gospel with some injurious compound. They are murderers of souls, for they take men away from the road that leads to eternal life, and tempt them into that which leads to eternal death. It is of them that Our Lord says “Woe to them by whom scandals come,” and again, “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly they are ravening wolves” (Matt. 7:5). Their object is not to spread the faith in its purity, but to satisfy their own evil inclinations, their pride, their sensual desires, or their love of money. Their religious teaching is only a cloak for these. They look out for the weak side of human nature, as Satan does. Thus Luther tempted princes with the spoil of churches and monasteries, and priests with the bait of marriage. To the class of heretics belong also those schismatics who accept, or profess to accept, all Catholic doctrine, but will not acknowledge the supremacy of the Holy See. Thus the Greek Church is a schismatical Church, though its denial of Papal infallibility constitutes it, since the Vatican Council, heretical also. Heresy is one of the greatest of all sins, when it is not the result of invincible ignorance. St. Paul writes to the Galatians that if an angel from heaven preached to them any Gospel different from that they had received, he was to be anathema or accursed (Gal. 1:8). St. Jerome says that there is no one so far removed from God as a willful heretic.
At the same time, he who lives in heresy through ignorance for which he is not himself to blame, is not a heretic in the sight of God.46
Thus those who are brought up in Protestantism, and have no opportunity of obtaining a sufficient instruction in the Catholic religion, are not heretics in the sight of God, for in them there is no obstinate denial or doubt of the truth. They are no more heretics than the man who takes the property of another unwittingly is a thief.47
b. Rationalists or unbelievers are those who will not believe anything unless they can either perceive it with their senses, or comprehend it with their understanding.48
Thus St. Thomas was an unbeliever when he refused to believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, unless he should put his finger into the sacred wounds of Our Lord’s hands and feet, and put his hand into His side (John 20:24). There are many in the present day like St. Thomas; they will believe nothing except what they can see with their eyes, or grasp with their reason; all else, e.g., all the mysteries of the faith, they reject. “Unbelief,” says St. John Chrysostom, “is like a sandy soil, that produces no fruit however much rain falls upon it.” The unbeliever does God the same injustice that a subject would do to his king, if he refused to acknowledge his authority in spite of the clearest proofs of it.
Unbelief springs for the most part from a bad life.49
The sun is clearly reflected in pure and clear water, but not in dirty water. So it is with men; a man of blameless life easily finds his way to the truth, but the sensual man does not perceive the things that are of the Spirit of God (1 Cor. 2:14). A mirror that is dim reflects badly, or not at all. So the soul, which is a mirror on which the light falls from God, cannot receive the truths of faith if it is dimmed by vice.
2. Faith is for the most part lost either: (1), By indifference to the doctrines of faith; (2), By willful doubt respecting the truths of faith; (3), By reading books or other literature that is hostile to the faith; (4), By frequenting the assemblies of those who are hostile to the faith; (5), By neglecting the practice of one’s religion.50
He who through culpable indifference does not trouble himself about the doctrines of faith, gradually loses the gift of faith. He is like the plant that is not watered, or the lamp that is not filled with oil. Such men know that they are very ignorant of their religion, and yet they take no pains to get instructed; they are engrossed with this world; they never pray or hear a sermon, and if they are parents, they take no pains to get their children properly instructed. Perhaps they fancy themselves men of enlightenment, and look with pitying contempt on those who are conscientious and earnest in the practice of their religion. The body must be nourished, else it will perish from hunger; the soul must be nourished, else it, too, will perish. Its nourishment is the teaching of Christ. He Himself says, in His conversation with the woman of Samaria, that the water that He would give her, i.e., His divine doctrine, should be to her a well of water, springing up unto life everlasting (John 4:14). And in the synagogue of Capernaum “I am the Bread of life; he that cometh to Me shall not hunger, and he that believeth on Me shall never thirst” (John 6:35). This is why the careful instruction of children and of converts is so all-important. When converts fall away, the cause very often is that they have not been well instructed before their reception into the Church. The Catholic must not suppose that he is freed from the study of the doctrines of faith, because he has been duly instructed in his youth. The plant must be watered even when it is grown up; the soul of the adult needs to renew its acquaintance with the truths of faith by hearing sermons, reading pious books, etc., else it will soon lose the vigor of its faith. He who allows himself willfully to doubt of any of the doctrines of the Church, commits a serious sin against faith, and is sure, little by little, to lose his faith altogether. That house is sure to fall of which the foundations are loosened. He who doubts any revealed truth seriously offends God. Sara doubted God’s promise that she should bear a son in her old age and was reproved by God for her incredulity (Gen. 18:10 seq.). Zechariah doubted the announcement of the angel that John Baptist should be born to him, and as a punishment lost for a time the power of speech (Luke 1:18 seq.). Yet doubts that come into our mind involve no sin, if we do not willfully consent to them. If doubts come into our mind we should not argue with them, but should make an act of faith and pray for more faith. Those however, who are outside the Church, and have not the faith, are bound, if they doubt, to search and inquire, until they have found the truth; with them doubt is no sin, so long as their search after truth is made in a spirit of humility, and with a sincere desire to arrive at truth. Faith is also destroyed by the reading of books hostile to the faith. In this way John Huss, who disseminated false doctrine over Bohemia, is said to have been corrupted by the works of the English heretic, Wyclif. It was the writings of Luther that chiefly contributed to the apostasy of Calvin and Zwingli. Julian the Apostate (A.D. 363) is said to have lost his faith by reading the writings of the heretic Libanius during his expedition to Nicomedia. In the present day the books against the faith are countless. Among the most mischievous are the works of Rousseau, Voltaire, Zola, Renan, Gibbon, Ingersoll, Huxley, etc. The Church, like a good mother, seeing how books dangerous to faith were on the increase, established in 1571 the Congregation of the Index, through which the Apostolic See forbids to Catholics a number of books, which are judged to be a source of danger to faith or morals. Any one who reads such books, prints them, or even has them in his possession without permission from his ecclesiastical superiors incurs the penalty of excommunication reserved to the Pope.51 The penalty, however, is not incurred by anyone who reads such a book without knowing that it was forbidden. At one time all books had to be sanctioned by the bishop of the diocese, but this was afterwards limited to books touching on religion. By these means the Church sought to preserve the purity of Christian doctrine. Many, too, have lost their faith by habitually reading newspapers hostile to the faith. As the body cannot remain in health if it is fed with unwholesome food, so the mind becomes diseased and corrupt if a man feeds it with unwholesome and pernicious literature. The process may be a slow one, but it is like the solid rock which wears away little by little as the drops of water fall upon it. Bad reading is like unwholesome food, which before long induces sickness and even death. Among the enemies of faith are the Freemasons. In Protestant countries they seem harmless enough, and many converts who have belonged to the Masonic order have borne witness that they have never encountered anything in it which was opposed either to throne or altar, but the real object aimed at by the leaders of Freemasonry is to destroy all authority that comes from God, and all revealed religion. Their secret oath of obedience, taken as it is without any reserve, is absolutely unlawful, and the symbolism of many of its lodges is grossly blasphemous and insulting to Christianity. The idea of Freemasonry is taken from the Masonic guilds of the Middle Ages, the members of which employed themselves in the construction of cathedrals and churches. It professes to have for its object the construction of a spiritual temple to humanity and enlightenment, but Freemasons are invariably the bitter foes of Christianity and of the Catholic Church. Every one joining them is ipso facto excommunicate, and the Pope alone can restore him to the membership of the Church, except at the hour of death, when any priest has power to do so.
3. All men who through their own fault die without Christian faith are, by the just judgment of God, sentenced to eternal perdition.52
Unhappy indeed are those who have not faith; “they sit in darkness and in the shadow of death” (Luke 1:79). Our Lord says, “He who believeth not shall be condemned” (Mark 16:16), and again “He who believeth not is condemned already” (John 3:18). Of heretics St. Paul says that they are condemned by their own judgment (Tit. 3:11). We ought to pray often for heretics and unbelievers, that God may in His mercy bring them to the true faith.
VIII. ON THE DUTY OF CONFESSING OUR FAITH
1. God requires of us that we should make outward profession of our faith.53
Christ says, “So let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father Who is in heaven” (Matt. 5:16).
We are bound in our words and actions to let men know that we are Christians and Catholics. It is by the open profession of our faith that we help others (as we see from the above words of Our Lord), to know God better and to honor Him more. We also thereby lead them to imitate our good deeds; for men are like sheep, which though lazy in themselves and unwilling to move, will follow where one of them leads the way. The open profession of our faith also strengthens us in all that is good, for “practice makes perfect.” Unhappily men are too often cowards. For fear of being laughed at by those around them, or through the dread of suffering some injury in their business, or some disadvantage in their worldly affairs or interests, they have not the courage openly to profess their faith, or to defend their religion when it is attacked; they laugh at indecent or profane stories, join in immodest conversation, or in talk against the Church, priests, and religious, eat meat on Friday in order to escape the jests of their companions, and miss Mass on Sunday without excuse. They forget that those who laugh them out of doing what is right only despise them in their hearts, and would respect and honor them if they stood firm. They forget, too, that at the Day of Judgment the tables will be turned, and that those who now mock at them will be full of terror and of shame, and those who have been loyal to their religion will be the objects of the envy and admiration of their persecutors, who will bitterly lament their folly and wickedness (Wisd. 1:1–5). Among the splendid instances of those who were faithful to their religion and fearlessly made confession of their faith, were the three young men who refused to adore the golden image set up by Nebuchadnezzar (Dan. 2.); the holy Tobias, who alone of all his kindred refused to go to the golden calves at Dan and Bethel, and went up every year to the Temple in Jerusalem (Tob. 1:5–6); Eleazar, who preferred death to even appearing to eat swine’s flesh (2 Macc. 6:18 seq.); St. Ignatius the martyr, St. Agnes, St. Lucy, St. Maurice and the Theban legion, and countless other Christian martyrs and confessors. It is by way of an open profession of her faith that holy Church has instituted processions like those of Corpus Christi, processions of Our Lady, etc.
We are only bound openly to confess our faith when our omission to do so would bring religion into contempt, or do some injury to our neighbor, or when we are in some way challenged to declare and make profession of our religion.
We are not bound always and on all occasions to confess our faith, but only when the honor due to God, or the edification due to our neighbor requires it. If officious people question us about our faith, we are not bound to answer them; we can refuse to answer, or turn away. But if we are questioned by someone who possesses legitimate authority to do so, we are bound to confess our faith, even though it should cost us our lives, as Our Lord did when questioned before Caiphas, and as thousands of the early Christians did when called upon to sacrifice to the idols. In such cases the words of Our Lord apply, “Fear not them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul” (Matt. 10:28). To fear man more than God is to bring down on us His anger. We also should try and avoid all wrangling discussions and controversies about religion, which generally do harm and embitter men against the truth. Our faith is so holy a thing that it must be spoken of with great discretion and prudence.
2. Our Lord has promised eternal life to him who fearlessly makes profession of his faith.54
For He has said “Every one that confesseth Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father Who is in heaven” (Matt. 10:32).
St. Peter made a bold profession of his faith before his fellow apostles, and Our Lord made him at once the head of the apostles, and the foundation of His Church (Matt. 16:18). The three young men in Babylon confessed their belief in the true God, and God delivered them from the fiery furnace, and caused them to be raised to high honor. Daniel confessed his faith by disobeying the king’s edict and continuing his prayers in the sight of all men, and God saved him from the lions.
A great reward in heaven will be given to those who suffer persecution or death for the sake of their religion.55
“Blessed are they,” says Our Lord, “that suffer persecution for justice’s sake; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you untruly, for My sake. Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in heaven” (Matt. 5:11–13). Those who suffer great persecutions for the sake of their faith are called confessors; those who are put to death for their faith are called martyrs. A martyr goes straight to heaven at his death, without passing through purgatory. “We should be doing injustice to a martyr,” says Pope Innocent III., “if we were to pray for him.” A martyr possesses the love of God in the highest degree, since he despises life, the greatest of all earthly goods, for God’s sake. Every martyr is a conqueror, and is therefore depicted with a palm in his hand, since the palm is the mark of victory. Yet no one is bound purposely to seek after persecution or a martyr’s death. Anyone who does so without an express inspiration from almighty God, is almost sure to yield to the persecutors. Nor is it forbidden to flee from persecution. “When they shall persecute you in one city,” says Our Lord (Matt. 10:23), “flee into another.” Our Lord Himself fled before persecution (John 11:53–54). So did the apostles and many of the saints, e.g., St Cyprian and St. Athanasius. Yet the pastors of souls must not fly when the good of the faithful requires their presence. “The hireling fleeth, because he is a hireling,” says Our Lord, “and careth not for the sheep” (John 10:13). Yet they may fly if their presence is not required, or if it seems likely to give rise to fresh persecutions. The heretic who dies for his heresy is no true martyr, for St. Paul tells us that if we give our body to be burned, and have not charity, it profits us nothing (1 Cor. 13:3). John Huss, who was burned at Prague in 1415, rather than give up his heresy, was no martyr, nor were Cranmer, Ridley, nor Latimer, who were burned at Oxford in the reign of Queen Mary. A man is a true martyr who receives a grievous wound for the sake of the faith and afterwards dies from the effects of it. So, too, are those who suffer imprisonment for life for their faith, or who die in defense of some Christian virtue or some law of the Church. Thus St. John Nepomucene, who was put to death because he would not violate the seal of confession, and St. John the Baptist, whose death was the result of his defense of the law of purity, were true martyrs. The whole number of the martyrs has been estimated at sixteen millions.
The man who denies his religion through fear or shame, or apostatizes from the faith, is under sentence of eternal damnation, for Christ says, “He that shall deny Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father Who is in heaven” (Matt. 10:33), and again, “He that shall be ashamed of Me and of My word, of him the Son of man shall be ashamed, when He cometh in His majesty and that of His Father and the holy angels” (Luke 9:26).56
He who denies the faith denies Christ Himself. In the times of persecution there were many who denied their faith. Even now there are some who, through fear of worldly loss or of being dismissed from their employment, deny their religion. Others from the same motives, though they do not explicitly deny that they are Catholics, yet do so implicitly by attending and taking part in the services of a false religion,57 or by being married in a Protestant church, or by a merely civil marriage, or by taking Protestants for the godfathers or godmothers of their children, or by allowing their children to be brought up in a false religion. (But there is no sin in attending a Protestant funeral or marriage out of courtesy, so long as no part is taken in the service.) Others again, though they do not deny their religion, are ashamed of it, because in many countries it is the religion of the poor, or because Catholics are not allowed to believe what they like. Those who deny or conceal their religion out of human respect are only despised by non-Catholics. The Emperor Constantius, father of Constantine the Great, once ordered all those of his servants whom he knew were Christians to sacrifice to the false gods. Those who obeyed he dismissed from his service, those who refused he promoted to the places of those he sent away. He who apostatizes from the faith is even worse than he who denies it from worldly motives. Solomon, whom God had filled with divine wisdom, in his old age was persuaded by his heathen wives to apostatize from the true religion and to worship their false gods. The Emperor Julian the Apostate fell away from the Christian religion and became a cruel persecutor. In the present day it too often happens that Catholics give up their faith through motives of worldly interest, or because they want to marry a Protestant, or sometimes because they quarrel with the priest. A vicious and sinful life often prepares the way for an apostasy. No good man, from the time of Our Lord till now, has ever fallen away from the Catholic faith. The tree must be rotten within before it is blown down by the wind; the wind does not scatter the grains of corn, but the empty husks. He who apostatizes crucifies the Son of God afresh. He commits a sin almost unpardonable; he ceases to belong to the Church, and can no longer call God his Father, for as St. Cyprian says, “He cannot have God for his Father who has not the Church as his Mother.” The Catholic must therefore keep far away from all occasions which could endanger his faith, for “he who loses his goods loses much; he who loses his life loses more; but he who loses his faith loses all.”
The Catholic makes confession of his faith most especially by the sign of the holy cross.58
By it he lets men know that he makes profession of belonging to the religion of the crucified Saviour. To some the cross is an object of hatred and contempt; Protestants, too, pay no honor to the crucifix, though there are indeed some of them who, in the present day, have learned the practice signing themselves with the cross from the children of the Church. The sign of the cross is thus the peculiar property of Catholics all the world over. It is a custom so ancient that it is generally believed to have been introduced by the apostles. The sign of the cross is made by touching with the outstretched fingers of the right hand first the forehead, then the centre of the breast, then the left, and finally the right shoulder, saying meanwhile the words, “In the name of the Father [touch forehead], and of the Son [touch breast], and of the Holy Spirit [touch left and right shoulders], Amen.” There is also another way of making the sign of the cross, by making three crosses with the thumb of the right hand on the forehead, lips, and breast successively, repeating the above words, so that each of the three crosses is made simultaneously with the name of one of the three persons of the Blessed Trinity. In making the sign of the cross the left hand should be laid across the breast, and the sign should be made deliberately—not hurriedly, as is too often done.
1. In making the sign of the cross we make profession of the most important of all the mysteries of our holy religion, viz., the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity and of the Incarnation of Our Lord Jesus Christ.59
By uniting all the three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, under one name, we make profession of our belief in the unity of God.60
The “name” of God indicates His authority and power, and that we act under His commission (Mark 16:17; Acts 3:16–17; 4:10).
In making the sign of the cross, we make profession of our belief in the Blessed Trinity by the words “In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
In making the sign of the cross, by the very form of the cross which we make upon ourselves, we make profession that the Son of God died for us upon the cross.61
Thus we see that in the sign of the cross we have a short summary of the whole Catholic faith. The Catholic Church holds the sign of the cross in great honor. It is repeated over and over again in holy Mass, in all the sacraments, in all blessings and consecrations; the cross is placed on our churches, over our altars, on banners, on sacred vestments, and over the graves of the departed. Churches are built in the form of a cross.
2. By means of the sign of the cross we obtain a blessing from God; and especially by it are we protected from the assaults of the devil and from all dangers both to body and to soul.62
The sign of the cross is no empty ceremony, but it is of itself a blessing, and a prayer for a blessing from God. The sign of the cross chases away the devil and his temptations; as the dog fears the whip with which he has been beaten, so the evil one dreads the sign of the cross, for it reminds him of the holy cross by which he was vanquished on Calvary. There was once a stag which bore between its antlers a tablet on which were written in golden letters the words, “I belong to the emperor, hurt me not.” No huntsman ventured to shoot this stag. So whenever we make the sign of the cross, we bear the inscription, “I belong to Jesus Christ,” and this protects us from our enemy, the devil. In war no one ventures to injure those who wear on their arm a band of white to indicate that they are physicians, or nurses, or ministers of religion; so the devil does not dare attack those who are signed with the holy sign of the cross. “The sign of the cross,” says St. John Damascene, “is a seal, at the sight of which the destroying angel passes on, and does us no harm.” The brazen serpent fastened on a pole in the desert was an image of the cross of Christ (Numb. 21; John 3:14), and protected all who looked upon it from being bitten by the fiery serpents; so the sign of the cross recalls to our minds the cross of Christ, and protects us from the snares of that old serpent, the devil. In the year 312, Constantine the Great, with his whole army, saw a cross of light in the sky, and upon it the words: “In this sign thou shalt conquer.” These words are also true of the sign of the cross. “Even to remember the cross of Christ,” says St. Augustine, “puts our hellish foe to flight, and give us strength to resist his temptations.” Many of the saints used to make the sign of the cross whenever any evil thoughts assailed them. In the times of persecution the heathen gods often fell prostrate to the ground at the sign of the cross. On the occasion of the finding of the holy cross by St. Helena, a woman who was blind was restored to sight by merely touching it. The sign of the cross often frees men from bodily evils also. Many of the holy martyrs, on making the sign of the cross, felt no more pain in their torments. St. John the Divine once had a cup with a poisoned draught put into his hand to drink. He made the sign of the cross over it, and then drank it without receiving any harm from it. Something similar happened also to St. Benedict. In the Old Testament we find an allusion to the sign of the cross in the letter Thau, mentioned by the prophet Ezekiel. God sent destruction upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem on account of the abominations committed there; but an angel was previously commanded to mark the sign Thau upon the foreheads of all those who mourned and lamented on account of the sins of the city (Ezek. 9:4–6).
We should often make the sign of the cross, especially when we rise in the morning and when we retire to rest, before and after our prayers, before and after our meals, whenever we are tempted to sin, and when we have any important duty to perform.63
We should make the sign of the cross in the morning in order to obtain the blessing of God on the day; in the evening to ask for His protection during the night; before all important undertakings, that they may turn out well; before our prayers, in order that we may not be distracted in saying them, etc. The early Christians made continual use of the sign of the cross. Tertullian (A.D. 240) says, “At the beginning and during the performance of all that we do, when we go in and out of the house, when we dress ourselves, when we lie down to rest, in fact in everything, we mark ourselves on the forehead with the sign of the cross.” The sign of the cross should also be made during holy Mass; at the beginning, at the absolution which the priest gives at the foot of the altar, at the Gospel, at the Consecration, and at the priest’s blessing at the end of Mass. St. Edith, the daughter of the King of England, often made the sign of the cross with her thumb upon her forehead; thirteen years after her death her thumb remained quite incorrupt. Each time we make the sign of the cross with contrite hearts, we gain an indulgence of fifty days (Pius IX, July 28, 1863).
When we make the sign of the cross, we should, if possible, make it with holy water.
Holy water has a special power to defend us against all attacks of the devil. When we make the sign of the cross with holy water, we gain each time an indulgence of one hundred days (Pius IX, March 23, 1876). Holy water is placed at the doors of our churches, and should be placed at the door of our rooms. We must never be ashamed of the sign of the cross, lest Christ be ashamed of us. The devil rejoices when he sees any one neglect to make the sign of the cross, for he knows that the cross is his destruction and a sign of victory over his temptations.
Besides the Apostles’ Creed, which is repeated at Baptism, there is also the Nicene Creed (composed at the Council of Nicæa, 325), and enlarged at the Council of Constantinople. Also the Creed of Pope Pius IV, which contains the teaching of the Council of Trent, and was published by the authority of Pope Pius IV in 1564. Some additions have been made to it by the Vatican Council (1870). The Nicene Creed is repeated on certain days by the priest in holy Mass, and the Creed of Pope Pius IV has to be repeated by a convert when he is received into the Church, and also by parish priests when they enter on their benefices.64
1. The Apostles’ Creed contains in brief all that a Catholic must know and believe.65
In its few words are contained all the mysteries of the faith. It is like the body of a child which contains the limbs of a full-grown man, or like a seed that contains the tree with all its branches. It is called in Latin the symbolum, or distinguishing mark, because in early days the recital of it was the mark by which a man was recognized as a Christian. No one was admitted to be present at holy Mass unless he knew it by heart. It could not be divulged to any unbaptized person. It is called the symbolum, as being the watchword of the Christian warfare.
The Apostles’ Creed is so called because it originated with the apostles.
The holy apostles, before they separated from one another, established a certain and fixed rule of their teaching, so that it might be the same in all the different countries where they preached. Yet it is only the outlines of the Apostles’ Creed that date from the apostles themselves. Between their time and the year 600 a number of new clauses were added, in order to meet various heresies. Thus the words “Creator of heaven and earth” were added to meet the Manichean doctrine that the world was created by the principle of evil; the word Catholic was added to distinguish the Church from the sects around her, etc. The influence of St. Peter in drawing up the Creed appears from the fact that the principles which are developed in his speeches as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, are those which are found in the Creed. It was required before Baptism as an evidence of fitness for the reception of that sacrament.
2. The Apostles’ Creed may be divided into three several parts.66
The first part treats of God the Father and of creation.
The second part treats of God the Son and of our redemption. The third part treats of God the Holy Spirit and of our sanctification.
3. The Apostles’ Creed may also be divided into twelve articles.67
An article is a member belonging to the whole, as a limb belongs to the whole body. The articles of the Creed are so called because of their inseparable connection with one another. As you cannot take away one of the links of a chain without the chain being broken, so you cannot take away one of the articles of the Creed without faith being destroyed. There are various images in the Old Testament of the twelve articles of the Creed, e.g., the twelve precious stones on the breastplate of the high priest (Exod. 28:17–21), and the twelve loaves of proposition (Lev. 24:6). The articles of the Creed which we should wear on our breast, i.e., should believe and confess, should be like the stones in the high priest’s breastplate: shining and spreading light around.
The number of the articles of the Creed is the same as that of the apostles of Our Lord, and is intended to remind us that they contain the doctrine taught by the twelve apostles.68
Every Christian should know the Creed by heart. It should be repeated every day at our prayers, by way of renewing and strengthening our faith, and of confirming the covenant we entered on with God at our Baptism. It is the shield of faith, by the repetition of which we can extinguish all the fiery darts of the most wicked one (Eph. 6:16).
FIRST ARTICLE OF THE CREED: “I BELIEVE
IN GOD, THE FATHER ALMIGHTY”
1. THE EXISTENCE OF A SUPREME BEING
1. We can infer from the created world around us that there exists a supreme Being.69
We cannot see the souls of men, but we can infer their existence by a process of reasoning; so it is with the existence of God.70
The heavens and the earth could not have come into existence of themselves; nor could the heavenly bodies move through space by their own power.71
We infer, when we see footprints in the snow, that someone has passed that way; so we infer from the things around us that there exists a supreme Being. The planets could no more have come into existence of themselves than a town could be built of itself. The astronomer Kirchner had a friend who doubted the existence of God. He had a globe made and placed in his study. His friend came to see him one day and asked where the globe came from. Kirchner answered that it made itself. When his friend laughed at such an answer, Kirchner replied, “It would be much easier for a little globe like that to make itself than the great one on which we live.” A light cannot kindle itself, and after it is kindled it will go out in a few hours. But the heavens are lighted by the glorious light of the sun, which has burned for many thousands of years without losing any of its brightness. Look at the millions of the stars. Who made them all, and caused them to illumine the night? The Psalmist truly says “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows forth the work of His hands” (Ps. 18[19]:2). The great astronomer Newton used always to uncover and bow his head when the name of God was mentioned. We may also infer the existence of God from the creatures on the earth. Thus Job says “Ask now the beasts and they shall teach thee; and the birds of the air, and they shall tell thee. Speak to the earth and it shall answer thee; and the fishes of the sea shall tell. Who is ignorant that the hand of the Lord hath made all these things?” (Job 12:7–9.) If any one were to find a beautiful marble statue on a desert island, he would say without any hesitation that men had been there. If one were to say that the wind and rain had torn it from the mountain side, and given it its form, we should count him as a fool. A greater fool is he who asserts that this wondrous world had no Creator.
The wonderful arrangement and order of the world also leads us to infer that it has been framed by an Architect of surpassing skill.72
If a ship sails on its way and arrives safely at its destination, we conclude that it had a clever pilot. To say that the stars of the heaven of themselves direct their course, is as foolish as it would be to say that a ship had started from New York, sailed round the world, and returned safely without any one to guide it. Cicero said long ago, “When we contemplate the heavens, we arrive at the conviction that they are all guided by a Being of surpassing skill.” In all that is upon the earth we see traces of design and of a most wise Designer—in the construction of the bodies of animals, and of the bodies of men, in the succession of the seasons, in trees and plants. The adaptation of means to ends in the human eye, the ear, and the various parts of the body, all imply an adapting intelligence, just as the adaptation of a watch to indicate the time, or the building of a house to shelter us, implies an intelligent constructor. As it would be impossible that the letters of the alphabet should be grouped together by mere chance in the order of the “Iliad,” so it is impossible that the arrangements of the universe could have come about by chance, and without the knowledge and direction of a mighty intelligence.
All the nations of the earth have an inner conviction of the existence of a supreme Being.73
Among all nations, even the most degraded, we find invariably the worship of some kind of deity. We find towns without walls, without a ruler, without laws, without coin, but never without some sort of temple, without prayer, without sacrifice. Now, universal consent is a mark of truth. The belief in God is an inner conviction, which may be said to be inborn, inasmuch as every one can arrive at it with the greatest ease.
Only the fool says in his heart: there is no God
(Ps. 13[14]:1).74
Those who say that there is no God in spite of the glories of creation which they see around them, are those of whom Our Lord says that “seeing they perceive not, and hearing they do not understand” (Mark 4:12). Such men are called atheists or infidels. They are invariably men who either are eaten up with pride or live vicious lives, or both. “He who denies the existence of God,” says St. Augustine, “has some reason for wishing that God did not exist.” Atheists, for the most part, use language which is at variance with their real convictions. Many of them are the first to cry to God for help when they are in some imminent danger. Their bold talk means very little. They are like boys who whistle in the dark to show that they are not afraid. God will take atheists at their word one day and will show Himself no loving God for them. So He took at their word those of the Israelites who doubted His power to give them victory over their enemies and possession of the Promised Land. They died before they entered it (Numb. 14:28–32).
2. The existence of God is also proved from revelation.75
God has at sundry times and in divers manners spoken to men (Heb. 1:1), and has given them a knowledge of Himself. To Moses He appeared in the burning bush, and called Himself the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; to distinguish Himself from the false gods, He gives to Himself the name of “the self-existent One,” or “I am Who am” (Exod. 3:14). So in giving the law on Sinai He says, “I am the Lord your God. Thou shalt have none other gods beside Me” (Deut. 5:6–7). God also worked miracles at various times in proof of His existence, e.g., by sending down fire from heaven to consume the sacrifice of Elijah on Carmel (1 Kings 18:24, seq.), by saving Daniel from the lions at Babylon, and the three young men from the fiery furnace.
What God is in His divine nature or essence is known to us partly from created things, but more clearly from His revelation of Himself.76
St. Paul tells us that, “The invisible things of God from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made” (Rom. 1:20). Creation is a sort of mirror that reflects the divine perfections; thus from the beauty of things created we can infer the greater beauty of Him Who created them (Wisd. 13:1). So again from the order that prevails in the visible world we can conclude that He Who made it is a Being of surpassing wisdom, and from its vastness we learn the power of Him Who upholds and supports it. Yet the knowledge thus obtained is always imperfect and obscure. From a beautiful picture we do not learn much about the character of the painter. In creatures we see God only as through a glass and in a dark manner (1 Cor. 13:12). The heathens, before the coming of Christ, were sunk in the grossest vices, and this darkened their intellect and rendered them still less able to arrive at a knowledge of God from His works (Wisd. 9:16). In order to enlighten this ignorance God revealed Himself to men, speaking to them by the mouth of the patriarchs and prophets, and above all by the mouth of His Son, Jesus Christ (Heb. 1:1-2). It was Christ Who gave to men the clearest manifestation of the nature of God; all the rest spoke somewhat obscurely, for none of them had seen God face to face.
Even since God’s revelation of Himself, man is not capable of a thorough or complete knowledge of the nature of God; the reason of this is that God is infinite, and man is only finite.77
Just as we cannot inclose a boundless ocean in a little vessel, so we cannot take in the infinite majesty of God with our finite understanding. “Behold, God is great, exceeding our knowledge” (Job 38:26). “The things that are of God no man knoweth, but the Spirit of God” (1 Cor. 2:11). We can neither express in words nor conceive in thought what God really is. When the sage Simonides was asked by Hiero, King of Syracuse, what God is, he took first one, then two days to consider the question; then he requested four days more; then eight; and finally said to the king that the longer he thought about the matter, the more obscure did it become to him. It is easier to say what God is not than what He is. He who attempts to fathom the majesty of God becomes profane. It is told of Icarus in the old mythology, that he fastened wings to his sides with wax, and attempted to fly up to heaven; but when he came too near the sun, it melted the wax and he fell into the sea and perished. So it is with those who seek to fathom the nature of God; He casts them down into the sea of doubt and unbelief. He who gazes upon the sun becomes dazzled; so is it with those who seek to penetrate into the nature of God. Even the angels veil their faces before God (Ezek. 1:23). The most perfect of them cannot comprehend His majesty. They are like a man who looks upon the sea from some high point; he sees the sea, but he does not see the whole of it. How can we expect to reach heights which even the angels cannot attain to?
We can only give an imperfect and incomplete explanation of the nature of God, viz.:
1. God is a self-existent Being, infinite in His perfections, glory, and beatitude, the Creator and Ruler of the whole world.78
When Moses asked almighty God His name, on the occasion of His appearing in the burning bush, God answered, “I am Who am” (Exod. 3:14) i.e., “I exist of Myself, I derive My being from Myself.” All other beings derive their existence from God, and therefore in comparison of Him are as nothing. Hence David says, “My substance is as nothing before Thee” (Ps. 38[39]:6). God also possesses the highest perfection. We see how some beings upon the earth are more perfect than others. Some things have only existence without life, as stones and metals; others have life, but without sensation, as trees and plants; others have sensation and movement as well, as birds and beasts; man has a spiritual life, with intellect and free will. Above man there are countless numbers of pure spirits, each with a special perfection of its own, and each increasing in virtue as it ascends towards the throne of God. But they can never arrive at infinite perfection, since the most perfect among them can always attain to some higher excellence. Hence we must believe in a Being of infinite perfection, from Whom all other beings derive their virtues, Who possesses in Himself, and Who is infinitely exalted beyond, all existing or possible perfections that can be found in all other beings than Himself. Nothing greater than God can either exist or even be thought of. God is also infinite in glory and beauty. For if on the earth there exist so many beautiful things, how far greater must be the beauty and glory of God, since it is He Who gave them all their beauty. He could not have given it unless He already possessed it. He is like the boundless ocean, and the beauty of all created things is like a series of drops taken from the ocean. God is also infinite in His supreme happiness or beatitude. He lives in endless and infinite joy; no creature can interfere with the perfection of His happiness. None can either increase or diminish it (1 Tim. 6:15). As the sun needs no light from other bodies, because it is itself the light, so God needs nothing from others, because He is Himself in possession of all good. We can only give Him what we have already received from Him. God is the Creator of the whole world, of heaven, earth, and sea. He is also the King and Lord of all, and has made all things outside of Himself subject to certain fixed laws. The earth is subject to fixed laws. It goes round the sun in three hundred and sixty-five and a quarter days, and revolves on its own axis in twenty-four hours. All the heavenly bodies move according to fixed laws, so that we can foretell eclipses of the sun and moon, etc.; there are laws which regulate all the material things on the face of the earth. Plants, trees, and animals have their growth and development governed by stated laws. The actions of reasonable beings are also governed by laws, which, however, by reason of their free will, they are able to disobey. The penalties for transgression are laid down by almighty God. God is the King of kings, the eternal King (Tob. 13:6). The majesty of the greatest of earthly kings is but a feeble and faint reflection of the majesty of God. Hence we are bound to obey Him, because He is our King and He will have all subject to Him, either willingly in this life, or against their will to their eternal misery.
2. We cannot see God, because He is a spirit, i.e., a being without body, immortal, possessed of intellect and free will.79
Our Lord says; “God is a spirit, and they that adore Him must adore Him in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24). It is because God is a spirit that the Jews were strictly forbidden to make any image of Him (Exod. 20:4). God cannot be seen by man; there is a veil between us and God. We cannot see the stars during the day, but only when darkness comes on. So we cannot see God during the day of our life on earth, but only when the darkness of death comes over us. In this life God is a hidden God (Is. 45:15). He inhabits the inaccessible light (1 Tim. 6:16).
Yet God has often assumed visible forms.80
Thus He appeared to Abraham as a traveler, at the baptism of Our Lord under the form of a dove, and in the shape of tongues of fire at Pentecost. But the external form under which God appeared was not God Himself. In the same way we often read of the eyes, ears, etc., of God; but this is only to impress upon us the fact that God sees us, hears us, etc.
3. There is one God, and one only.81
The most perfect being in the world must be only one. The tallest tree in the wood is but one. To say that there are more Gods than one is like saying that there can be more than one soul in a human body, or more than one captain on a ship. Even the pagan Greeks and Romans honored one god as supreme among the rest. The plurality of gods probably arose from the plurality of the forces of nature (such as thunder, lightning, fire, etc.), which filled the beholders with fear, and caused them to adore these forces as gods. Or it may have arisen from the deification of heroes, or from the power of the evil spirits which, having attracted notice, caused them to be worshipped as gods.
We ascribe to God various attributes, because the unity of the divine perfection is reflected in different ways in creatures.82
The sun is sometimes red, sometimes yellow, or a palish white. It is the mists around the earth that cause the variety in it as it is seen by us. The attributes of God are therefore various manifestations of God’s one and indivisible perfection or essence. In God they are all one and the same; His goodness is the same as His justice, His wisdom as His power, and His power as His eternity, etc. The divine attributes are also identical with God Himself; God is wisdom, power, eternity, etc. God is a Being of the most perfect and absolute simplicity; there is no sort of multiplicity or obscurity in Him. There is no sort of division between His attributes; it is from our understanding that the distinction between them arises. In created things it is quite different; they possess attributes which are really distinct from each other.
The attributes of God may be divided into those which belong to God’s essence, those that belong to His understanding, and those that belong to His will.
The attributes of the divine essence are omnipresence, eternity, immutability; those that belong to His understanding are omniscience, perfect wisdom, etc.; those that belong to His will are omnipotence, goodness, holiness, justice, truth, and faithfulness.
1. God is eternal, i.e., always was, is, and ever will be.83
God’s words to Moses “I am Who am” (Exod. 3:14), express His eternity. There never was a time when God did not exist; He never began to exist. He existed before the world, as a builder must exist before the house that he builds, and the watchmaker before the watch that he fashions. God can never cease to live, as men do. Hence He is called the living God (Matt. 16:16) and immortal (1 Tim. 1:17). He existed before all time, and He will exist to all eternity. With Him there is no past or future; all is present with Him. The whole history of the world is and has ever been in His sight; there is for Him no succession of events; for Him there is no time. “One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Pet. 3:8). Millions of ages are as nothing compared with eternity. If a bird were to carry away from the ocean one drop of water every thousand years, the time would come when the ocean would be dry; but that immense period of time, which seems to us inexhaustible, is less than the shortest moment compared with the eternity of God’s existence. “Dost thou desire eternal joy,” says St. Augustine, “thou must be faithful to Him Who is the Eternal.”
2. God is omnipresent, i.e., He is in every place.84
After Jacob had seen, in the open country, the ladder reaching up to heaven, he exclaimed, “God is in this place, and I knew it not” (Gen. 28:16). The same words are true of every place. God is not only present everywhere with His power, but He Himself fills and penetrates all space. “Do not I fill heaven and earth, saith the Lord?” (Jer. 23:24).
a. God is everywhere present, because all created things exist in God.
All creatures exist in God, as thought exists in our minds. As mind is of more extent than thought, so God is of more extent than the world and all it contains. As mind penetrates thought, so God penetrates the world. “In Him we live, and move, and exist” (Acts 17:28). God is at the same time quite distinct from creatures and from the whole world.
b. God is not circumscribed by any place, nor by the whole of creation, because He has no limits, either actual or possible.
In his prayer at the dedication of the Temple Solomon said: “If heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain Thee, how much less this house that I have built” (1 Kings 8:27). The infinite cannot be contained in measurable space. Only bodies are contained in space. Spirits indeed are not contained in space, but they cannot be in more than one place at the same time. “God is everywhere,” says St. Bernard, “and yet nowhere. He is near us and yet is far away. All creation is in Him, and yet it is as if He were not in it.”
c. Yet God is of more extent than space, and therefore can be in every place at the same time.
Though God is of more extent than all space, and His presence extends from earth to heaven and far beyond, He is not scattered over the universe, partly on earth and partly in heaven, but He is wholly everywhere and wholly in each separate place; wholly in heaven and wholly on earth. He fills heaven and earth. So the soul of man fills his entire body, but yet it is wholly in every separate portion of His body.
d. God is present in a special manner in heaven, in the Blessed Sacrament, and in the souls of the just.85
God is present in heaven to the gaze of the angels and saints. He is present as the God-man in the Blessed Sacrament; He is present in the souls of men through the Holy Spirit Who is given to them. A king is present in his whole palace, but is specially present in the chamber where he sits on his throne, and gives audiences to his subjects.
e. There is no place where God is not.
“The eyes of the Lord in every place behold the good and the evil” (Prov. 15:3). We sometimes see in churches a large eye painted over the altar, to remind us that God is present everywhere. “No one can hide himself from God” (Jer. 23:23–24). Hence no one can escape from God (Ps. 138[139]:7–8). Jonah made the attempt, but with very poor success. Hence learn to avoid every sin. See with what unspeakable shame a man is filled, if he is detected by one of his fellow-men in a despicable action. Yet we are not ashamed to practice the most disgraceful vices in the presence of God (St. Augustine).
f. We ought therefore continually to bear in mind that God is always present with us.
Think, wherever you are, that God is near you. As there is no moment of time when we are not enjoying some benefit from the hand of God, so there ought to be no moment of time when we have not God in our thoughts. “He who always has God in his thoughts,” says St. Ephrem, “will become like an angel on the earth.”
The continual remembrance of the presence of God is very profitable to us. It has great power to deter us from sin, and to keep us in the grace of God; it incites us to good works and makes us intrepid in His service.86
The remembrance of the presence of God gives strength in time of temptation and holds us back from sin. Look at Joseph in Egypt. A soldier fights more bravely in the presence of his king. The remembrance of the presence of God is also the best means of remaining in the grace of God. It is like Ariadne’s clew, by means of which we, like Theseus, can find the way through the labyrinth of our life on earth, and remain unscathed by the Minotaur of hell. The remembrance of the presence of God increases our zeal in God’s service and leads us on to the practice of all the virtues; it makes us more careful in the performance of all our duties. The nearer the water is to the spring the purer it is; the nearer one is to the fire the greater the warmth; the closer we keep to God, the greater our perfection. When the tree is closely united to the root, it brings forth plenteous fruit. The Christian brings forth good fruit to eternal life if he is closely united to God. The thought of God also renders us fearless. When the Empress Eudoxia threatened St. John Chrysostom with banishment, he answered “You will not frighten me, unless you are able to send me to some place where God is not.” David says to God: “Though I walk in the midst of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me” (Ps. 22[23]:4). If a timid man has a companion with him, his fear disappears; so we shall not fear if God, the all-powerful God, is with us.
3. God is immutable, i.e., He ever remains the same.87
God never changes; He never becomes better or worse; He never breaks His word (Numb. 23:19). Creation made no change in God; from all eternity He had decreed the creation of the universe. God changes His works, but not His eternal decrees. By the Incarnation humanity was changed, but the Godhead underwent no change, just as the sun is in no way changed when it hides itself behind a cloud. Our thoughts are not changed when they clothe themselves in words; so the divinity was not changed when it clothed itself in the nature of man. God does not change when He punishes the sinner. When the heart of man is in friendship with God, God shows Himself to him as a God of infinite love and mercy; when the heart is estranged from Him, the sinner sees in the unchangeable God an angry and avenging judge. When the eye is sound, the light is pleasant to it; but if it is diseased, light causes it pain: it is not the light that is changed, but the eye that looks upon it. When an angry man looks in the glass he sees a different reflection from that which he saw when he was cheerful and in good-humor; it is not the glass that has changed, but the man. When the sun shines through colored glass, its rays take the color of the glass; the sun does not change, but the light is changed by the medium through which it passes. So when God rewards, it is not God Who changes, but man, who performs different and better actions, thereby meriting the grace of God. When in Scripture we read that God repented of having made man, that God is angry with the wicked, the phrases used are accommodated to our imperfect comprehension.
God knew that Adam and Eve had eaten of the forbidden fruit. Our Lord foreknew St. Peter’s denial, the destruction of Jerusalem, etc. He knew the thoughts of Simon the Pharisee, and that he was angry at Our Lord showing such kindness to Magdalen the sinner. God sees as in a glass all men, and their every action (Ps. 32[33]:13). “He that planted the ear shall He not hear? He that made the eye shall He not see?” (Ps. 93[94]:9.) God also foresees evil, but man is not thereby constrained to do evil. It is just as if we see from a distance a man who is committing some crime. God sees the deed because the man does it; the man does not do it because God sees it. When some past action is present to our thoughts, it did not happen because it is in our thoughts; so when God foresees some future action, it does not happen because God has foreseen it, but He has foreseen it because the man is going to commit it—the man is not compelled to commit because God has foreseen it. When God foresees that some man will be lost forever, God’s foreknowledge is not the cause of the man’s damnation. The physician foresees the approaching death of his patient, but his knowledge is not the cause of the man’s death. The learned Franciscan Duns Scotus, once heard a farmer uttering terrible curses and begged him not to damn his soul so thoughtlessly. The farmer answered: “God knows everything. He knows whether I shall go to heaven or to hell. If He knows that I shall go to heaven, why to heaven I shall go; if He knows that I shall go to hell, I shall go to hell. What, then, does it matter what I do or say?” The priest answered, “In that case why plough your fields? God knows whether they will bear a good crop or not. If He knows that they will bear a good harvest, the harvest will be good, whether you plough the land or not. If He knows that they will be unfruitful, why unfruitful they will be. Why then should you waste your time in ploughing?” Then the farmer understood that it is not the omniscience of God, but the free action of man, that determines both our temporal and our eternal happiness or misery.
God also knows what would have happened under certain given circumstances; this is the reason why He sends us trials, in order to prevent greater evils that otherwise would have happened to us.
Thus Our Lord knew that the inhabitants of Tyre and Sidon would have done penance if such wonders had been worked among them as He worked in Corozain and Bethsaida. God foresees that some of the just will be led astray by the seductions of the world, and sometimes in His mercy takes them at an early age to Himself. He foresees that some will be ruined by riches or by prosperity, and therefore brings them to poverty and to earthly misfortune. This ought to make us bear our troubles with patience. The trials of the just are an opportunity offered them to advance in virtue.
God, Who knows all things, will one day bring all hidden things to light.88
Our Lord says, “There is nothing hidden that shall not be made manifest; or secret that shall not be known and come abroad” (Luke 8:17). God will, in the Last Day, disclose and make known our whole life. As the morning sun shows all things in their true light, so Christ, the Sun of justice, will at the Day of Judgment reveal all our actions in their true light. All prayers, alms, fasts, penances, that are done according to His will, will be made manifest to the whole world. Nothing is so small as to escape notice at the Last Day.
We should think on God’s omniscience, especially when we are tempted, that we may pass through our temptations unscathed.
A little boy who was in a strange house saw there a basket full of beautiful apples. As he could see no one in the room, he was much tempted to help himself to some. But the thought came to him of God’s omniscience. “No,” he said, “I must not take them, for God sees me.” At that moment a man who was hidden from him by a curtain, called out to him, “You may take as many apples as you like.” What a blessing it was for him that he had not taken them without permission. If we know that some one is watching us we are very careful what we do; if we remember that God sees us, we shall be still more careful. Job took refuge in God’s knowledge of his innocence, when he was mocked at by his friends; so did Susanna when falsely accused (Job 16:16; Dan. 13:42).
5. God is supremely wise, i.e., He knows how to direct everything for the best in order to carry out His designs.89
The design at which God aims is nothing else than His own glory, and the good of His creatures. If the farmer wishes for a good harvest, he ploughs his field, manures it, sows good seed, etc. Such a farmer is a wise man, because he chooses the means best qualified to attain his end. God acts in an exactly similar way. He prepared the world for the coming of the Redeemer by the call of Abraham, the sending of the prophets, etc. The wisdom of God shows itself in the life of individuals, e.g., of Joseph in Egypt, of Moses, of St. Paul, and also in the history of nations and kingdoms. (Cf. Rom. 11:33.)
a. The wisdom of God shows itself especially in the way in which He brings good out of evil.90
The life of the patriarch Joseph is an excellent example of this. God’s ways are not as our ways, or His thoughts as our thoughts. Man proposes and God disposes. A man inexperienced in war would be puzzled by the orders issued by the general, and would not be able to understand how they all could tend to insure victory. We shall understand God’s ways in heaven, but we cannot understand them here. A child saw how the thorns tore away little pieces from the fleece of a sheep and wanted to remove the thorns. Presently the child saw how the singing-birds collected the bits of wool to make their nests, and no longer wished to remove the thorns. Many men are like this child.
b. The wisdom of God is also displayed in this, that God makes use of the most unlikely means for His own honor.
St. Paul says: “The weak things of this world God has chosen to confound the strong” (1 Cor. 1:27). God chose the small and despised land of Palestine as the cradle of Christianity; He chose a poor maiden to be the Mother of God, and a poor carpenter to be His foster-father. He chose poor, ignorant fishermen to preach the Gospel and spread it over all the earth. He often uses the most improbable means in helping His friends. St. Felix of Nola, when flying from his persecutors, took refuge in a hole in a rock. A spider came and spun its web at the mouth of the cave, and his pursuers, on seeing this, concluded that he could not be inside. A poor woman was summoned to pay some money which had already been paid by her husband, who was dead. She searched everywhere for the receipt, but in vain. The very morning when she had to appear before the court a cockchafer flew in at the window, and behind a press. One of the children wanted to get it, so the mother moved the press a little to reach it, and from behind the press the long-sought receipt fell to the ground. This was God’s answer to the poor widow’s prayers. It is God’s law that all works done for God should meet with difficulties and hindrances. “A work that begins with brilliant promise,” St. Philip Neri used to say, “has not God for its author and protector.”
c. Lastly the wisdom of God shows itself in directing the course of the world to carry out His purposes.91
All things in the world have a mutual relation to one another. If a man removes or displaces a single wheel in a watch, the watch stops; so if anything were altered in the arrangement of the world, all things would be confused; e.g., without the birds the insects would soon destroy all vegetation. So the animals that serve us for food increase rapidly, while the beasts of prey breed but slowly. Nothing in the world is useless; the alternations of sunshine and rain, summer and winter, day and night, all serve some useful end. How useful is the uneven distribution of wealth, of the talents of men, etc.! The smallest insect has its usefulness in the world; the butterfly, going from flower to flower, carries with it the fertilizing pollen. Even the destructive agencies in the world, storms, earthquakes, and floods, serve God’s purposes, and are intended by Him to help men to save their souls. How wonderful, too, is the orderly course of the heavenly bodies! The movement of the earth around the sun, and of the moon around the earth, serve to make this world a pleasant habitation for man. The beautiful arrangement of the universe compels us to recognize the wisdom and prudence of Him Who has created it. “How great are Thy works, O Lord! Thou hast made all things in wisdom; the earth is filled with Thy riches” (Ps. 103[104]:24).
6. God is almighty, i.e., God can do all that He wills, and that by a mere act of His will.92
God can do things which appear to men impossible, e.g., the preservation of the three young men in the midst of the fiery furnace of Babylon. A thousand similar wonders occurred in the time of the persecutions of the Christians. Our Lord says “With God nothing is impossible” (Matt. 19:26). Yet God cannot do that which is in contradiction with His own perfections. He cannot lie, and He cannot deceive. God could always have done more wonderful works than He has done. He could have created a more beautiful world than this and more creatures than He has actually made. When any of the creatures that God has made desires to do anything, he can only make use of the things that God has made, and in accordance with the laws that God has established. But God is bound by no laws save those of His own infinite goodness and truth. He has only to will a thing and what He wills happens at once. “He spoke, and the heavens were created; He commanded, and they were created” (Ps. 148:5).
The omnipotence of God shows itself especially in the creation of the world, in the miracles wrought by Our Lord, and in those miracles which before and after Our Lord’s time God has worked for the confirmation of the true religion.
The earth is 24,899 miles in circumference; the sun is far larger, for its diameter is one hundred times greater than that of the earth. Some of the heavenly bodies are far greater; some of them if they occupied the place of the sun and were to begin to rise at 6 a.m., would not have completely risen above the horizon by 6 p.m. Our earth is over ninety-one million miles distant from the sun. A body travelling from the earth to the sun at the ordinary rate of a cannon-ball, would take twenty-five years to reach the sun. The planet Neptune, according to the latest information, is 2,794,000,000 miles distant from the sun. A cannon-ball would take eight hundred years to travel thence to the sun. There are stars outside our planetary system which are a million times further from us. Light which travels at the rate of 24,000 miles a second would take many millions of years to reach these stars. Around our sun there move eight larger and two hundred and eighty smaller planets. The nearest (Mercury) is thirty-six million miles distant from the sun, and the most distant (Neptune) over two billion miles. There are also in the heavens thirty million fixed stars, all of them real suns and mostly larger than our sun, and around these move many other heavenly bodies. All these God has created out of nothing. How infinite, then, is the power of God! Think also of the miracles wrought by Christ, the raising of Lazarus, the stilling of the tempest, etc., the healing of the lame man at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple, the wonders that are now being worked at Lourdes, etc. “Who shall declare the powers of the Lord, or set forth all His praises?” (Ps. 55[56]:2.)
Since God is almighty, we can hope for help from Him in our greatest needs.93
God has a thousand different ways of helping us. He can send an angel to help us, as He did to St. Peter in prison; or work a miracle, as He did to feed the multitude in the desert; as a rule He makes use of the most unlikely means, and thereby shows the greatness of His power. He freed Bethulia from the Assyrians by means of a woman. He saved the Israelites from their enemies by making a path through the sea. It is easy for the Lord to save by many or by few.
7. God is supremely good, i.e., He loves His creatures far more than a father loves his children.94
God loves His creatures and loads them with benefits. He is love itself (1 John 4:8).
The spring cannot but send forth water and the sun light. The goodness of God differs from that of His creatures as the sun differs from the light shed upon a wall. His creatures are good, because God sheds His goodness upon them. Hence Our Lord says: “None is good but One, that is God” (Mark 10:18).
a. The love of God extends to all the creatures that He has made (Wisd. 11:25).95
As the sun lights up the boundless firmament, so God extends His goodness to all creatures. Not one of them is excluded from it. “Not one of them is forgotten by God” (Luke 12:6).
b. But God has an especial love for mankind. He imparts countless benefits to them and sent His Son on earth to redeem them.96
What wonderful bodies God has given us! He has bestowed upon us our senses, and the gift of speech. How many gifts He has conferred upon our souls! He has given us understanding, free will, and memory. For our bodies He gives us food, drink, clothing, health, etc. How well He has provided for our necessities on this earth: light, warmth, the air, the plants, the trees, and their various fruits. How many powers He has implanted in nature, for us to use for our own benefit: coal, salt, stone, marble, precious stones, etc. He has, in fact, made man the lord of the whole world. He loves us far more than we love ourselves. His love for us is far greater than that of the fondest mother for her child. The love of all creatures for God is not nearly as great as the love of God for each one of us. But above all, God has shown His love for us in this—that He gave His only-begotten Son for us (John 3:16). Abraham could not show his love for God in any more perfect way than this, that he gave to God that which was dearest to him, viz., his only son. God did just the same; He gave us His dearest and best possession, His only-begotten Son. Our Lord says of Himself: “Greater love no man has than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). He underwent His sacred Passion and death in order to prove the excess of His love for us. His attitude on the cross proclaims it. His head bowed, to give us the kiss of peace, His arms extended to embrace us, His Heart opened to admit us therein. In the Blessed Sacrament His love keeps Him in the midst of us, and seeks the closest union with us in holy communion. Finally He promised to grant all the prayers that we offer in His name (John 14:14).
c. Among men God shows the greatest love to the just.97
“A perfect soul,” says St. Alphonsus, “is dearer to God than a thousand imperfect ones.” “To them that love God all things work together for good” (Rom. 8:28). “O how great is the multitude of Thy sweetness, O Lord, which Thou hast hidden for them that fear Thee” (Ps. 30[31]:20). God rewards the good works of the just far beyond what they deserve. He repays them a hundredfold, even in this present life (Matt. 19:29). He loves the just in spite of their sins and imperfections, just as a mother loves her child tenderly in spite of its many defects.
d. God manifests His love even to sinners.98
God continues to confer graces and benefits upon sinners until the last moment of their life (Matt. 5:44; Luke 23:39–43). He sends them troubles to bring them to repentance. He finds some good in all, and He also loves them for what He hopes they may become. The love of God is like the powerful magnet that draws iron to itself. Sometimes there is an obstacle in the way, so that the piece of iron cannot reach the magnet, but the magnet continues to draw it all the same. So God continues to draw sinners, even though they do not come near to Him. God hates only the devil and the lost. Even in hell He shows His goodness by not punishing the lost as much as they deserve. It is because of God’s love for men that hell will be so intolerable. The lost will say, “If God had not loved us so much, we should not be so miserable now.” Since God loves us so dearly we should love Him dearly in return (1 John 4:19). We should not be afraid of Him, but should draw near to Him with childlike confidence. Since God is so good to us we must also be good to our fellow-men. God has given us a command to love Him, to love our neighbors, to love our enemies, and also to perform works of mercy. God also wishes us to be kind and merciful to the brute creation.
8. God is very patient, i.e., He leaves the sinner time for repentance and a change of life.99
Men are wont to punish quickly; not so God. He endures long the rebellion of the wicked. It is not the will of God that a sinner should die, but that he should be converted from his wicked ways, and live (Ezek. 28:23). God often gives men long warning of coming judgments. He gave those who lived in the days of Noah a warning of one hundred and twenty years; to the Ninivites of forty days; to the Jews a warning of forty years before the destruction of Jerusalem. A storm does not break at once; we are forewarned by the gathering clouds and the darkness; so God warns us of coming punishment. He does not at once cut down the barren tree (Luke 13:8–9). God’s manner of action is opposite to that of man. Man constructs slowly, and destroys quickly. God constructed the universe in six days, but He took seven days for the destruction of the little town of Jericho. Even man prefers to build up, rather than to destroy; much more so God.
God is so patient with us because He has compassion on our weakness, and because He desires to make conversion easy to the sinner.
God deals with us as a mother deals with a peevish infant; she presses it closer to her breast and coaxes it to be good. “Knowest thou not,” says St. Paul, “that the goodness of God leadeth thee to penance?” (Rom. 2:4.) God deals with us patiently for our sakes, not being willing that any should perish, but that all should come to penance (2 Pet. 3:9). With many sinners God’s patience has not been lost, e.g., St. Mary Magdalen, St. Augustine, St. Mary of Egypt, etc., but with others it effects nothing. The same sunlight hardens mud and softens wax. If God were not patient with us, no one could be saved, for we are all sinners who have been unfaithful to Him. But though God is so patient, it is dangerous to put off conversion. For the longer God delays His vengeance, the more terrible it is when it comes upon the sinner. It is just like an arrow from the bow; the more the bow is drawn back, the greater the force with which the arrow flies. Compare the awful end of Antiochus Epiphanes (2 Macc. 9:5 seq.). We must not think, because God is so patient, that He has forgotten our sins. “Say not, I have sinned, and what harm hath befallen me? The Most High is a patient rewarder” (Sir. 5:4).
9. God is full of mercy and compassion, i.e., He very readily forgives our sins when we are sincerely sorry for them.100
Our Lord gives a beautiful object-lesson of the mercy of God in the story of the prodigal son. See how quickly God forgave the sin of David (2 Samuel 12:13). It is a property of God to have mercy and to spare. His mercy is infinite; like the sea, it has no bounds. God requires of us that we should forgive seventy times seven; how immeasurably merciful therefore must God be!
The mercy of God especially shows itself in the way in which He seeks out the sinner, seeking to win him both by benefits and by the sufferings He inflicts; and also in the love with which He receives again and again the greatest sinner, after his conversion showing him a greater good will than before.
God is like the good shepherd who goes after the lost sheep until he finds it (Luke 15:4). God sent the prophet Nathan to David; He Himself sought out the Samaritan woman (John 4). Often He sends troubles that through them the prodigal son may be brought to his senses. He is like a fisherman who tries every sort of device to entice fishes into his net. God is always ready to pardon even the greatest sinner; for He says, “If your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made white as snow; and if they be red like crimson, they shall be white as wool” (Is. 1:18). In fact, the greater the sinner the more lovingly does God receive him if he is willing to amend. Hence David says to God, “Be merciful to my sin, for it is great” (Ps. 24[25]:11). God is like a fisherman, who is more glad to catch big fish than small ones. No one is lost because he has committed great sins, but many are lost because they have committed one sin of which they will not repent. Even Judas would have received forgiveness if he had asked for it. God sometimes forgives the sinner in the last moment of life. He received the good thief on the cross. Yet this is no reason for putting off repentance till the last. “God justified one man at the last moment that none might despair; but only one, that none might presume,” says St. Augustine. A deathbed repentance is generally a very doubtful business; the dying sinner forsakes his sins rather because he cannot help it, than because from his heart he detests them; he is like the mariner who throws his goods into the sea simply from fear of death, not because he wishes to get rid of them. Witness how rarely a conversion made in peril of death proves lasting if the sick man recovers. “It is absurd,” says St. Bernardin of Sienna, “that a man who would not fight when he was well and strong, should be moved to the combat when he is sick and weak.” God also receives the repentant sinner most lovingly. See how Christ received with tender compassion Magdalen, the woman taken in adultery, and the thief on the cross (Luke 7:47; John 8:11; Luke 23:43). How kindly the father of the prodigal son received him! God receives the sinner far more kindly than that. “Before he knocks at the door, it is opened to him; before he falls on his knees before Thee, Thou stretchest out Thy hand to him” (St. Ephrem). Our Lord says that there is more joy in heaven over one sinner doing penance, than over ninety-nine just men, who need not penance (Luke 15:7). The reason of this is that the sinner who does penance generally serves God more zealously and faithfully. God bestows upon the sinner after his conversion greater benefits than He did before he went astray. The father of the prodigal son killed the fatted calf, and made a great feast, with music and dancing. Sometimes the benefits God bestows on the converted sinner are external, more often they are inner consolations and graces. Witness St. Paul, raised to the third heaven (2 Cor. 12:2). The Good Shepherd has more joy over the return of the one wandering sheep, than over the ninety-nine that never went astray.
10. God is infinitely holy, i.e., He loves good and hates all evil.101
God’s holiness is nothing else than a love of His own infinite perfections. He is free from the faintest stain, and therefore desires that all should be like to Himself. How pure is the blue heaven on which there is no cloud! How pure is the white snow on which no spot is to be found! Yet God is infinitely purer. Even angels are not pure in His sight (Job 4:18). The purity of the angels as compared with that of God is like the light of a lamp compared with the light of the sun. “All our justice is like a soiled rag before Thee, O God!” (Is. 64:6.) He says to us: “Be ye holy, because I am holy” (Lev. 11:44). With this object He implants in our breast the natural law (conscience); with this object He gave the law on Mount Sinai; with this object He attached evil consequences to evil deeds. And to cleanse the just from the impurities that cling to them, He purifies them by suffering (John 15:2). He also cleanses them by the fire of purgatory, since nothing unclean can enter heaven. Why is it that the saints and angels in heaven are represented as dressed in white garments? Why is it that at Baptism a white robe is given to the newly baptized? Be pure and holy, and then you will be a child of God.
11. God is infinitely just, i.e., He rewards all good and punishes all evil deeds.102
God’s justice is identical with His goodness. He punishes men to make them better, and to make them happy.
a. God punishes and rewards men partly on earth, but chiefly after death.103
Good actions bring men respect, sometimes riches, health, and a peaceful conscience. Bad actions bring just the opposite. Abraham, Noah, the patriarch Joseph, were rewarded in this life. Absalom, the sons of Heli, and Antiochus Epiphanes were punished in this life. But it is in the next life, and especially after the resurrection, that body and soul alike will receive their full reward. If all sins were punished in this life men would not believe in the Judgment Day. If none were punished here they would not believe in God’s retributive justice (St. Augustine).
b. God rewards the least good action, and punishes the smallest sin.
Christ tells us that even a cup of cold water given in His name will have its reward. A mere look or gesture will meet with its due reward. Christ tells us that we shall give account for every idle word (Matt. 12:36).
c. God punishes men for the most part in kind, i.e., in the same way in which they have sinned.
“By what things a man sinneth,” says the Wise Man, “by the same he also is tormented.” Absalom prided himself on his long hair and it caused his death. The rich glutton sinned with his palate and it was his tongue and palate that were tormented in the fire of hell. Antiochus tormented the seven Machabean brethren by tearing and maiming their flesh, and his own flesh was eaten by worms (2 Macc. 9:6). Aman wished to hang Mardochai, and prepared a gallows for him, and on the same gallows he was himself hanged. Napoleon I imprisoned the Holy Father, and in his turn was imprisoned first in Elba, and then in St. Helena. In these and many similar events, the Christian sees the finger of God.
d. In rewarding and punishing, God has regard to the circumstances of the individual, and especially to the intention with which he acts, and to the talents that he possesses.
Men judge from the outward appearance of any action, God judges from the heart (1 Sam. 16:7). The poor widow who threw in only two mites into the treasury of the Temple, had more merit before God than many of the rich men who gave large gifts (Luke 21:4). The servant who knows his lord’s will and does it not, will receive more stripes than the servant who did not know the will of his lord (Luke 12:47–48). The more knowledge any one has of God, the more severely will God punish him for his sins.
e. God is no respecter of persons.104
Many who are first in this world will be last in the world to come. The story of the rich glutton and poor Lazarus is an instance of this. Many who have their names in the mouths of men, and in the records of their country, will not have their names written in the book of life.
Because God is a God of perfect justice we have good reason to fear Him.105
Christ exhorts us to fear God, Who is able to cast both body and soul into hell (Matt. 10:28). On account of one single sin, that of our first parents, millions of men have to suffer pain and death; and countless numbers will be forever miserable. Thence we gather how God hates sin. The same conclusion follows from the fact that Our Lord had to die an agonizing death to atone for sin. Who, then, can fail to fear God? But our fear of God must be a filial, not a servile fear, i.e., we must fear not so much the punishment of sin, as the offence against God. A filial fear is the result of a great love of God. Yet we must try and avoid, from fear of punishment, those sins from which the love of God is not sufficient to deter us.
The fear of God is of great advantage to us; it keeps us back from sin, leads us on to perfection, and insures for us peace and happiness both in time and in eternity.106
The fear of God keeps us back from sin. It was the fear of God that held back the aged Eleazar from eating swine’s flesh (2 Mach, 6:26). He who fears God knows no other fear. As the wind drives away the clouds, so the fear of God drives away fleshly lusts, and enables us to escape the snares of the devil. He who fears God casts aside all attachment to things of earth, as the mariner in danger throws overboard the wares that otherwise would sink his ship. As the needle pierces the stuff and makes way for the thread, so the fear of God prepares the way for the love of God and for every virtue. “The fear of God,” says the Psalmist, “is the beginning of wisdom” (Ps. 110[111]:10). The fear of man is full of bitterness and makes a man a slave; the fear of God is full of sweetness, and makes him a free man. The fear of God brings with it honor and glory; it is crowned with joy and gladness, it gladdens the heart, and gives strength and happiness and long life, “Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord” (Ps. 111[112]:1). The more we fear God now, the less we shall fear His judgments at the Last Day.
The fear of God is a special grace given by God to those who love Him.
The fear of God is a special gift of the Holy Spirit. God says of His people, “I will give My fear in their hearts, that they may not revolt from Me.” Hence our prayer should be, “Pierce Thou my flesh with Thy fear” (Ps. 118[119]:120).
12. God is a God of perfect truth, i.e., all that He reveals to man is true.107
God cannot err for He is omniscient; He cannot deceive for He is all-holy. “God is not as a man that He should lie, nor the son of man, that He should be changed” (Numb. 23:19). Hence we must believe all that God has revealed, even though our feeble understanding cannot comprehend it—e.g., the mysteries of the Christian religion, the Blessed Trinity, the Incarnation, the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar.
13. God is faithful, i.e., He keeps His promises and carries out His threats.108
See how exactly God carried out His threat of death to our first parents, and His subsequent promise of a Redeemer. See again how exactly Our Lord’s prediction of the destruction of Jerusalem was fulfilled; and how the prophecy of Daniel, that the Temple would never again be rebuilt (Dan. 9:27) was accomplished; for when Julian the Apostate made an attempt to rebuild it, an earthquake destroyed the foundations, and flames issuing from the ground compelled the builders to fly. Promises and threats are necessary to move our feeble wills. Our Lord used the fear of punishment as an incentive to virtue. Ordinary men are more influenced by fear than by any higher motive. With them the fear of hell is a stronger motive for virtuous living than the hope of heaven. God threatens us out of mercy. The man who cries “Beware” does not want to strike. So God threatens punishment that He may not have to punish.
Hence all that Our Lord and the prophets have foretold either has already happened, or will happen in the future.
The time will therefore never come when the Catholic Church will be destroyed, or when the Papacy will cease to exist (Matt. 16:18). The Jews will all be converted before the end of the world (Hos. 3:5). Awful signs in the heaven and earth will precede the final judgment (Matt. 24:29). If we trust our fellow-men they give us their promise on paper; how much more should we trust Christ, since He has left us whole books, i.e., the Scriptures, filled with His promises!
At the baptism of Jesus Christ all the three persons of the Blessed Trinity manifested themselves; the Father by a voice from heaven, the Son through His baptism, and the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove (Matt. 3:16).
1. The Blessed Trinity is one God in three persons.109
The three persons are called Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
The number three is often found both in nature and in religion. There are three persons in the Holy Family; three parts in the sacraments (intention, matter, and form); Our Lord hung for three hours on the cross, and remained three days in the grave. He taught on earth for three years, and has the triple office of Prophet, Priest, and King. So in time there are past, present, and future; three kingdoms in creation, the material, the vegetable, and the animal worlds. The number four is also of frequent occurrence; there are four gospels, four cardinal virtues, four seasons of the year, four thousand years from the Fall to the Incarnation, etc. The number seven is also common; there are seven days of the week, seven sacraments, seven works of mercy, seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, seven sacred orders ending in the priesthood, etc. Three is sometimes called the number of God, four the number of the world, by reason of the four continents, and seven represents the combination of the two.
2. We cannot, with our feeble understanding, grasp the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity, and it is therefore called a mystery.110
We are unable to comprehend that there are three persons in God, yet only one God. He who gazes at the sun is dazzled by it; if he continues to gaze at it he loses his sight. So is it with the Blessed Trinity; he who inquires into it is dazzled. He who refuses to believe in it because he does not understand it, is like a blind man, who will not believe in the existence of the sun because he cannot see it. How many things there are in nature that we cannot understand! We cannot understand the growth of plants, trees, and animals; we cannot understand the nature of electricity and magnetism. We cannot understand how the color red is formed by the vibration of the ether at the rate of one hundred and thirty million vibration in a second, or violet by double that number. To count the vibrations of the ether that take place in one second in the forming of the color violet, we should have to go on counting for more than ten thousand years without ceasing either day or night. Much less can we understand what belongs to God. Jeremiah says, “Great art Thou, O Lord, in counsel, and incomprehensible in thought” (Jer. 32:19). “No one understands what Thou art, O God, except Thou Thyself.” We can, however, understand something of the nature of the Blessed Trinity by comparing it with certain facts of nature which in some way correspond to and illustrate it. The flames of three candles placed together form but one flame; the white light can be divided into red, yellow, and blue rays, which, however, together form but one light. The orb of the sun, its light, and its heat, are three different things, which are at the same time really one. The soul of man contains memory, understanding, and will, which are but different manifestations of the same spiritual substance. Yet all these are but imperfect analogies, and cannot carry us very far in attempting to understand something of the incomprehensible mystery of the Blessed Trinity. Unbelievers sometimes say: “How is it possible that three can be one, and one three?” They show that they do not know what the teaching of the Church really is. “They blaspheme those things that they know not” (Jude 10). The Church does not say there are three persons and one person, but there are three persons, and one nature or essence.
3. The nature, the attributes, and the works of the three persons of the Blessed Trinity are common to all of them.111
There are therefore not three gods, but one God.
The Father is therefore different from the Son, because He is a different person; but He has not a different being, because He has the same nature.
For this reason each of the three persons is, in exactly the same sense, omniscient, omnipotent, eternal, and absolutely perfect, as are the other two.
When Our Lord spoke of His return to the Father, He said, “My Father is greater than I” (John 14:28). Here He was speaking of Himself as man; else He could not have spoken of His return to the Father.
Hence the creation of the world, the redemption and the sanctification of men is wrought by all the three divine persons together.
Yet we are accustomed to say: “The Father made the world, the Son redeemed it, and the Holy Spirit sanctifies it.”
4. The three divine persons are divided only in their origin.112
In a tree the trunk comes forth from the root, and from both comes the fruit. Such is the relation between the three divine persons.
God the Father has no origin and proceeds from no other person; God the Son proceeds from the Father; God the Holy Spirit proceeds both from the Father and from the Son.
In order to mark the order of procession, we name the Father first, the Son second, and the Holy Spirit third. But there is no succession in time; the Son proceeds from the Father from all eternity, and so does the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son. The Son is begotten of the Father before all creation. The Father produced, by an act of divine knowledge, the Son as an image like to Himself in all things, just as we, when we think, produce an intellectual image in our minds. We may illustrate this by the relation existing between fire and light. Light proceeds from fire, but is contemporaneous with it. If there were an eternal fire, there would also be an eternal light. The Son is the brightness of God’s glory (Heb. 1:3), the unspotted image of His majesty (Wisd. 7:26). Just as one torch is kindled from another, without the first losing any of its light, so the Son is begotten of the Father, without taking anything away from Him. The Son is called the Word of the Father (John 1:1). Just as the word formed in our minds (the thought) is made manifest by the external or spoken word, so the Word of God, dwelling in the bosom of the Father, was made manifest to the world when the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). As the Son has His origin in the knowledge of God, so the Holy Spirit has His origin in the love of God. The Holy Spirit is none other than the mutual love of the Father and the Son. He is the Spirit of love, who engenders in our hearts the love of God and of each other. The word spirit is well chosen, because by it we express the attractiveness and the force of love. The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, as warmth proceeds from the sun and its light.
On account of the difference in their origin we appropriate to the Father the works of omnipotence, to the Son the works of wisdom, and to the Holy Spirit the works of love.
These various works have a certain correspondence with the attributes of the persons, that are connected with their origin. The Father begets the Son; for this reason there is appropriated to Him the bringing of perishable things also, out of nothing, i.e., of creation. He is therefore called the almighty Father. He is also called the God of compassion, because He is ever ready to receive the sinner who comes back to Him in a true spirit of penance. The Son is the eternal wisdom of the Father. To Him therefore is appropriated the beautiful arrangement of the world. As the artist, through the working of his reflective mind designs the plan of his work, so the Father, through His Son, produced order in the world. To the Son, too, is ascribed the restoration of order, as for this end He took upon Himself the nature of man. To the Holy Spirit, as the mutual love of the Father and the Son, are ascribed all the benefits of God to man; especially the bestowal upon him of his natural life in creation (the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters), and of his spiritual life by his sanctification through grace. To Him, as the finger of God’s right hand, are ascribed all miracles, and above all the work of the Incarnation, as being of all miracles the greatest. The love of God has ever occupied itself with men, but the Incarnation of the Son of God by the operation of the Holy Spirit surpassed all other benefits wrought by Him. It brought mercy to sinners, truth to the erring, life to those who were dead, and hope and faith to the whole world.
5. We are taught the mystery of the Blessed Trinity by Christ Himself, but it was partly known in the time of the Old Testament.113
We know, from the fact of creation, the infinite power, wisdom, and goodness of God, but it does not reveal to us the mystery of the Blessed Trinity. Nor is there any proof of this doctrine to be found in nature, though we may find certain analogies to it, some of which we have given. But the mystery itself can only be made known to us by revelation. “The Father no man knoweth but the Son, and he to whom the Son shall reveal Him” (Matt. 11:27). Our Lord revealed this mystery to His Church when He said to His apostles before His ascension, “Go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 28:19). In the time of the Old Testament the Jewish priests, when they blessed the people, had to repeat the name of God three times (Numb. 6:23). Isaiah tells us that the seraphim in heaven cry, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts” (Is. 6:3). Before the creation, God said, “Let us make man” (Gen. 1:26). David says, “The Lord said to My Lord, sit on My right hand.” But before the Incarnation the mystery of the Blessed Trinity was veiled in a cloud which was only dispelled under the New Law. “The Church,” says St. Hilary, “knows this mystery. The Synagogue believed it not. Philosophy understood it not.”
6. The belief in the Blessed Trinity is expressed in the Apostles’ Creed, in Baptism, and in the other sacraments, in all consecrations and blessings, and in the feast of the Most Holy Trinity.114
The mystery of the Blessed Trinity is the foundation of our religion. Without a knowledge of this truth we cannot understand our redemption by the Son of God. We ought frequently to make an act of faith in this mystery, especially by the repetition of the Gloria Patri. We should repeat it whenever we receive any benefit from God, and also when He sends us any cross or trial.
We are instructed by the writer of the book of Genesis in the story of creation.115
The account given of the creation in the book of Genesis is not a fable, but is founded on truth. The sacred writer was enlightened by the Holy Spirit, and his words are a part of the Word of God. Perhaps God gave him a vision of the course of creation. The story is in exact agreement with the conclusions of natural philosophy. All investigations into the crust of the earth show that organic life was developed in the order set forth in Genesis.
1. In the beginning God created the spiritual and material universe.116
“In the beginning”—i.e., in the beginning of time, when there was nothing else existing except God. Time began with the world, so that before the creation there was no time. Holy Scripture does not tell us when the world was created. The world may have existed for millions of years before the creation of man. The fact that it takes millions of years for the light of some of the heavenly bodies to reach the earth, seems to show this to have been the case. “Created,” i.e., made out of nothing. How God produced the materials out of which the world was made we know not. Instead of the spiritual and the material world, St. Paul says, “things visible and invisible” (Col. 1:16). The words of Genesis are, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” The heaven does not mean the star-bespangled sky, the creation of which is narrated subsequently (Gen. 1:6–8; 14–19). It means the abode of the angels and the saints. The material world is called the earth, because the earth is for men the most important part of the material world. The first words of the Bible, “God created heaven,” are intended to remind man of his last end and future destiny.
The spiritual world consists of the angels, and the heaven where they dwell.
The angels are called the “Morning-stars” (Job 38:7), because they were created before this material world, and in the morning of the universe. Hell was not created at the beginning of the universe (Matt. 25:34), but at a later period, after the fall of the rebel angels (Matt. 25:41).
The material world includes all things which are found in the visible universe.
Men are a union of spirit and body, and were created later.
2. The material world was at first without form, without inhabitants, and without light.
God first created the material elements out of which the world was formed. Natural philosophy tells us that the world existed first of all in the form of a vast mass of vapor, and that this vast mass gradually was condensed, under the influence of an intense heat, into the material universe. This is perfectly in accordance with the account of the creation given in Genesis.
3. God gave to the material universe its present form in the course of six days.117
The days are probably long periods of time, consisting of many thousands of years; for the seventh day, the day of rest, lasts until the end of the world. Moreover four of the days were already elapsed before the sun was formed, and therefore they cannot have been days as we now understand the word. The word day is chosen because the week of creation was to be a sort of pattern of our present week.
On the first day God made the light.
We read in Genesis that God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. The expression, “Let there be,” denotes that something came into existence which did not exist before. This was the luminous matter which is now gathered in the sun; it is not dependent on the sun, but the sun on it. The gaseous matter was at first unformed, i.e., it had no forces. God imparted to it the law of gravitation, by means of which the various particles of matter were set in motion and drawn together, and thus were condensed gradually into a solid mass. By this process warmth, and at last fire, were developed. On the first day fire, the main source of light, was produced by the movement given to the gaseous particles, and the existing vapor was condensed into masses endowed with fire and light.
On the second day God made the firmament.
The words of Genesis are, “God said, Let there be a firmament made amidst the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God called the firmament heaven” (Gen. 1:6–7). On this day there was a separation, arrangement, and establishment of the created masses, which were divided into parts according to their constitution and magnitude, parted from one another, and arranged in the places that God had destined for them. This planting of the various worlds in their places in space constituted the “firmament,” which God called “heaven,” in which the sun and moon and stars pursue the course that was allotted to each. This firmament is the material heaven, as opposed to the spiritual heaven which is identical with the celestial paradise. The earth on which we live was one of the condensed masses which took its place among the other heavenly bodies. God at the same time divided off the planets that move around the sun, which forms the centre of their system from the fixed stars (Gen. 1:7).
On the third day God made the dry land and the plants.
Here the sacred writer concerns himself more especially with our earth. The earth, which was originally a fiery ball of gas, gradually lost its heat, as it cooled down in the midst of space. The great masses of mist divided themselves off into the sea and land. The solid elements were drawn together, and formed the crust of the earth, through which the water forced itself from within. Thus were made the various oceans or seas, and by this upheaval the surface of the earth as it exists at present was gradually formed, with its continents, and islands, its mountains and valleys. Under the influence of the warmth of the earth the moist surface was now ready for the development of organic life. This did not arise out of nothing, like the original primary matter; it was already implanted in the earth by almighty God, and was evolved therefrom as soon as circumstances favorable to its development presented themselves. No organic life can arise from mere inorganic matter. No possible combination of mere inorganic materials can ever produce any kind of organic life. The original germs out of which life arose were already existing in the vapor-cloud out of which the earth was formed, but were not able to develop themselves under the conditions of extreme heat and cold. They remained as undeveloped germs until the more moderate temperature enabled them to produce plants and trees under the influence of warmth and moisture.
On the fourth day God made the sun, moon, and stars.
On the fourth day of creation, the earth, which had been involved in darkness by the thick mist that surrounded it as long as it had not fully cooled down, began to have a clearer atmosphere, and only a few clouds floated over its surface, instead of the dense vapor that had encircled it. The shining bodies in the heaven became visible; the sun began to exercise an influence upon the earth, and produced the alternations of day and night, and the various seasons of the year. The sun had previously a feeble power of radiation, but during this fourth period it assumed its present form. We do not know whether there exist living beings on any of the stars; if there are such, they must be of a very different nature from our own. We know that in the moon there is no atmosphere, no fire, no water, no sound, no rain, no wind, no vegetation, and a long night of three hundred and fifty hours.
On the fifth day God made the fishes and the birds.
On the sixth day God made the animals and, last of all, man.
The animals were next made in order to proclaim the power of their Creator by their number, variety, greatness, strength, and cleverness, and also to serve man, to nourish him, clothe him, and labor for his benefit. Man was produced the last of all the animals, and surpasses them all in dignity, and in the possession of reason and free will. Man is the crown of God’s creation. God prepared the world for his reception, that he might enter and take possession of it as a king takes possession of his kingdom. The world would not have been complete without man; all else was made for his sake. In all the rest of the work of creation God simply said “Let it be,” but before He created man He is represented as taking counsel with Himself. This is to show the importance and the dignity of man.
4. On the seventh day God rested from all His work that He had done.118
God’s rest consists in this, that on the seventh day He brought nothing more into existence. It was the working out, without any further creative action on the part of God, of the order that He had established. The fact that God rested does not mean that He ceased from working (John 5:17). God must continue to work in the world, else it would cease to exist. As God rested after His work, so we shall one day rest in Him when our work is done.
From the story of creation we learn that God made the world after a fixed plan.
God in creation proceeded from the lower to the higher. He first made all things that were necessary for what was afterwards to come into life, e.g., He made first the plants and then the animals that needed them for food. In the first three days He separated the various parts of the world from each other; in the three following days He developed and adorned creation. The three first days correspond to the three last; for on the first He made light, on the fourth luminous bodies; on the second He separated water and air from each other, on the fifth He filled the water with fishes and the air with birds; on the third He made the dry land and on the sixth He filled it with animals.
From the account of creation we also learn that the world is not eternal.
The heathen thought that the world sprung from the accidental concurrence of a number of eternal atoms. But the present wonderful order could not possibly have arisen by chance, and the atoms are all dependent on one another, and therefore could not be eternal. The atoms, too, could never have put themselves in motion. Others thought that the materials of the world were eternal, and that God simply arranged them. Others imagined that the world was developed out of the divine essence (the Pantheists). But this would make the world indivisible and unchangeable, and we know that this is not so. God indeed is everywhere, but the world is not God; it is something different from Him, and separated from His being.
From What, and for What End, Has God Created the World?
1. God made the world out of nothing, simply because it pleased Him to make it.119
Man can only make anything out of pre-existing materials. God made the materials. Men have to employ implements, they have to labor, and require a certain time to produce their work. God spoke, and the world was made. He did not need even to speak; all that was needed was that He should will what He desired done.
All that God created was very good.
God Himself commended His own works (Gen. 1:31). The world was very good, because it in no way diverged from the divine idea but was in perfect accordance with it. God praised His own works, because no one else could praise them sufficiently. We also should praise God in His works, as the three young men did in the fiery furnace at Babylon. Evil is evil, because creatures make a bad use of their free will. Nothing that exists can be bad in itself, but everything must at least be in some way good.
2. God was moved to make the world by His great goodness.120
His object was to make His reasonable creatures happy.
As a good father shows pictures to his children, to please them and make them love him, so God has manifested His works to His reasonable creatures, to make them happy and earn their love. God made all earthly things for our good; some for the support of men (plants and animals), some for their instruction, some for their enjoyment, some for their trial, as sickness, suffering, etc. “All things that I see upon the earth,” says St. Augustine, “proclaim that Thou hast made them from love of me, and call upon me to love Thee.” God did not need the world. He made it for our sakes.
3. The end of creation is necessarily to proclaim to men the glory of God.121
In every work we have to distinguish between the end of the maker of the work, i.e., that which moved the artificer to make the work, and the end of the work itself, i.e., that for which the work is destined. In a clock, e.g., the end of the maker of the clock is his own profit; the end of the clock is to indicate the time. In the world the motive of the Artificer is God’s great goodness; the end of the work is God’s glory and the happiness of His reasonable creatures. The motive of the countless number and variety of living and lifeless beings and the innumerable number of the stars, is that angels and men may know and admire the majesty of God. The end and object of the existence of angels and men are that they may unceasingly behold and praise God (Is. 6:3). St. Augustine says, “Thou hast made us for Thyself, O God, and how unquiet is our heart so long as it finds not its rest in Thee!” Even the devils are compelled to contribute, in spite of themselves, to the glory of God; for by their punishment they show how holy and just God is, and God employs them also for the perfection of His elect through resistance to their temptations. Even the lost in hell manifest the justice and holiness of God and His hatred of sin. “God has made all things for Himself; the wicked also for the evil day” (Prov. 16:4). Yet God did not make the world with a view to any increase in His glory; for God is infinitely happy in Himself, and has no need of anything or any one outside of Himself.
Since we are made for the glory of God, we should in all our works have the intention of honoring God.
St. Paul instructs us that, “whether we eat or drink, or whatever we do, we should do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31). Nothing is easier than to give glory to God, since we can direct our most minute actions to this end. When we wake in the morning, and oftentimes during the day we should renew this intention.
We call by the name of divine providence God’s preservation and government of the world.122
1. God maintains the world, i.e., He preserves all creatures in existence as long as He wills.123
A ball hanging from a piece of string falls to the ground as soon as the string is cut. So the whole world would sink into nothing if God were to withdraw from it His supporting power for a single instant. In order that creatures may continue to exist, He provides all that is needed for their sustenance: wheat, vegetables, the various fruits of the earth, etc. As soon as God wills it, they die. “When Thou shalt take away their breath, they shall die, and return again to the dust” (Ps. 103[104]:29). If the sun were to cease to cast its rays upon the earth, all light would disappear from the world; so if God cease to support us in existence, our life at once fails us. When Our Lord says, “Heaven and earth shall pass away,” He does not mean that they will be annihilated, but that they will be changed into a better. St. Peter says, “We look for a new heaven and a new earth, wherein dwelleth justice” (2 Pet. 3:13).
2. God governs the world, i.e., He conducts all things in the world, so that they contribute to His glory and to our advantage.124
What the engine is to the train, and the pilot to the vessel, God is to the world. He guides the stars according to fixed laws, so that the firmament proclaims His glory. He guides all nations (Dan. 4:32). We see His guiding hand in the lives of the patriarchs, in the history of the Jews, in that of the Christian Church. Yet we cannot understand God’s arrangements at the first glance; often we cannot understand them at all, and never shall till we get to heaven. Yet in our own lives we can trace again and again the good providence of God. But as to the world generally we are forced to exclaim, “How incomprehensible are God’s judgments, and how unsearchable His ways!” (Rom. 11:33.)
There is no one on the earth for whom God does not care, and provide for his welfare.
A mother would sooner forget her child than God would forget us (Is. 49:15). God cares even for the irrational creatures; for the beasts and birds and plants (Matt. 6:25–30).
God has a special care for those who are in humble circumstances, and are despised by the world.
God has made small as well as great, and cares equally for them (Wisd. 6:8). God loves to declare His glory by means of the little (l Cor. 1:27). He chose poor shepherds to receive the first news of the birth of Christ; He chose poor fishermen for His apostles; a poor maiden for His Mother; it is to the humble that He gives His grace (Jas. 4:6). “He raises the needy from the earth, and takes the poor from the dunghill, that He may place him among princes” (Ps. 12[13]:7–8).
Nothing happens to us all through our lives without the will or the permission of God.
Hence the patriarch Joseph says to his brethren, “Not by your counsel was I sent hither, but by the will of God” (Gen. 45:8). Our Lord says that the very hairs of our head are all numbered, i.e., the providence of God descends to the smallest details of our life. Hence there is nothing that happens by chance. There are indeed many things, the causes of which we are ignorant of, but all have some cause, and God guides all. There are many things in the world that God does not will, and of which He is not the cause, e.g., murder, theft, and every crime. But God permits them, i.e., He does not prevent them. This is a consequence of His having given to man free will. Moreover, God knows how to bring good out of evil, and all evil He employs for His good purposes.
Even the evil that God permits is for our good.
God, in His love for us, has in all that happens to us the intention to make us happy. He turns to our good all temporal misfortunes, the temptations of the devil, the sins of other men. “To those who love God all things work together for good” (Rom. 8:28). We see this in the history of the patriarch Joseph; his imprisonment was the means of bringing him to high honor, and of saving Egypt from the horrors of famine. The captivity of the Jews was the means of spreading the knowledge of the true God among heathen nations (Tob. 13:4). The persecution of the early Christians in Palestine and in Rome was the means of making known the Gospel in the countries to which they fled or were banished; so, too, was the expulsion of the religious Orders from Italy, France, and Germany in modern times. So again the persecution of the Irish has done much to Christianize America and England. “The unbelief of St. Thomas,” says St. Augustine, “has been more useful to us than the belief of the other apostles.” The sin of Peter made him humble and forbearing towards others. The fury of the Jewish leaders against Our Lord was the instrument of the redemption of mankind. “How inscrutable are God’s judgments and how unsearchable His ways!” (Rom. 11:33.) The very means employed by wicked men against the saints were the means of bringing them glory and honor.
3. For this reason a pious Christian should resign himself entirely to the will of God.125
Christ teaches us to pray: “Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.” St. Peter exhorts us to cast all our care upon God, for He cares for us (1 Pet. 5:7). Holy David says: “Though an army should stand in battle against me, my heart will not fear” (Ps. 26[27]:3). We must not allow ourselves to be troubled about the arrangements of God’s providence, which we cannot alter, but must resign ourselves to the will of God, e.g., in sickness, loss of money, the death of those dear to us, persecution, war, etc. Above all we must resign ourselves to the will of God in the hour of our death. “He who dies resigned to the will of God,” says St. Alphonsus, “leaves in the minds of others the knowledge that he has saved his soul.” In order to gain the friendship of men we adapt ourselves to their humors and fancies; but we take too little trouble to win the friendship of God by adapting ourselves to His holy will.
The man who cheerfully resigns himself to the will of God obtains true peace of mind, attains great perfection, and will be blessed by God.
The soul resigned to the will of God is like the needle pointing to the North. The soul that submits itself to all God’s arrangements has already begun to live the life of heaven upon earth. If trouble comes, its peace is not disturbed; every trial is extinguished, like a spark that falls into the sea; it loves sufferings, because it knows that they come from God’s hand. A man resigned to God’s will has his cross carried for him. He who renounces his own will in order to carry out the holy will of God, soon attains to perfection. Thus the resigning of our will to God’s is the most perfect offering we can make Him. The man who is resigned is like a ship in the hands of the pilot; he is sure to arrive safely into port. A farmer whose fields bore better crops than those of others was asked the reason for it. He answered that he always got the weather that he wanted. When asked to explain himself, he replied, “I am always content with the weather that God sends. This pleases God and so He blesses my crops.”
Our Lord in the Garden of Gethsemane is a beautiful example of submission to the will of God.
Christ’s prayer was “Father, not My will, but Thine be done.” He was obedient to His heavenly Father even to death, the death of the cross (Phil. 2:8). The holy angels find their happiness in the fulfilment of the will of God. St. Mary Magdalen of Pazzi said, “I would bear with joy the heaviest troubles, so soon as I knew that they were the will of God.” So also said all the saints.
The answer is that these are only apparent, not real. Seneca says that the prosperity of those who are clad in purple is often like the splendor of the actor, who is dressed up in royal purple. The sinner after a time loses all enjoyment from his sins.
1. No sinner has true happiness, and no servant of God true misery. For true happiness is impossible without inner peace and contentment; and this is possessed by the true servant of God, but not by the sinner.126
The world, i.e., riches, honors, sensual pleasures, eating, drinking, etc., can never give us true peace (John 14:27). This can only be attained by following the teaching of Christ. True peace and happiness are the fruits of the Holy Spirit. The wicked have no peace; they are like the raging sea, which cannot rest (Is. 57:20). Peace and happiness do not come of riches, or of a high position, or of bodily strength, or of intellectual vigor; still less do they come from the wearing of fine clothes, or from the enjoyment of rich feasts, but from peace of soul and a good conscience. The beggar at the gate of the rich Dives was a happier man, even in this world, than Dives himself.
2. Moreover the good fortune of the sinner is for the most part only transitory.127
The prosperity of the wicked is like the cedar of Lebanon, which in a few hours is cut down and is no more seen. It is a building built on sand: the storms and winds soon lay it low. How quickly Napoleon the Great fell from the height to which his vaulting ambition had raised him at the cost of so many lives!
3. The real recompense of man only begins after death.128
Hence Our Lord says, “Many that are first shall be last, and the last first” (Matt. 19:30). Many rich and distinguished men will be far below those who have been beggars at their door. God has provided for His friends in the next life an enjoyment and happiness far surpassing any enjoyments on this earth. This is the explanation of the apparent injustice of the present life. Our Lord says to His disciples, “Amen, Amen, I say to you, that you shall lament and weep, and the world shall rejoice; and you shall be made sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy” (John 16:20).
Our Lord says, “Woe to you that are rich; for you have your consolation,” i.e., your reward for the good you have done is given you in this world (Luke 6:24).
How Is Sin to Be Reconciled with the Providence of God?
1. It is not God Who is responsible for sin and its consequences, but man’s wrong use of his free will.129
God created man free, and therefore does not hinder even those free actions which are evil. There are also many reasons why He should not hinder evil. If there were no evil in the world, man would have no opportunity of doing what is good; he would not have the choice between good and evil, and would not be able to earn the reward of good accomplished. Compare the parable of the cockle among the wheat. “God,” says St. Augustine, “would never have permitted evil if He had not intended to bring some greater good out of it.”
2. God in His wisdom employs even sin for a good end.130
The patriarch Joseph very truly said to his brethren, “You thought evil against me, but God turned it into good” (Gen. 50:20). God turned to good even the treachery of Judas; it contributed to the work of man’s redemption. The bee makes honey out of poisonous plants; the potter makes beautiful vessels out of dirty earth. God does something similar to this.
3. Besides, it does not become us to pry into the secret designs of God; we poor miserable creatures must adore His wisdom and submit ourselves humbly to what He ordains.131
What is true of sin, is true of all the suffering that is the consequence of sin.
7. THE CHRISTIAN UNDER SUFFERING
Man can suffer in body or soul or both. The apostles, when they were scourged (Acts 5:41), suffered in body; Judas, when he threw down the pieces of silver in the Temple, suffered in his soul. Holy Job suffered in both. Suffering is either merited or unmerited. The sufferings of the prodigal son were merited, those of the patriarch Joseph were unmerited. Yet all sufferings are merited by original sin.
1. No one can attain to eternal salvation without suffering.132
“No one is crowned unless he strive lawfully” (2 Tim. 2:5).
Even Christ had to enter into His glory through suffering (Luke 24:26). Our Lord says “He that taketh not up his cross and followeth after Me, is not worthy of Me” (Matt. 10:38). The road to heaven is a rough one. In order to make the flax that grows in the earth into pure white linen, it must be rubbed, stretched, and thoroughly cleansed, and woven. The corn has to be threshed and winnowed; the pure gold has to pass through fire. Not to suffer is a sign that no future happiness is in store for you. Suffering and holiness are inseparably bound up together. There is no good work that does not meet with obstacles, no virtue that does not have to fight and struggle.
For this reason God leaves no just man without suffering.
God treats us as a physician treats his patients; those of whose recovery he despairs he leaves alone; but to those whom he hopes to cure, he administers bitter medicines. As milk is the food of children, so are contradictions the food of God’s elect. To His chosen God gives a sword on earth to pierce their heart, and a crown in heaven to adorn their heads. Yet God mingles with the bitterness of suffering the sweets of consolation. We see this throughout the history of Our Lady, which consists of alternate joys and sorrows. So, too, we celebrate the seven joys and sorrows of St. Joseph.
2. All suffering comes from God, and is a sign of His love and favor.133
We find in the lives of the saints that the more good works they undertook for God, the more did suffering assail them, as in the case of Tobias, and of holy Job. Sufferings seem to be the reward of good works performed. They are a precious gift, which will avail us to all eternity. To suffer something for God is in itself a great privilege and honor. It is a better gift than that of performing miracles and raising the dead. Parents often punish their children to cure them of their faults. If they see the same faults in the children of others, they do not trouble themselves about them, because they do not care for them. So it is with God; the children whom He loves He often corrects. Hence Raphael said to Tobias, “Because thou wast pleasing to God, it was necessary that temptation should prove thee” (Tob. 12:13). St. Paul says, “Whom the Lord loveth He chastiseth; and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth” (Heb. xii. 6). “Gold and silver are tried in the fire, and acceptable men in the furnace of tribulation” (Sir. ii. 5). The greater a saint, the greater were in most cases his sufferings. Our Lady was the Queen of martyrs. The apostles had to suffer much, especially St. Peter and St. Paul (Cf. 2 Cor. 11:23, seq.). To be free from suffering is a bad sign. St. Augustine says: “There is no greater misfortune than the good fortune of sinners. He who does not suffer now will have to suffer hereafter.”
Yet God never sends us any suffering that is beyond our powers of endurance.134
St. Paul says “God is faithful; Who will not permit you to suffer above that which you are able” (1 Cor. 10:13). The peasant knows how much his beast of burden can carry, and does not load him beyond his strength. Will God, the all-wise, the all-merciful, lay more on us than we can bear? The potter does not leave his vessels too long in the fire lest they should crack. He who plays on an instrument is careful not to tighten the strings too much, lest they should break; nor too little, for then they would produce no sound. The physician apportions his remedies to the power of his patient; so the heavenly Physician sends us sufferings in proportion to our power of bearing them. There are some people who make sufferings for themselves, because they find fault with what gives no cause for complaint. Even in real sufferings much complaining is a sign of faint-heartedness and makes us more sensible to suffering.
How many have been converted by means of sufferings, e.g., Manasses in the prison at Babylon (2 Chron. 23:12–13), Jonah, the prodigal son, even the wicked Ahab (1 Kings 21:27). God is like a surgeon, who cuts away the diseased flesh that it may not cause death. Sufferings also bring about a disgust for earthly things and make the sinful pleasures of the world bitter; they destroy our dependence on earthly things, and take away the desire for the enjoyments and the pleasures of this valley of tears, and turn our thoughts to heaven. Sufferings again impress upon us our own helplessness, compel us to have recourse to God in prayer. They teach us a knowledge of ourselves and of our own sinfulness. As the trees, after the winter, flower and bring forth fruit, so does man after suffering bring forth works pleasing to God. “Sufferings,” says St. Teresa, “though very hard to bear, are the surest way to God.”
God frequently sends bodily sickness to the sinner for the healing of the sickness of his soul.
How many there are who have been converted to God through the means of bodily sickness, e.g., St. Francis of Assisi and St. Ignatius of Loyola. The Wise Man says, “A grievous sickness makes the soul sober” (Sir. 31:2). In sickness God knocks at the door of the heart and asks for admission. “I am always glad,” said St. Ignatius, “when I see a sinner fall ill, for sickness brings back to God.” How foolish it is then to regard sickness as a mark of God’s anger, when it is really a mark of His compassion.
4. God sends suffering to the just man to try him whether he loves God most or creatures.
Job, who had always lived a God-fearing life, lost all his property, his children, and his health, and was derided by his wife and his friends. Tobias had buried the dead at the peril of his life and given most liberal alms. God took away his sight, and left him poor and unable to earn anything for himself. Thus God tries His friends. As the storm tests the tree, whether it is firmly rooted, so suffering tests the just, whether they are firmly established in their love of God. As the wind separates the chaff from the wheat, so trouble marks off the sinner from the just. Sweet herbs smell the sweetest when they are bruised; so the just are most pleasing to God in the time of tribulation. God often takes away from us what we love best, and that which is injurious or dangerous, just as a father takes from his little child a razor or sharp knife.
At the same time the sufferings of the just man are a great advantage to him; they serve him as a penance for his sins; they cleanse him from all imperfections; increase his zeal in the practice of good, in the love of God, and in the love of prayer; they also increase his merit in heaven, and often, too, his happiness in this world.135
By sufferings the punishment due for sin is cancelled. Hence St. Augustine prayed, “In this life, O Lord, burn, scorch, and wound me, only spare me in the life to come.” “Think yourself happy,” said St. Francis Xavier, “if you can exchange the agonizing pains of purgatory for sufferings in this world.” Sufferings also purify the soul from its imperfections. Gold is tried in the fire; so the soul is purged by suffering. “Every branch that bears fruit God purges, that it may bring forth more fruit” (John 15:2). A sharp file cleanses iron from rust. As soap cleanses the body, so suffering cleanses the soul. Suffering also increases our strength, just as the blows of the hammer make the iron stronger and harder. Toil strengthens the body; suffering strengthens the soul. The vessels that the potter places in the fire come out hard and strong. Suffering also adds to our love of God. As the ark of Noah was raised nearer to heaven by the floods that overspread the earth, so we are brought nearer to heaven and to God by the floods of suffering. As the gold leaf is spread out by the blows of the hammer, so our love of God is extended by suffering. Sufferings detach us from the love of earthly things, and destroy our love of this world. Hence St. Augustine prayed, “Make all things bitter to me, that so Thou alone mayest appear sweet to my soul.” Sufferings also increase our gratitude to God, for the loss of health and other gifts of God makes us value what we have lost. Sufferings also make us humble. The just must be tried by evil, that so they may not grow proud of their virtues. Sufferings also increase the earnestness of our prayers. They compel us to pray. We see this in the case of the apostles in the storm-tossed boat. The prayers of David under persecution have become the prayers of the Church. Long peace makes us careless and slack. The ox that is not stirred by the goad becomes lazy. Sufferings are often the means of bringing us to prosperity even in this world. Witness Job, the patriarch Joseph, and Tobias. “The Lord maketh poor and maketh rich; He humbleth and He exalteth” (1 Sam. 2:7). “You shall be sorrowful,” says Our Lord, “but your sorrow shall be turned into joy” (John 16:20). Lastly, sufferings increase our eternal happiness. Our present momentary and light tribulation worketh for us above measure exceedingly an eternal weight of glory (2 Cor. 4:17). The just are ripened for heaven by suffering, as ears of corn are ripened by the heat of the sun. Jewels are rendered more beautiful by being ground and polished. “When God sends us some great trouble,” says St. Ignatius, “it is a sign that He designs great things for us, and desires to raise us to great holiness.” Nay, the more we suffer in this life, the greater will be our reward in the life to come. “To those who love God all things work together for good” (Rom. 8:28). Give yourself up, then, to God’s guidance, for He allows nothing to happen you which will not be for your advantage, though you may see it not. What pruning is to the fruit-tree, suffering is to men.
5. Sufferings then are no real evil, but are benefits from the hand of God.136
They are the means of bringing us both to temporal and eternal happiness.
God, Who loves us tenderly, has no other object in sending us sufferings but to make us happy. What we count as an evil is the bitterness of the medicine that is necessary for the health of our soul. There is really no evil in the world except sin. Sufferings can never really make us unhappy; men can be happy in spite of all kinds of sufferings. We see this in Job, in Tobias, in Our Lady. St. Paul says, “I am filled with comfort; I exceedingly abound with joy in all our tribulation” (2 Cor. 7:4).
6. For this reason we should be patient under suffering, and should resign ourselves to the will of God.137
Nay, more, we should rejoice in suffering, and thank God for it.
We should say with Job, “As it hath pleased the Lord, so it is done; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21), or with Our Lord in the Garden of Olives, “Not My will, but Thine be done.” We should behave as a sensible man behaves when he is sick; he willingly obeys the injunctions of the physician. God has lightened our sufferings for us, not only by His own example, but also by the promise of an eternal reward. See how the apostles rejoiced in their scourging (Acts 5:41). The Christian under suffering should rejoice as a workman rejoices who labors much, and looks forward to good pay, or as a tradesman, who amid the toilsome monotony of his business, thinks of the delightful holiday that is not far off. We must grasp sufferings as men grasp stinging nettles if they do not wish to be stung, firmly and boldly, not lightly and timorously; then they will do us no harm. In suffering we should repeat again and again the Gloria Patri. Men too often grumble and grow impatient under their sufferings. If a man asks the return of something he has lent us, we give it back with thanks; but if God does so, we grumble and are discontented. This want of patience increases our sufferings, besides offending God. The impatient are like oxen, who kick against the goad and only wound themselves the more. Yet it is no sin to be sorrowful and troubled under suffering; for Our Lord in the Garden of Olives was sorrowful even unto death. We must never despond in evil days, for after sorrow and suffering come joy and gladness.
By patience under suffering we quickly attain to a high degree of perfection, and lay up for ourselves a great store of merit.
When we resign ourselves patiently to the will of God amid contradictions, we are like a ship carried on by a strong breeze, and sail rapidly to the haven of eternal rest. “Blessed is the man that endureth temptation; for when he has been proved, he will receive a crown of life which God hath promised to them that love Him” (Jas. 1:12).
From our willingness to suffer can be ascertained how far we have advanced in perfection.
The courage of a soldier displays itself, not in peace, but in war. The sinner murmurs under suffering; the beginner is troubled, but is sorry for his impatience; the man more advanced in virtue is frightened, but takes courage and praises God; the perfect man does not wait for suffering, but goes boldly to meet it. The perfect do not ask God that they may be free from temptation or from suffering. They desire it, and value it as highly as men of the world value riches and gold and precious stones. Hence the prayer of St. Teresa was either to suffer or to die. “He who is able,” says St. Francis de Sales, “to thank God equally for chastisement and for prosperity, has arrived at the summit of Christian perfection, and will find his happiness in God.”
1. The angels are pure spirits.138
They can, however, take a visible form.
The angels are pure spirits without bodies, whereas men have both body and spirit. Yet the angels can take to themselves a bodily form, as did St. Raphael (Tob. 5:18), when he undertook to accompany the young Tobias on his journey. At the sepulcher of Our Lord, after the resurrection, the angels appeared in the form of young men, and the same was the case after Our Lord’s ascension (Mark 16:5; Acts 1:10).
The nature of the angels is nobler than that of man; they have greater knowledge and greater power.
The angels excel all other beings that Our Lord has created. Our Lord says that not even the angels know when the Day of Judgment will come (Matt. 24:36), thereby indicating that their knowledge is greater than that of men. So also is their power. An angel destroyed all the first-born of Egypt. Another angel caused the death of one hundred and eighty-five thousand soldiers of the King of Assyria, who had blasphemed God (Is. 37:36). An angel protected the three young men in the furnace at Babylon (Dan. 3:49).
God created the angels for His own glory and service, as well as for their own happiness.
Among all the creatures that God has made, the angels resemble Him the most, and therefore the divine perfections shine forth the most brightly in them. They also glorify God by ceaselessly singing hymns of praise to Him in heaven. The angels also serve God. The word angel signifies messenger. “Are they not all ministering spirits,” says St. Paul, “sent forth to minister to them that shall receive the inheritance of salvation?” (Heb. 1:14.) Even the bad angels promote the glory of God, for God turns their attacks on us to His glory and our profit. Goethe rightly describes Satan as “a power that always wills evil, and effects good.”
The number of the angels is immeasurably great.
Daniel, in describing the throne of God says: “Thousands of thousands ministered to Him; and ten thousand times a hundred thousand stood before Him” (Dan. 7:10). Holy Scripture calls them the heavenly host. In the Garden of Olives Our Lord said that if He were to ask the Father, He would presently send Him twelve legions of angels (Matt. 26:53). The number of the angels is greater than that of all men who ever have lived or ever will live. “The number of the angels,” says St. Dionysius the Areopagite, “is greater than that of the stars in heaven, or of the grains of sand on the seashore.”
The angels are not all equal; there are nine choirs or ranks among them.
The rank of the angels is determined by the amount of the gifts that God has given them, and according to the office assigned them. Nearest to the throne of God are the seraphim, who burn more than the rest with the love of God; next to them are the cherubim, who are distinguished by the vastness of their knowledge. We also read in Scripture of thrones, dominations, principalities, powers, and also of three archangels, St. Michael, St. Gabriel, and St. Raphael. There is also a corresponding division among the fallen angels.
2. All the angels whom God created were, at the beginning, in the grace of God and well pleasing to Him. But many of the angels sinned through pride, and were cast down by God into hell forever (2 Pet. 2:4).139
When God created the angels, He created them all in His grace. But none can be crowned without a struggle (2 Tim. 2:5), and God subjected the angels to trial, that so, according to the universal law of the universe, they might earn their reward of eternal happiness. In this trial a large number of the angels fell. They desired to be equal to God, and refused to submit their will to His (Cf. Is. 14:12–14). They did not abide in the truth (John 8:44). Hence arose a great war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought with the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought, and prevailed not, neither was their place found any more in heaven. The dragon was cast out and all his angels with him (Rev. 12:8–9). They were all cast down to hell; not that they were confined to any local hell, for they are allowed to wander about the earth tempting men, but they carry their hell with them wherever they go, inasmuch as they everywhere suffer the torments of hell. Their leader was Satan, or Lucifer, for this was his name before he fell, and he is said to have been the highest of all the angels. The number of the fallen angels is less than that of those who remained faithful. The fall of the angels was the more terrible, because they had previously enjoyed such a high estate. The higher the place from which we fall, the worse the fall. At the Last Day the evil angels will be judged, and their wickedness and its punishment will be made known to the whole world (Jude 6; 2 Pet. 2:4). To deny the existence of the evil angels is a grievous sin against faith.
3. The evil angels are our enemies; they envy us, seek to lead us to sin, and can, with God’s permission, injure us in our bodies, or in our worldly goods.140
The evil spirits are our enemies. With all their spite they can do nothing against God; so they vent their fury against men, who bear the image of God. Many theologians have asserted that the places of the angels who fell will be filled in heaven by men. “The knowledge that a creature of earth will occupy his place in heaven,” says St. Thomas, “causes the devil more pain than the flames of hell.” It was the devil who led our first parents to sin, and also Judas (John 13:27). The devil can also, so far as God permits, injure the bodies and the goods of men, as in the case of Job and the possessed in Our Lord’s time. The devil’s great object is to effect the ruin of the Church, which he knows is to be the means of destroying his power on earth (Matt. 16:18; Luke 22:31). He also knows that he and his angels will one day be judged by the saints (1 Cor. 6:3). Many believe that as God assigns to each child at its birth a guardian angel, so the devil assigns to each a special devil to tempt it. Hence we must imitate the Jews when rebuilding the Temple (Neh. 4:17). We must work with one hand and with the other defend ourselves against the foe.
Yet the devil cannot do real harm to any one who keeps the commandments of God and avoids all sin.
The dog that is tied up cannot do any harm to those who keep out of range of his chain. The devil is like this dog. He can work on our memory and our imagination, but he has no power over our will or our understanding. He can persuade us, but he cannot compel us to evil. We must therefore energetically and promptly repel all bad thoughts that the devil puts into our heads. “Resist the devil,” says St. James (4:7), “and he will fly from you.” Our Lord dispatched the devil very promptly when He said “Begone, Satan!” It is a great thing to treat the devil and his temptations with great contempt, and also to turn our thoughts to other things, and not allow ourselves to be disturbed or troubled by his suggestions. He who allows himself to dwell on evil thoughts draws near to the dog who is chained, and is almost sure to be bitten by him. If the devil were allowed to use his full power against us we could not resist him, for when he fell he did not lose any of his natural powers, though he lost eternal happiness.
God gives the devil special power over some men:
1. God often allows men who are striving after high perfection, whom He especially favors, to be tried by the devil for long years in some extraordinary way, in order to cleanse them from their imperfections, and thoroughly humble them.
God allows His elect to be constantly besieged by the devil for years, and to endure temptations of extraordinary violence. Sometimes the devil appears to them in visible form; sometimes he assails their ears with hideous sounds; sometimes he is permitted to strike them and to throw them on the ground. God protects their life, but allows the devil to torment them with bodily pain and with sickness. They suffer the most terrible temptations against faith and against purity. The evil one has no power over their souls, but sometimes God allows him power over their bodies. Holy Job was assailed by the devil; and so was Our Lord in the desert; so were St. Anthony, St. Teresa, St. Mary Magdalen of Pazzi, the Curé d’Ars, and many other saints. These holy persons knew that God would never allow them to be tempted beyond their powers of resistance, and that God permitted these temptations for their greater sanctification. They were perfectly resigned to the will of God, and at length drove away the devil by their fearless resistance to his assaults. Thus when the devil threatened the life of St. Catharine of Sienna, she answered, “Do what you can; what is pleasing to God is pleasing to me.” St. Mary Magdalen of Pazzi said to him, “You do not seem to know that you are preparing for me a glorious victory.” St. Anthony in the desert defied him, saying, “How feeble you are! I suppose that is why you are bringing such a crowd of devils to tempt me.” When those who are tempted meet the devil with the courage of a lion, he has no more power against them than a startled hare, but when they fear him, then he comes on with all the force and boldness of a lion. He can always be driven away by the means of grace provided by the Church; by the sign of the cross, by invoking the name of Jesus and Mary, by holy water, by earnest prayer, by the use of relics, etc. The more violent the assaults of the devil, the greater will be the protection afforded by almighty God to His servants; often during times of trial they have revelations from God, or saints and angels appear to them to console and strengthen them. Those who deny the reality of these occurrences, of which we so often read in the lives of the saints, show very little acquaintance with the spiritual life. Yet it is the spirit of the Church to receive all accounts of these preternatural and supernatural occurrences with great caution, as there is always a danger of illusion or deceit. Nor need ordinary mortals fear such special attacks of the evil one; they are reserved for the special friends and favorites of God.
2. It also sometimes happens that God allows men of vicious lives, or those who sin against faith, to be punished or led astray by evil spirits.
God sometimes permits that the bodies of men who have given themselves over to the indulgence of their passions be possessed by evil spirits, as a town is occupied by a general who has conquered it. This state is called possession. In the time of Our Lord there were many thus possessed, and who in consequence were dumb (Matt. 9:32), blind (Matt. 12:22), and exceeding fierce (Matt. 8:28). God permitted that then there should be many such, that He might show the power of the Son of God and the feebleness of the devils in His presence, and that He might drive them forth from those whom they tormented. Yet it does not follow that all who were possessed were necessarily so through their own fault. Some children were possessed from their birth (Mark 9:20). Sometimes God allowed even holy men to be possessed for a time; but more often it was a punishment for grievous sin, and especially for a deliberate friendship with the devil, as was the case with the witch of Endor (1 Sam. 28:7 seq.; Cf. Acts 16:16). Such cases are not infrequent now in pagan countries. God also permits the evil spirits to mislead those who practice spiritualism, which consists in the invoking of the spirits of the dead in order to discover things secret, or that are taking place at a distance. The devils personate the spirits invoked, and by their superior knowledge are able to reveal many things, by which they delude those who deal with them into thinking that they are really conversing with some departed relative or friend. On these occasions the spirits will sometimes take a material form. Spiritualism leads to the loss of faith or of morals, or at least to the ruin of the peace of mind of the person practicing it. Very often it is mixed up with a great deal of imposture.
4. The angels who remained faithful to God behold the face of God continually and sing His praises.141
Our Lord says of our guardian angels, “I say to you, that their angels always behold the face of My Father Who is in heaven.” The angels at Our Lord’s birth sang the praises of God. Their songs of praise are different, just as their knowledge and their love of God are different. The angels are sometimes represented as children, because they are immortal and therefore ever young; sometimes with wings to express the swiftness with which they pass from place to place, and their promptness in carrying out the will of God; sometimes with lilies in their hands to show their perfect spotlessness; sometimes with harps to signify that the praise of God is their constant employment; sometimes without any body, but only a head and wings, to show that they are intellectual beings. The holy angels also possess exceeding beauty and splendor. If an angel were to appear in the firmament of heaven in his full glory, the sun would disappear before his brightness, just as the stars now disappear before the brightness of the sun. When St. John saw an angel in all his glory, he thought he must be God Himself, and fell at his feet to adore him (Rev. 22:8). In appearing to men the holy angels hide their glory. The angels will be our companions in heaven. This is why they take so great an interest in us while we are on earth, and rejoice over the sinner doing penance. They often intervene to help us in our spiritual and temporal needs, if we do not, by our resistance to grace, put obstacles in their way.
5. The holy angels are also called guardian angels, because they watch over us (Heb. 1:14).142
Jacob saw a ladder reaching up to heaven, and the angels ascending and descending (Gen. 28:12). This was to signify that they come down on earth to protect us, and ascend back to heaven to sing praise to God. The guardian angels watch over us, as a shepherd over his flock. They count it as their happiness that they are appointed to watch over the servants of God, and promote the welfare of souls, and no wonder, when we remember that the King and Lord of all things came “not to minister, but to be ministered unto.” The service they render us causes them no trouble or anxiety, but rather joy and happiness, for their one desire is that the will of God should be done, and they rejoice in contributing to this. The general opinion of theologians is that everyone has a special guardian angel, who watches over him all through his life. The dignity of the angels given to us depends on the dignity of the persons to whom they are assigned. Ordinary Christians have one of the lower orders of angels; priests, bishops, kings, etc., have nobler spirits to guard them.143 Cities, countries, parishes, religious houses, have each their guardian angel.
Our guardian angels help us in the following ways:
1. They put good thoughts into our minds, and move our will to what is good.
The angels who appeared to the shepherds at Bethlehem, and who were seen at the tomb of Christ, and after His ascension, made themselves visible and spoke to men; but generally they influence us without being seen or heard by us. They move us to some step that is conducive to the welfare of our souls or bodies, and often save us from some impending danger by a secret impulse, without which we should have incurred death or misfortune.
2. They offer our prayers and our good works to God.
Thus St. Raphael offered the prayers of Tobias (Tob. 12:12). The angel in Revelation offers the prayers of the saints in a golden censer (Rev. 8:3). This is not because God Himself does not hear our prayers, but the angels mingle their prayers with ours, and so make them more acceptable to God. “In all the benefits we receive from God,” says St. Thomas, “our guardian angel takes part, because he helps in obtaining them for us.”
3. They protect us in danger.
Thus St. Peter was delivered from prison by an angel (Acts 12:7 seq.), Daniel was kept safe in the den of lions, and the three young men in the fiery furnace (Dan. 6:22; 3:49). We read stories sometimes of children being run over, or falling from a height, and escaping unhurt. We can scarcely doubt that this was owing to the intervention of their guardian angels. God has commissioned the angels thus to help us. “He hath given His angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. In their hands they shall bear thee up, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone” (Ps. 90[91]:11). But the chief office of our guardian angel is to preserve us from the snares of the devil; the holy angels have powers over the evil spirits, who fly away at their approach (Cf. Tob. 8:3). We must therefore commit ourselves to the care of our guardian angels in all times of danger, and before undertaking a journey, or any new enterprise, and we should wish our friends when they start on a journey, the good wish of Tobias when his son was leaving his home, “May the angel of God accompany you!”
4. They often reveal to men the will of God.
Instances in point are the sacrifice of Abraham, the message of the angel to Zechariah and to Our Lady. The appearance of an angel sometimes causes fear at first, but it soon changes to consolation and joy. It is just the opposite with the appearances of the evil angels; they give consolation to begin with, but this soon changes to confusion and fear.
If we desire the protection of the holy angels, we must try and imitate them by a holy life; we must also honor them, and often invoke their aid.
Experience teaches us that innocent children enjoy a wonderful protection from the angels. Innocence attracts them, and sin drives them away, as smoke drives away bees. We cannot expect our guardian angels to take care of us when we are doing what we know is displeasing to God. We must also beg for the aid of our guardian angel; we must congratulate him on his faithfulness to God; we must salute him when we go out and when we come in; we must thank him for all his benefits. We must say with Tobias, “What can be worthy of his benefits, and what can we give him sufficient for these things?” (Tob. 12:3.) The Church honors our guardian angels on the second of October; in some places on the first Sunday in September.
The account of the creation of man is found in the beginning of the book of Genesis. Nothing is said about the time when man was created, but the general belief fixes the date at 4000 B.C. The four weeks of Advent seem to indicate that the Church adopts this view.144
1. God made the body of man out of the dust of the earth, and breathed into him a living soul.145
The soul of man is a spiritual substance. The materialist who denies the existence of the soul because it cannot be perceived by his senses, might as well deny the existence of human reason because he cannot see it. The soul is endowed with the two faculties of reason and free will. Some have supposed that there are in man two souls, on account of the different inclinations which strive for mastery in him, and the struggle that takes place between the leaning towards sensual enjoyment and the reason that condemns it. But this struggle only proves that the soul has different tendencies, in virtue of our nature being partly material and partly spiritual. The relations between the body and the soul of man are as follows: the body is the dwelling-place of the soul. As the nutshell to the kernel, as the dress to the man, as the hut to the hermit, such is the body to the soul. The body is also the instrument of the soul, whereby it may attain to eternal happiness. What his tools are to the carpenter, his brush to the painter, the organ to the organist, such the body is to the soul. The soul is the guide of the body, as the driver of his steed, or the captain of his ship. Too often the soul allows the evil desires of the body to lead it astray, to the ruin of both. The body is a good servant but a bad master. The soul also is the life of the body; as soon as the two are parted, the body soon returns to the dust from which it was formed. The souls of men are essentially different from those of the lower animals; and have different faculties and capabilities. The souls of animals are incapable of striving after perfection, or of searching into the causes of things; hence they can have no knowledge of their end; they are led by instinct, not by reason. They have no craving after a higher happiness and are quite satisfied with the enjoyment of sense; they have no spiritual nature, but are essentially dependent on matter.
It is an error to think that the bodies of men are developed out of those of the lower animals.146
Many think that men are sprung from the lower animals by a process of gradual development. This is the theory advanced by the English naturalist, Darwin, who believed that the first man was a highly developed kind of monkey. There is an essential difference between the shape of the body of a man and an ape, and between the form of their skulls. The brain of man is far larger and heavier than that of an ape. Man has the gift of speech, the ape has not. Man has the power of forming abstract ideas, the ape has not. Man has a long period of growth, and a gradual development of his faculties; the ape shoots up very quickly to its full development. The ape only lives about thirty years; man can attain to the age of eighty or even one hundred years. Man is capable of the highest cultivation; the ape is not. No bones have ever yet been found which bridge over the impassable gulf that separates men from apes. There is no difference between the bones of men in the present day and those of men who lived thousands of years ago. Tradition and language bear witness to an early period when men enjoyed a higher cultivation, from which they afterwards fell away through sin and vice. The apes which bear the greatest resemblance to man in bodily form are stupid and without intelligence, and seem to have been created in order that we may see what man would have been if God had not breathed into him an immortal soul, and made him like to Himself. To those who trace the origin of men from apes may be applied the words of Holy Scripture, “Man when he was in honor did not understand; he hath been compared to senseless beasts, and made like to them” (Ps. 48[49]:21).
2. The first human beings that God created were Adam and Eve.147
Eve was made from a rib of Adam while he slept, and from Adam and Eve all the millions who now cover the face of the earth were descended. Hence all are members of one and the same family. The differences of color and of the shape of the skull are the result of differences of climate, food, and way of living. We find that animals gradually change their shape and color under a different climate. All men have certain common bodily characteristics, and also the mental faculties of will, memory, and understanding. The oldest legends of all existing peoples tell of a primeval happiness from which man fell, of a deluge over all the inhabited portion of the earth, etc., and so bear witness to a common origin.
Yet all men derive only their bodies from Adam; for the soul of every man is created by God.148
It is not man, but God, Who communicates to each of us his soul when he comes into existence. “The Lord formeth the spirit of man in him” (Zech. 12:1). Just as the Holy Spirit in Baptism or in the Sacrament of Penance descends into the soul of man, and gives it spiritual life, so God gives natural life to the body of man when formed, and places the soul in it. So He did with the bodies of Adam and Eve at their creation. God creates each soul and at the same moment places it in the body which He has prepared for it. It is therefore an error to suppose, as Tertullian did, that the soul of the child is sprung from the soul of its parent, as one flame is engendered from another. Some have foolishly asserted that all men have one and the same soul, others that God created the souls of all men when He first created the world. This was the doctrine of Plato and Origen, and is entirely false.
1. The soul of man is made in the image of God, since it is a spirit like to God.149
Before the creation of man God said, “Let us make man to our own image and likeness and let him have dominion over the beasts and the whole earth” (Gen 1:26). Man is made in the image of God; his likeness to God is to be found in his soul, which possesses reason and free will, and thence has the power of knowing what is beautiful and good, and of loving it. He, moreover, through these two faculties has dominion over the visible world, as God has dominion over the whole universe. In the words spoken before the creation of man, God joined together the likeness of Himself and dominion over the earth. Man attains to a perfect likeness to God only when he is in the grace of God, for in this case he is made a “partaker of the divine nature” (2 Pet. 1:4). The just man is truly the lord of the whole earth and of all creatures upon it, whereas the sinner is the slave of creatures. Man, through his likeness to God, has not only the power of knowing the true and the beautiful and the good, but he has also the power of knowing, loving, and enjoying God in His divine majesty. Just as a globe has a feeble resemblance to the earth, so the soul of man has a feeble resemblance to God. The soul is also an image of the Blessed Trinity, in virtue of its three powers, memory, understanding, and will. In its memory it resembles the Father, in its understanding the Son, and in its will the Holy Spirit. As these three powers are united in one soul, so the three persons of the Blessed Trinity are united in one and the same nature. Notice the words used at the creation: “Let us make man,” thereby indicating the plurality of persons in the Blessed Trinity. It is its likeness to the Blessed Trinity that gives to every single soul its priceless value; it is this which explains the Incarnation. The soul of man is worth more than all the stars of heaven. The body of man is not made in the image of God, for God is a pure spirit, but yet the likeness to God stamps itself in some way on the body, as being the instrument of the soul, both in its upright bearing, and in the dominion it exerts over the irrational animals (Cf. Ps. 8:5–6). “What is man that Thou art mindful of him? Thou hast crowned him with glory and honor, and hast given him dominion over the works of Thy hands.”
2. The soul of man is immortal, i.e., it can never cease to exist.150
The soul can never cease to exist, but it becomes spiritually dead when it loses the grace of God by mortal sin. It cannot lose consciousness, but it can lose God. A branch that falls from the tree continues to exist, but is nevertheless dead. Sinners are thus dead, even while they live; the just on the other hand live even after they are dead.
That the soul of man is immortal we know from the words of Jesus Christ.
Our Lord says, “Fear not them who can kill the body, but cannot kill the soul” (Matt. 10:28), and to the good thief on the cross He says, “To-day thou shalt be with Me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). He teaches the same truth in the story of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19). “God is the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob; and is not the God of the dead but of the living” (Matt. 22:32).
We learn the same truth from the numberless appearances of the dead to the living.
At Our Lord’s transfiguration Moses appeared, who had been long dead (Matt. 17:3). At the time of Our Lord’s crucifixion many who were dead appeared in Jerusalem (Matt. 27:53). The prophet Jeremiah and the priest Onias appeared to Judas Maccabeus before his victory over Nicanor (2 Macc. 15:11 seq.). Our Lady has constantly appeared to saints and to others, and so have many of the saints as well as those who are suffering in purgatory; sometimes to console and encourage the living, sometimes to warn them, and in the case of the holy souls, to ask for prayers. The lost rarely (and some think never) appear to men, unless it may be in some rare cases to warn the living. It is unlawful to invoke the appearance of the dead, and those who do so are tricked by the devil, who takes the form of the person invoked, or indicates their supposed presence by sounds, raps, etc. All true appearances of the dead are wrought by the instrumentality of the angels. We must be very cautious in accepting such appearances as real, but yet we ought not to reject them altogether. Many reject all such appearances, because they know that, if they acknowledged them to be true, they would have to change their way of living, and this they are not willing to do.
We can also prove from reason that the soul is immortal.
Man has a longing after a perfect and lasting happiness. This longing is common to all men, and is implanted in them by their Creator. Such happiness can never be attained in this world—and therefore if man possessed the desire for it, without any hope of its being satisfied, he would be more unfortunate than the brutes who have no such desire, and God, in implanting it in his breast would be, not good, but cruel. If man had no immortal soul, the wicked who do evil all their lives long would go unpunished, and the just, who by self-sacrifice have robbed themselves of the enjoyments of life, would go unrewarded. This would be an injustice impossible to a God of perfect justice. We are also conscious of an individual unity in each one of us, which is independent of our body, which perseveres in spite of all bodily changes, and continues from childhood to old age. It is present during sleep as well as during waking hours, and is active when all our bodily senses are wrapped in repose and inactivity. St. Augustine tells a story of Gennadius, a physician of Carthage, who would not believe in the immortality of the soul. One night he had a dream, in which he saw standing before him a beautiful young man, clothed in white, who said to him: “Dost thou see me?” He answered, “Yes, I see you.” The young man rejoined, “Dost thou see me with thine eyes?” “No,” answered Gennadius, “for they are closed in sleep.” “With what, then, dost thou see me?” “I know not.” The young man continued: “Dost thou hear me?” “Yes.” “With thine ears?” “No, for these too are wrapped in sleep.” “With what then dost thou hear me?” “I know not.” “Are you speaking to me?” was the next question. “Yes.” “With thy mouth?” “No.” “With what then?” “I know not.” Then the young man said: “See now, thou sleepest—and yet thou seest, hearest, and speakest. The hour will come when thou wilt sleep in death, and yet thou wilt see and hear and speak and feel.” Gennadius woke, and knew that God had sent an angel to teach him the immortality of the soul. No particle of matter is ever lost. Matter takes different forms, but the same amount of matter remains throughout. If matter never perishes, is it possible that the soul, which belongs to a far higher order, is destined to perish?
All nations of the earth believe in the immortality of the soul.
When Jacob heard of the death of his son Joseph, he expressed a wish to go and join him in the nether world (Gen. 37:35). The Jews were forbidden to call up the dead or hold intercourse with them (Deut. 18:11). The Greeks and Romans believed in Tartarus and Elysium. The Egyptians believed that the soul wandered about for three thousand years before finding rest. In other nations the offerings for the dead, and the cultus of the departed spirits or Manes, testify to the same belief. There are only a few, and those men who are in mortal sin, who declare that they think that death is the end of our existence. Most of those who put an end to their lives do so, not with the idea that after death they will cease to be, but because they imagine life is intolerable—not realizing the consequences of their act.
11. THE SUPERNATURAL
ENDOWMENTS OF MAN
Our first parents before the Fall had a happiness almost equal to that of the angels when first created. Hence the Psalmist says of man, “Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels; Thou hast crowned him with glory and honor” (Ps. 8:6). Heathen nations have legends of the happiness of the first man; they termed it the golden age. Hesiod says that men lived then like gods, in perfect happiness.
1. Our first parents were created in the grace of God, and therefore possessed singular perfections of soul and body.151
“Adam was created,” says the Council of Trent, “in justice and holiness; he was a partaker of the divine nature.” This justice and holiness he did not have of himself, but God gave it to him; just as the eye does not possess light from within, but absorbs it from without.
The special privileges granted to the soul of man at his first creation were as follows: An enlightened understanding, a will free from all weakness, and the possession of sanctifying grace. Through means of these he was the child of God, the heir of heaven, and well-pleasing in the sight of God.
“God filled them with wisdom and the knowledge of understanding,” says the Wise Man (Sir. 17:5–6). He gave Adam an insight into the inner nature of things, so that he was able to give appropriate names to all the animals. He also knew by inspiration the indissolubility of marriage. The will of man was weakened by no sensual desires. Adam and Eve were naked, but felt no shame, because in them there was no rebellion of the flesh against the spirit, no struggle necessary to avoid sin. They also had the Holy Spirit dwelling within them, and His sanctifying grace; they were like to God, full of love for Him, and children of God; and because children, also heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ.
The special perfections of their bodies were that they were immortal, and free from all liability to sickness and disease; they were in paradise, and had dominion over all the creatures around them.
God created man immortal (Wisd. 2:23). Death only came in as the punishment of disobedience (Gen. 2:17). The death threatened was bodily as well as spiritual death, for the punishment of their sin was “Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return” (Gen. 3:19). Man had indeed to work in paradise, but this work was part of his happiness, and caused him no fatigue. He had no sickness, for sickness is the forerunner of death. Paradise was a lovely garden, full of noble trees and lovely flowers, and the fairest fruits; many beautiful animals were there, who were perfectly obedient to his behests. There was also a river in paradise divided into four branches. In the midst of the garden was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and close by it the tree of life, the fruits of which were a protection against disease and death. Paradise is said to have been situated between the Tigris and the Euphrates. Man had also a complete dominion over all the wild beasts. Not that their nature was then different from now, but the grace and dignity of man rendered them submissive to his will, and made them fear and obey him (Sir. 17:4). Something of this power still remains to man; it is said that no wild beast can look a man steadily in the face. We see the same thing in the natural order now, in the wild beast tamers; and in the supernatural in the power that many of the saints possessed over the wild beasts, e.g., St. Francis of Assisi, and many of the martyrs before whose feet the fiercest of the animals in the Roman amphitheatre lay down in prostrate homage. This was due to their great purity and freedom from sin.
2. These special perfections of our first parents we call supernatural gifts, because they are something altogether beyond, and were added to, human nature.152
Thus a rich man out of compassion provides a poor orphan with food, clothing, lodging, instruction in a trade. These would correspond to the natural gifts given by God to man. But the rich man in his bounty goes further; he adopts the orphan, clothes him as if he were his own son, gives him a room in his own house, and the education of a gentleman. These would correspond in some way to the supernatural gifts given by God to man. The first of natural gifts bestow upon the orphan a sort of likeness to the giver, but the second impart to him a far closer likeness. So the supernatural gifts of God to man impart to him a far closer likeness to God than the natural. Or to take another illustration; a painter can trace the portrait of a man with a few strokes in black and white. But if he takes his brush and colors the drawing, if he paints the eyes blue, the cheeks red, the hair brown, etc., the likeness becomes more beautiful and corresponds more closely to the original. So it is with the natural and the supernatural gifts of God. When God at man’s creation said, “Let us make man in our image and likeness,” the image refers to the natural, the likeness to the supernatural gifts of God.
The story of the Fall of man is a true story, not a mere fable. This is the general opinion of theologians.153
1. God imposed on man in paradise a precept; He forbade him to eat the fruit of one of the trees which stood in the midst of the Garden of Eden.154
The fruit of the tree of good and evil was not bad in itself, for God did not place anything that was evil in paradise; it was only bad and injurious to man because it was forbidden.
By obedience to this precept God intended that Adam and Eve should merit eternal happiness.
It was the intention of God to bestow upon our first parents eternal happiness—an inheritance that was to be theirs as children of God. But as a happiness that is earned is a greater happiness, and one of greater value than if it were bestowed without any action deserving of it, God in His goodness decreed that man should earn it as a reward of obedience. If man had not transgressed the command of God, he would have passed without pain and without death from the earthly into the celestial paradise. The posterity of Adam would have come into existence, like him, in a state of original justice. They would have died as Adam died if they had sinned like him, but the sin would not have passed on to their children, for Adam alone was the appointed head and representative of the human race.
2. Man allowed himself to be led astray by the devil, and transgressed the precept of his Creator.155
The devil was envious of the happiness of our first parents. “By the envy of the devil death came into the world” (Wisd. 2:24). “The devil was a murderer from the beginning” (John 8:4). He deceived Eve by a lie. Hence Our Lord calls him the father of lies (John 8:4). He took a visible form because a mere internal suggestion would have had no power to influence the mind of our first parents in their state of original justice. He took the form of a serpent, because God would allow him to take no other and the serpent was a fit emblem of his cunning and poisonous wickedness. St. Augustine tells us that Adam and Eve had already admitted the beginnings of evil by thinking little of God and allowing themselves to be distracted by visible and palpable things. This was the occasion of the temptation. Their great happiness had made them unwary, and Eve foolishly lingered near the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and listened to the serpent, instead of turning away at once. The common tradition among the Fathers is that Adam was created on a Friday and fell on the following Friday, at the same hour at which Our Lord on Good Friday died upon the cross.
3. The transgression of the precept of God had disastrous consequences; man lost sanctifying grace, and all his supernatural gifts, and also suffered injuries both in soul and body.156
The disobedience of our first parents received this severe punishment, because the law given them was one that it was easy for them to obey, and because they had such a high degree of knowledge. The sin they committed was a mortal sin, else it would not have been necessary for God Himself to die upon the cross in order to expiate it. From the cost of the remedy we may judge of the deadly nature of the wound. Just as the man who fell among the thieves on the road to Jericho was robbed of his goods, and also sorely wounded, so man was robbed by Satan of his supernatural gifts, and was sorely wounded in his natural gifts. In other words, the supernatural likeness to God was lost, and his whole nature, body and soul alike, was disfigured and weakened.
Original sin injured the soul of man in the following ways: His understanding was darkened, his will weakened and made prone to evil; he lost supernatural grace and thus became displeasing to God, and could no more enter into the kingdom of heaven.
His understanding was darkened, i.e., he had not the same knowledge of the nature of God, of the will of God, the end of life, etc. His will was weakened, for by sin the harmony between his spiritual and his sensible faculties was destroyed, so that the inclinations of his senses no longer submitted without revolt to the dominion of his reason. The flesh rebelled against the spirit in punishment for man’s rebellion against God. Hence St. Paul says, “I see another law in my members, fighting against the law of my mind” (Rom. 7:23). “The flesh lusteth against the spirit” (Gal. 5:17). Henceforward man’s nature was drawn towards the things of sense, as iron is drawn by the power of the magnet. Many other evil tendencies also arose in him. Doubt in the goodness of God, in His truth and justice; vanity and pride, etc. Man has not lost the freedom of his will by original sin, else he would not have that consciousness of being able to exercise choice, or that feeling of remorse when he had yielded. Our first parents also lost sanctifying grace, the justice and holiness in which they were created, and the friendship of God which accompanied it. He who dies still burdened with original sin cannot see the face of God in heaven, but he does not suffer the pains of hell unless he has committed grievous sin himself. Children who die unbaptized are excluded from heaven, but it does not follow that their existence is one of pain or misery.157
Original sin did injury to the body of man in the following ways: He became subject to sickness and death; he was shut out from paradise and had to labor and to suffer. Woman became subject to man; the forces of nature and the lower animals had power to injure man; lastly the devil had permission from God to tempt him to sin, and to injure him in his temporal possessions.
Man was condemned to die in consequence of original sin. God said to Adam “In the sweat of thy brow thou shalt eat bread, until thou return to the earth from which thou wast taken; for dust thou art and to dust thou shalt return” (Gen. 3:19). Of these words the Church reminds us on Ash Wednesday, when the priest places the ashes on the heads of the faithful. Death is the worst consequence of original sin. But the death of the body is but the sensible image of the terrible and eternal death of the soul, from which man can only be delivered through the redemption of Christ and by penance. The exclusion from the earthly paradise also had its meaning, and was meant to remind man how sin excludes him from the celestial paradise of heaven. Man had also to labor hard. God said to Adam: “Cursed is the earth in thy work. With labor and toil thou shalt eat the fruit thereof all the days of thy life” (Gen 3:17). Because of this curse the Church makes use of various blessings on material things. Woman had to be subject to her husband, because she had led him into disobedience, and had to bear children in sorrow because she had involved them in sorrow through her disobedience. The lower animals also received power to injure man. He had revolted against God, his Master; so it was only just that they should rebel against him. The devil has also a great influence over man, in accordance with the saying of Holy Scripture: “By whom a man is overcome, of the same also he is made the slave” (2 Pet. 2:19). He can tempt them more easily and lead them to mortal sin; he can also injure them in their worldly goods (Cf. Job). He is the prince of this world, and has the empire of death (Heb. 2:14). A heavy yoke lies upon the shoulders of the children of Adam from the day of their birth to the day of their death (Sir. 40:1). The punishments that God sent upon man were a valuable medicine to counteract the effects of sin. Sickness, death, the necessity of labor, and the subjection of men one to another were intended to check pride and sensuality. Man was driven out of paradise lest he should eat of the tree of life, and so live forever in this valley of tears. His banishment was also an effective means of leading him to penance.
4. The sin of our first parents with all its evil consequences has passed on to their descendants.158
Not merely the consequences of sin, but the sin itself, has in some sense passed on from Adam to his descendants, so that it is true of all of them that they have sinned in Adam. If it were not so, God could not with justice have visited that sin upon them. We are all by nature children of wrath (Eph. 2:3). But we partake in the sin of Adam, as the members of the body partake in the sin which the soul commits through their agency, by putting them in motion to perform the sinful act. Suppose a king bestows an estate upon one of his servants, on the condition that the servant remain faithful to him. He is unfaithful, and thereby loses the estate—not he only, but also his whole posterity. So it is with original sin. We must also remember that original sin and all its consequences are not anything positive, but are the absence of that which would otherwise be present. It is the absence of the supernatural grace of God; of original justice, with all the privileges and perfections that it carries with it. When we say that we have sinned in Adam, this does not mean that we have imitated Adam’s sin by some positive act of our own. All children have sinned in Adam, even though absolutely free from any personal act of sin.
The sin that we inherit from Adam is called original sin.
We are already tainted with sin before we draw our first breath, or see the light of day. We are conceived in sin (Ps. 50[51]:7). Even the children of Christians are born in sin. Not only the seed of the wild olive, but also of the cultivated olive comes up as a wild plant. So is it with the children of Christian as well as of heathen parents.
Only Jesus Christ and His holy Mother were free from original sin.159
All mankind save Christ and our blessed Lady were conceived in sin. St. John the Baptist (Luke 1:15) and probably the prophet Jeremiah (Jer. 1:5), were born without sin, having been cleansed from sin in their mothers’ womb, but they were not conceived without sin. Some believe that St. Joseph was also born free from sin. All other men were cleansed from sin in baptism. The history of man is unintelligible to those who do not believe in the doctrine of original sin. Oh, how great is the misery that original sin has brought into the world! Yet how few there are who are conscious of their misery! Men are like children born in slavery, who laugh, and play, and enjoy themselves, as if they were free. It is only the saints, who know the emptiness of the joys of earth, who lament over the misery of sin.