1. Introd.—Today the birthday of the Catholic Church, for the Gentiles came to it.
2. From eternity in the councils of God. At length in time it began to be; it was conceived and lay in the womb. Its vital principle faith, therefore with Abraham especially it began. It remained in the womb of former dispensations its due time; long expectations; burstings of hope, till the time came; and was born when Christ came.
3. In the fulness and consummation of time. Objection.—Why so late? True answer, because unmerited. God may choose His time and place. Again, because He had to work through human wills, and therefore, so to say, under the present order could not choose His time. But here I say fulness and consummation of time, i.e. man is born after months in the womb. He is born in due time, not an abortion. So of the church.
4. When born, a robust and perfect offspring, fulfilling its promise—its promise that it was to be everywhere, and was to be able to be everywhere.
5. Able to be, for this is the difficulty which no other religion ever attempted. None but the Catholic has been able to be everywhere. Local religions—whether Eastern mythologies or Protestantism.
6. But even earthly empires do not spread over the world so widely as this and so diversely—now from east to west, now from north to south. Mahomet by the sword.
7. But even empires of this world gained by the sword do not last. Not only is this a single religious empire, but it has lasted out earthly empires, and now shows as little decay as ever.
8. And in such tumults—the whole world broken up so many times—present revolutions nothing to former. The deluge; describe waters—whirlpools, waterspouts, currents, rush of waters, cataracts, waves, yet the ark on them. This, the ark, the greatest of miracles. Well, it is but the acknowledged type of the Church: as this was the miracle (as we all confess) of the deluge, such that morally of the Church.
9. A house not divided against itself does stand—other religions specimens of the reverse. House at this moment less divided than ever. Protestants have looked: they felt the question was, whether we were in extremities? not whether the Pope was alive, but whether nations acknowledged him? (1) No jealousy about Pope’s power. Pope never so powerful as now—perfectly good understanding; jealousy at an end. (2) No heresies now. (3) Nay, schools at an end, [e.g.] Immaculate Conception 1.
January 27 On Labour and Rest
1. Introd.—On Septuagesima, beginning a time of penance and penitential work. No more Alleluias. The colour purple.
2. Labour is the lot, the punishment of man. Bad and good labour, nay, evil labours and virtue labours.
3. It is otherwise as God made things. There is motion and activity in Nature, but it is without effort; all creation is as it were hung upon wheels, and moves noiselessly and gracefully—the sun, the stream, the breeze, life.
4. And so in paradise. Adam’s tending the flowers was but a specimen of divine labour without effort; such, too, was his service of God; such the angels’ service—without effort.
5. But sin has made things otherwise. Henceforth labour changes its character. It is no longer Eden, but that vineyard into which the labourers were sent in today’s gospel—to pull out stones, to destroy the weeds, worms, blights—and a wall round it—for there is a warfare. Labour is a war and aims at conquest.
6. Take bodily labour, labour of the field—preparing the earth, felling trees, making roads, canals—then building houses; it is all penitential, all the punishment of sin—the mind does not come in, but a weariness.
7. And much more with intellectual labour and the labour of the mind—the mere wear and tear of business; the necessity of providing for a family; anxiety, suspense, fear, failure, dreariness and hopelessness. But even when successful, one enterprise leads to another, till the mind is overburdened and overwrought, and is sucked into a vortex. Most engrossing; no time for the thought of religion; religion must take its chance, and that they feel.
8. Much more sin; the bondage and service of the devil most wearisome—the drunkard, the sensualist. (I knew one who was tempted to fatalism.) Wearing, restless feeling, even when they call themselves happy.
9. Nay, virtue here is too a toil, because there is war between good and evil. Read the saints’ lives. Such is labour, and it wearies soul and body. The body shows it. whether it is manual, mental, or intellectual.
10. Oh! if we must labour, let us labour in the service of the Great Master of the Vineyard—that only pays, that only has hire. Then we shall labour that we may rest, then only. Sin never rests; there is no rest in hell. This is that penny which they one and all received, because nothing better or higher.
11. When the evening of life comes, then shall we know most fully the meaning of labour by being freed from it.
12. The blessedness of rest, of freedom from sin and toil, even though in purgatory. Purgatory is rest compared with this life.
13. And much more in heaven, where we see the face of God.