Chapter III.
The Holiness Of The Church.
Table of Contents Holiness is also a mark of the true Church; for in the Creed we say, "I believe in the holy Catholic Church."
Every society is founded for a special object. One society is formed with the view of cultivating social intercourse among its members; a second is organized to advance their temporal interests; and a third for the purpose of promoting literary pursuits. The Catholic Church is a society founded by our Lord Jesus Christ for the sanctification of its members; hence, St. Peter calls the Christians of his time "a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a purchased people."30
The example of our Divine Founder, Jesus Christ, the sublime moral lessons He has taught us, the Sacraments He has instituted-all tend to our sanctification. They all concentre themselves in our soul, like so many heavenly rays, to enlighten and inflame it with the fire of devotion.
When the Church speaks to us of the attributes of our Lord, of His justice and mercy and sanctity and truth, her object is not merely to extol the Divine perfections, but also to exhort us to imitate them, and to be like Him, just and merciful, holy and truthful. Behold the sublime Model that is placed before us! It is not man, nor angel, nor [pg 017] archangel, but Jesus Christ, the Son of God, "who is the brightness of His glory, and the figure of His substance."31 The Church places His image over our altars, admonishing us to "look and do according to the pattern shown on the Mount."32 And from that height He seems to say to us: "Be ye holy, for I the Lord your God am holy."33 "Be ye perfect, even as your heavenly Father is perfect."34 "Be ye followers of God as most dear children."35
We are invited to lead holy lives, not only because our Divine Founder, Jesus Christ, was holy, but also because we bear His sweet and venerable name. We are called Christians. That is a name we would not exchange for all the high-sounding titles of Prince or Emperor. We are justly proud of this appellation of Christian; but we are reminded that it has annexed to it a corresponding obligation. It is not an idle name, but one full of solemn significance; for a Christian, as the very name implies, is a follower or disciple of Christ-one who walks in the footsteps of his Master by observing His precepts; who reproduces in his own life the character and virtues of his Divine Model. In a word, a Christian is another Christ. It would, therefore, be a contradiction in terms, if a Christian had nothing in common with his Lord except the name. The disciple should imitate his Master, the soldier should imitate his Commander, and the members should be like the Head.
The Church constantly allures her children to holiness by placing before their minds the Incarnation, life and death of our Savior. What appeals more forcibly to a life of piety than the contemplation of Jesus born in a stable, living an humble life [pg 018] in Nazareth, dying on a cross, that His blood might purify us? If He sent forth Apostles to preach the Gospel to the whole world; if in His name temples are built in every nation, and missionaries are sent to the extremities of the globe, all this is done that we may be Saints. "God," says St. Paul, "gave some Apostles, and some Prophets, and others Evangelists, and others Pastors and Doctors, for the perfecting of the Saints, for the work of the ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ, until we all meet unto the unity of faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man."36
The moral law which the Catholic Church inculcates on her children is the highest and holiest standard of perfection ever presented to any people, and furnishes the strongest incentives to virtue.
The same Divine precepts delivered through Moses to the Jews, on Mount Sinai, the same salutary warnings which the Prophets uttered throughout Judea, the same sublime and consoling lessons of morality which Jesus gave on the Mount-these are the lessons which the Church teaches from January till December. The Catholic preacher does not amuse his audience with speculative topics or political harangues, or any other subjects of a transitory nature. He preaches only "Christ, and Him crucified."
This code of Divine precepts is enforced with as much zeal by the Church as was the Decalogue of old by Moses, when he said: "These words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thy heart; and thou shalt tell them to thy children; and thou shalt meditate upon them, sitting in thy [pg 019] house, and walking on thy journey, sleeping and rising."37
The first lesson taught to children in our Sunday-schools is their duty to know, love and serve God, and thus to be Saints; for if they know, love and serve God aright they shall be Saints indeed. Their tender minds are instructed in this great truth that though they had the riches of Dives, and the glory and pleasures of Solomon, and yet fail to be righteous, they have missed their vocation, and are "wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked."38 "For, what doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?"39 On the contrary though they are as poor as Lazarus, and as miserable as Job in the days of his adversity, they are assured that their condition is a happy one in the sight of God, if they live up to the maxims of the Gospel.
The Church quickens the zeal of her children for holiness of life by impressing on their minds the rigor of God's judgments, who "will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and make manifest the counsels of the hearts," by reminding them of the terrors of Hell and of the sweet joys of Heaven.
Not only are Catholics instructed in church on Sundays but they are exhorted to peruse the Word of God, and manuals of devotion, at home. The saints whose lives are there recorded serve like bright stars to guide them over the stormy ocean of life to the shores of eternity; while the history of those who have fallen from grace stands like a beacon light, warning them to shun the rocks against which a Solomon and a Judas made shipwreck of their souls.
Our books of piety are adapted to every want [pg 020] of the human soul, and are a fruitful source of sanctification. Who can read without spiritual profit such works as the almost inspired Following of Christ by Thomas à Kempis; the Christian Perfection of Rodriguez; the Spiritual Combat of Scupoli; the writings of St. Francis de Sales, and a countless host of other ascetical authors?
You will search in vain outside the Catholic Church for writers comparable in unction and healthy piety to such as I have mentioned. Compare, for instance, Kempis with Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, or Butler's Lives of the Saints with Foxe's Book of Martyrs. You lay down Butler with a sweet and tranquil devotion, and with a profound admiration for the Christian heroes whose lives he records; while you put aside Foxe with a troubled mind and a sense of vindictive bitterness. I do not speak of the Book of Common Prayer, because the best part of it is a translation from our Missal. Protestants also publish Kempis, though sometimes in a mutilated form; every passage in the original being carefully omitted which alludes to Catholic doctrines and practices.
A distinguished Episcopal clergyman of Baltimore once avowed to me that his favorite books of devotion were our standard works of piety. In saying this, he paid a merited and graceful tribute to the superiority of Catholic spiritual literature.
The Church gives us not only the most pressing motives, but also the most potent means for our sanctification. These means are furnished by prayer and the Sacraments. She exhorts us to frequent communion with God by prayer and meditation, and so imperative is this obligation in our eyes that we would justly hold ourselves guilty of grave dereliction of duty if we neglected [pg 021] for a considerable time the practice of morning and evening prayer.
The most abundant source of graces is also found in the seven Sacraments of the Church. Our soul is bathed in the Precious Blood of Jesus Christ at the font of Baptism, from which we come forth "new creatures." We are then and there incorporated with Christ, becoming "bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh;" "for as many of you," says the Apostle, "as have been baptized in Christ have put on Christ."40 And as the Holy Ghost is inseparable from Christ, our bodies are made the temples of the Spirit of God and our souls His Sanctuary. "Christ loved the...
