TUESDAY OF QUINQUAGESIMA WEEK
The fundamental rule of
Christian life is, as almost every page of the Gospel tells us, that we should live
out of the world, separate ourselves from the world, hate the world. The world
is that ungodly land which Abraham, our sublime model, is commanded by God to quit.
It is that Babylon of our exile and captivity, where we are beset with dangers.
The beloved disciple cries out to us: ‘Love not the world, nor the things which are in the
world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him.’ Our
most merciful Jesus, at the very time when He was about to offer Himself as a sacrifice
for all men, spoke these awful words: ‘I pray not for the world.’ When we were baptized, and were signed with
the glorious and indelible character of Christians, the condition required of us,
and accepted, was that we should renounce the works and pomps of the world
(which we expressed under the name of Satan); and this solemn baptismal promise
we have often renewed.
But what is the meaning of our promise to
renounce the world? Is it that we cannot be
Christians, unless we flee into
the desert and separate ourselves from our fellow-creatures? Such cannot be
God’s will for all, since, in that same Scripture, wherein He commands us to
flee from the world, He also tells us what are our duties to each other, and sanctions
and blesses those ties which He Himself has willed should exist among us. His
apostle, also, tells us to use this world as though we did not use it. It is
not, therefore, forbidden us to live in, and to use, the world. Then, what
means this renouncing of the world? Can there be contradiction in God’s commandments?
Is it possible that we are condemned to wander blindly on the brink of a
precipice, into which we must at last inevitably fall?
There is neither contradiction nor snare. If by the world,
we mean these visible things around us which God created in His power and
goodness; if we mean this outward world, which He made for His own glory and
our benefit; it is worthy of its divine Author, and to us, if we but use it
aright, is a ladder whereby our souls may ascend to their God. Let us
gratefully use this world; go through it, without making it the object of our
hope; not waste upon it that love, which God alone deserves; and ever be
mindful, that we are not made for this, but or another and a happier, world.
But the majority of men are not thus
prudent in their use of the world. Their hearts are fixed upon it, and not upon
heaven. Hence it was, that when the Creator deigned to come into this world, in
order that He might save it, the world knew Him not. Men were called after the
name of the object of their love. They shut their eyes to the light; they
became darkness; God calls them ‘the world. In this sense, then, the world is
everything that is opposed to our Lord Jesus Christ, that refuses to recognize
Him, and that resists His divine guidance. Those false maxims which tend to
weaken the love of God in our souls; which recommend the vanities that fasten
our hearts to this present life; which cry down everything that can raise us
above' our weaknesses or vices; which decoy and gratify our corrupt nature by dangerous
pleasures, which, far from helping us to the attainment of our last end, only
mislead us—all these are ‘the world.’
This world is everywhere, and holds a
secret league within our very hearts. Sin has brought it into this exterior
world created by God for Himself and has given it prominence. Now, we must conquer
it, and trample upon it, or we shall perish with it. There is no being neutral;
we must be its enemies, or its slaves. During these three days, its triumphs
are fearful; and thousands of those who, at their Baptism, swore eternal enmity
to it, are enrolling themselves its votaries. Let us pray for them; but let us also
tremble for ourselves; and that our courage may not fail us, let us ponder those
consoling words, which our Saviour, at His last Supper, addressed to His eternal
Father. He is speaking of His disciples, and He says: ‘Father! I have given them
Thy word, and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, as
I also am not of the world. I pray not, that Thou shouldst take them out of the
world, but that Thou shouldst keep them from evil.
As an appropriate conclusion of this day, we may use this
formula of the Ambrosian liturgy. It puts two truths in contrast: the spiritual
indifference of worldlings, and the dread severity of God’s future judgment.
INGRESSA
(Dominica in
Quinquagesima)
Sweet is this present life, but
it passes away; terrible, O Christ, is thy judgment, and it endures for ever.
Let us, therefore, cease to love what is unstable, and fix our thoughts on the
fear of what is eternal; saying; Christ, have mercy upon us!
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