ARCHBISHOP RYAN'S SERMON AT THE LAYING OF THE FOUNDATION STONE OF ST. PATRICK'S CHURCH IN ROME.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XV, Issue 52, 20 April 1888, Page 25

ARCHBISHOP RYAN'S SERMON AT THE LAYING OF THE FOUNDATION STONE OF ST. PATRICK'S CHURCH IN ROME.

(From tbe Boston Pilot.)

The text was chosen from the 16th chapter of the Gospel of -fit Matthew, the 13th to tbe 18th verses, concluding in the words of Christ : " And I say to thee : That thou art Peter : and upoa this rock I will build my Church, aDd the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." In this extract two great fundamental truths are revealed to us. The first is the divinity of Jesus Christ, and the second the fact that the Church which He was to establish upon this earth should be founded on the Apostle Peter as on a rock, and that because of this foundation " the gates of hell should not prevail against it." These great questions, notwithstanding the clearness of this revelation, still agitate the world. Now, as then, different replies are given to tbe question, " Who is the Son of Man " ? A wonderful prophet a great ethical philosopher soaring above the sages of antiquity — a model man— all but a God. Though men differ as to bis nature, yet all praise him. Even the modern sect of reformed Jews join in universal chorus, and glory in the fact that be was a son of Israel. But tbe true reply to tbe- question, who is the Son of Ma n, if that given by Peter : " Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God " — a reply which confessed his divinity, and not merely as an opinion or personal conviction of Peter, but as a revelation of the Eternal Father to him, and through him to the world. " Blessed art thou, , Simon Bar Jona," said Christ to him, " for flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in heaven." Then Jesus Christ thus declared divine, revealed the second great truth to which I have alluded — namely, that Peter was to be the rock on which His church was to be built, and because of which it was to stand forever.

In another part of the Sacred Scriptures, our Divine Lord spoke of the wise man as he " who built bis house upon a rock," and " the rains fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and they beat upon that house, and it fell not because it was founded on a rock." Infinite wisdom is now about to build a bouse against which the falling rain, and rising floods, and pelting storms of all time shall beat in vain, and looks for a rocky foundation, deep, and strong, and wide enough. Seeing one of his disciples named Simon, He said to him," Thou sbalt be called Peter, which means a rock " ; and subsequently He said : " Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build tnjr church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." Hence was Peter constituted the great cause at once of the unity and stability of the entire edifice. The Church of God, with all its characteristics, was to rest on Peter as on its foundation. Now, brethren, this was to be true, not only of the great Church of God in general, but also of the national churches that form integral parts of it. If they adhere to this rock they shall stand. If they build on any other foundation they shall certainly fall into a thousand fragments. From this centre went forth the great Apostles that evangelised the nations, and the churches which they founded should re nain in holy dose communion with this centre of life and unity. To use another figure, it is the heart from which tbe blood should flow in healthy streams through the members of the mystio eody of Christ.

To render this union the more close it has been the custom to erect here representative national churches, bearing the names ot the Apostles or other prominent saints of the different countries. On the present occasion we are assembled to witness the ceremony of laying the first stone of such a sacred edifice. Fourteen hundred and fifty years ago a missionary bishop was seat from this city by the then reigni g Pope St. Oelestine, to the island of Ireland with the Apostolic mission and benediction, in order to convert that people to Christianity. How truly wonderful has been the success of his mission no one cm question. In every portion of the civilised world the name of St. Patrick, the Apostle of the Irish nation and race, is mentioned, 10-day the eyes and hearts of that race are turned to^fjrds this sacred spot. An liish Archbishop and Primate blesses the foundation-stone of this edifice, on this the festival of St. Bridget, the second patron of the island. The church itself shall be in charge of a religious Order which worked much and suff red much in *he past for religion in Ireland. Children of Ireland aud their descen'daitß are here from the island itself, from England, from distant Australia, and ludia, and I, with many others, come from the new world — a world undiscovered for centuries after the conversion of Ireland but which now- numbers more of Irish blood than the cradle island itself. I come to speak to you of the thoughts and sentiments which this occasion suggests, first as a Catholic ceremony which should interest all, no matter of what nationality, and then as especially interesting to the race evangelised by St. Patrick.

In looking down from one of the eminences of this seven-hilled city, we behold at once the ruins of classic paganism and the many churches whose cross-crowned domes proclaim the triumph of Christianity. Again we behold towering in majesty and grace above all the&e, the dome of Peter, symbolising the supremacy of the Vicar of Jesus Christ. In contemplating the various national churches under the shadow of that dome, we cannot but be struck with the evidence they furnish of the divine origin of the Catholic Church itself. The perfect UDity of all these churches between themselves and with the See of Peter is a marvel. This unity is intellectual, sacramental, and governu ntal. The intellectual unity of every tribe and tongue and people — differing in every thing but in this one faith, has no parallel in the history of our race. Add to this the union in the same sacramental system and in the same form of governmeni under the one head, and your wonder must increase. The phenomenon is still magnified when we contemplate the Catholicity of the Church. Unity in Catholicity — Catholicity in unity, is a direct unanswerable argument that the Church ia a divine iustitution. Paganism attempted such a combination, When the Romans conquered a nation they adopted its gods, and had them enshrined in Borne as a great religious as well as political centre, and the Emperor was not only the temporal ruler, but also bore the title of Supreme Pontiff. This was an attempt at Catholicity in unity, and unity in Catholicity, an effort to rave Pagan national temples or shrines. But we know that the Romans adopted these deities without believing in them, we know that at one time they enshriued as many as 30,000 gods ; but all these deities and ruligious systems were in contradiction. There was a kind of Catholicity without unity, without a supreme central authority to teach with unerring certainty what is the truth of God.

In the Jewish Church there was unity because such an authority a 9 the hi^h piiests decision was final, and it waß death to contradict it. But in the Jewish Church, which was national, there was no Catholicity. In the Christian Ohureb unity and * atholicity are both tmiied, for it extends to all the na ions of the earth, and there is yet the gieat central authority iv the Sovereign Pontiff, the successor of Peter. Heuce the immense importance of the office of the Pope. The Church is not unfreqivntiy reproached with making too much of the Sovereign Puntiff, and to those who have not the key of faith and do not dis mguish be ween the office and the man, this complaint may not seem gioundless. 'ih y feel that no one but the mau-God can be secuie on the pinnacle of the temple, and the dizzy height is fa al to human weakness. To this we reply that officially he is the Vicar of Jesus Christ, and in that sublime vicarious capacity ia worthy of all honour, because it is honour given to Christ in His representative, and the power ihat exalted him protects him. You beheld the Pope on the d«*y ot his sacerdotal jubilee, borne aloft on the hhoulders of men through the mobt glorious temple of the universe, amidst ihe admiration and ace amation of thousands of cv ry nation under heaven, whilst Architecture, Sculpture, and glorious Music seemed to pay tribute to him. He seemud almost a god as he scattered his benedictions from on high— all eyes seemed to hop» in him as he opened his hand to fill every creature with his blefcsin£, whilst the great pnlars and arches almost trembled with the mignty anthem, " Behold, a great priest who in his day pleased GoJ and was tound jubt " At length, at the tomb of l-'eter, he descends and receives the homage ot that splendid senate of the Church — that congregation of men of gica^ learning and sanctity, the College of Cardinals. P.ttiia'chs, bishops, and priests bow in reverence before him, und •• on i-arth thi-rs is none like to him in glory." But behold in another pkcj another scene on tne next day. One of those pior monks who p-is°e«! by you id th* great procession unobserved and unkuowu to you, si's on a chair iv a lonely room, with a purple stole upon his sh mldeis. An aged feeble man approaches the cnair, and ialhng on his kne.s at the feet of the poor ecclesiastic, be exclaims in accents of humiliauun and sorrow : " Bless me, Father, for I have sinned " ; and he tells the sins of his lifd and begs the priest to piay to Gou for him ami to foigive him in His name. That priest is, tor the time being, the superior, the judge and the spiritual pby&ician of that old man ; and the old man is no other than the great Pontiff himsoli, whose praises reechoed through the nave and aisles and dt^oe of St. Peter's but yesterday 1 Thus, whilst the Church exa ti JA office, she humbles and protects the mau, who has to tremble for hs^n salvation in co perilous and responsible a position ; and we are guilty of no man-worship, but honour Jesus (Jhritt in His representative, as the Pope hvn< vi s Him in the priest to whom he confesses his sins and through whom God forgives him.

Another thought that must strike us in contemplating the national churches of Rome, extending as they do from the Apostolic Ages until the present time, is the wonderful fruitfuloess of the Spouse of Jesus Christ.

How many nations has she not brought forth to God ! How barren have heresy and schism beea in comparison to her ! Why f Because the old Apostolic blood courses in her veins-the blood blessed with fecundity. Though others have claimed Apostolic succession, no other can claim Apostolic mission and success. The blood of Abraham warmed the veins of Ishmael, the outcast son of the bondwoman ; but not to the son of the bondwoman, but of the free woman was the piomise of a mighty generation pledged. From Rome went forth the national apostles to various countries, which furnished so many millions of converts. The promulgation of Christianity and its sustained success of nearly nineteen centuries is a striking proof that it is of higher than human origin— a proof to which I think we ought to more frequently advert, as it if a philosophic one, depending on the principle that an effect mast hare an adequate cause.

I am aware that causes, other than that of its divine origin, hare been assigned for this wonderful propagation of Christianity at first, and its sustained existence since. But a little impartial examination must show the entire want of proportion between causa and effect, and the confusion of these terms, so that what are called causes are evidently effects of one highest cause. The celebrated five causes assigned by Gibbon for the conquests of Christianity,— namely : that the Church taught the doctrine of the immortality of the soul — that her first children were conspicuous for the great sanctity of their lives — that miracles were said to have been performed by them, and that thousands of martyrs freely shed taeir blood rather than deny their faith, and that, above all, the wonderful unity of faith and charity which they exhibited to the woild, influenced the progress of Cnristianity, and eff ;cted the wonders which Catholics attribute to a divine influence. These causes, no doubt aided, and still aid, the progress of the Church in every nation. The? are as rivers flawing down the mountain side, and feeding tha great lake at its base. But what feeds the five rivers? Whence comes the water ? What is the cause of the five causes 1 Follow the rivers up the mountain sides and you find them spring from one source — the pierced heart of Jesus Christ — the fountain of living waters, and the five tides gush from Hia five wounds on the Mount of Crucifixion. The doctrine of the immortality of the human soul had been taught by great philosophers before, and was generally believed ; yet it produced no such results as when taught by the Church. How could she have so wonderfully sanctified her children as to have made them the wonder of the pagan world, and without a new divine principle of sanctfication, and how could she have continued that process of sanctification for nearly nineteen centuries t Fanaticism is of brief existence, ani a few fanatics might be produced by temporary excitement, but no such results as nineteen centuries of sanctity. How could she perform miracles without a divine power to do so, and if tbese miracles were not real, there stands, as St. Augustine observes, the great living miracle of her own progress without the aid of miracles? Besides, the fact of occasional false miracles by deception, only proves that some true ones must have existed, as men do not counterfeit counterfeits, but realities, and without realities we shou-d have no counterfeits. How could she have produced millions of martyrs, not martyrs to theories and opinions, but, as the term means, witnesses to facts which they had peen or heard— dying witn the declaration of the Apostles on their lips : "We cannot but say the things which we have seen and heard 1 " Above all, how could she have effected that unity jf faith and sacraments, and government, and maintained it for so many centuries ? How unphilosophic it is then to account for the fecundity of the Church by secondary causes, ignoring the primary one, which can be no other than the fact that she is a divine institution bearing the benediction which fructifies.

Thus we learn, brethren, from the contemplation of these national churches of Rome, the great characteristics of the Church of God in general —her fruitluluess, her combined Catholicity and unity, and how vital is the connection between these and the Primacy of Peter aud his successor, the Koman Pontiff, and how, in one word, she is a divine institution- Tiipse les-ons are confirmed by the ceremony for which we are assembled to-day. In no country of the world was the hand of God more visible in the propagation of Christianity than in Ireland. The people received the faith without the shedding of a drop of martyr's blood. A.t once they recognised the truth, and beauty, and sanctity of the new doctrines, embraced them, and became their zealoU3 anJ most faithful propagators. It has been some times asserted that Irish love for the Church arises rather from national feeling, which has been identified with religious enthusiasm ; and that, in realicy, ttey are Irish first and Catholics afterwards, and only as a consequence. If so, why did they abandon b> easily their national pagan taith, practices and traditions, at the pleaching of an alien — a former fugitive slave ? If so, why di<i the pi oud kings and fierce soldiers and zealous priests and national bard? yield so soon and so easily to the foreign yoke 1 How could churches and monasteries spring up as if by magi'? throughout the land? How could all this be done but because the religious element was deep and strong in these Irish natures, and because Christianity had the divine power to act upon, purify and intensify it. The island was known as Holy Ireland, and the Island of Saints and Doctors. The Venerable Bede, the English historian, tells us that when Europe was desolated by war, •' all who sought instruction in the sciences or stricter discipline in religion, leaving thtir homes and country, fled to Ireland, and were gratuitously supported by its people." But there was wanting one glory 10 complete the perfection of Ireland's fiielity. In the chorus of apostles, con. fe3sors and virgins she had her representative saints— in all choirs but one. The saint that she bad n<;t was the martyr, and the flower that appeared not the pi3sion flower. I will not harrow your souls by relating the anguish she endured in the days when her faith was tried; in tiie clays of the penal laws and the famines, when her children

•preferred death on the scaffold or by starvation in their cabina saoner than abandon the faith brought by St. Patrick from Rome, and were aa really martyrs as ever fell in Roman Coliseum or were buried in Roman Catacombs. Never was a nation's faith and nationality bo perfectly united. In other land's individuals and families suffered for their fidelity to faith, and all honour to them ; but here was a whole nation of martyrs suffering as a nation. Had Ireland become Fro* testant with England and Scotland she might, like them, be prosperous to-day ; bat because she would not, and clung to the old cross and the old faith, she is not prosperous, but poor like the Lord for she suffered. X It is true that she is no longer persecuted for her faith ; bat we ▼must remember tha it is little over half a century sines Catholic Emancipation was obtained,— and half a century is a short time in a nation 'B life,— and that she suffers still from the old wounds and from the Teligious prejudices that still remain. Not only was she faithful to the Church at home, but when her children had to leave that island of fidelity and sorrow, when her enemies trampled in the dost her national banner wet with her blood, she grasped the napkin of Veronica, waved it above the heads of her children, bore it in triumph to America and Australia and India, and planted it wherever a church could be built in honour of Him whose image it bore. The names of tbe old faith and the old country were whispered together in the gloom of the mine, in the glare of the furnace, in the mire of the new canal or railroad, in the rush of the cities, in the solitude of the plains — everywhere were creed and country hallowed in the hearts of these exiles of Brio. It is aimply impossible to account for Irish faith and fidelity except the Church be a divine institution. May we not hope that on this auspicious day — the festival of Bridget, the second patron of Ireland— on this day and on this occasion, when this representative Church is inaugurated, — on this day when here, near to the spot where rest the remains of Pope St. Celestine, who sent St. Patrick, — here amid the hallowed shrines and memories of so many maTtyrs, — here with special blessing of the Pope, who received this morning the Irish pilgrims, and feeling that the heart of Celestine palpitates in the breast of Leo, and that he will never sacrifice what Celestine sanctified, but will preserve it inviolate ; — here to-day with St. Patrick and St. Bridget and the other Irish saints looking down from the sanctuary of Heaven, may we not pause to hear from afar the deep pathetic hopeful words which God once said to weeping Israel, now addressed to a land more loving and faithful to Him than was even Israel : " Poor little one, tossed with tempest and without all comfort, behold I will lay thy stones in order and thy foundation* with sapphires." Now, may we not hope that this, though a real, is also a symbolic ceremony, and that is symbolizes the inauguration of peace and prosperity for that poor little one of God " tossed with tempest and without all comfort." Without all comfort, but not without all hope. In the faith that she has preserved and the morality it must produce, in the rigorous chastity of her sons and daughters, in all the eleaents of Christian civilisation she rejoices in hope. Hers is a chaste generation that shall have glory. There is a civilisation above that of successful commerce and education — ihe civilisation which could sacrifice boih for God and conscience, and that is her civilisation and the grounds of her hope. To all who would speak to her of despair, and ask why she continues loyal to a Church on account of which she has suffered so much, she answers as did the holy and hopeful Tobias when similaily reproached by his degenerate fellow countrymen: " Where is thy hope ?" they said to him, " for which thou gayest alms and buned tbe dead 1 " But Tobias rebuked them, saying . " ripeak not so, for we a c che children of saints and look for that life which God will give to those that never change their faith from him." On the conclusion of the sermon the students burst into unusual applause, which was echoed by the people in the tribunes. Amongst those present on this great, joyous and memorable occasion, besides the Archbishop of Dublin and the Archbishop of Phila. delpbia, were the Archbishop of Bphesus, Mgr. Tobias Kirby, rector of tbe Iribb. College; Mgr. CL.ary, Bishop of Kingston, Canada; Mgr. Moore, Bishop of Ballarat, Australia ; Mgr. O'Callaghan, Bishop of Cork Ireland ; Mgr. Donnelly, Bishop titular of Canea and Auxiliary of Dublin ; Mgr. Butler, Bishop of Denmara ; Mgr. Burke, Bishop of Cheyenne, Wyoming ; Mgr. Clifford, Bishop of Clifton, England ; Mgr. Riddle, Bishop of Northampt n ; Rev. Father Stanislaus White, Procurator General of the Trapp'sts ; Bey. Dr. Brown, President St. Pairick's College, Maynooth Rev. Father Patrick O'Hare. St. Anthony's, Brooklyn ; Rev. Mgr. Stonor, Mgr. Stacpoole, Mgr. O'Connell, rector of the American College ; Archdeacon Hogan, Rev. Father Hickey, O.P , Prior of St. Clement's, Rome ; Rev. Father Luke Carey, 0.5.F.. Guardian of St. Isidore's, Rome; Rev. Father Richard, Rev. Dr. Verdon, vice- rector of the Irish College, Rome ; Rev. Father Petit, chaplain to the Archbishop of Dublin ; Rev. Frs. Thompson, Ryan, D^lany, etc. ; the Commendatore^ Hickey, of New York ; Cassell, of Rome ; De Rossi, the great Christian archaeologist ; Messrs. Donahue, of fan B'rancisco, Connellan, of Boston, Mrs. Ashman, of New York, and a host of others too numerous to mention. The Secretary of the Propaganda, Mgr. Jacobini, occupied a place in tbe Prelates' tribune ; near here wus the Duke of Norfolk, who, learning that personal application for tickets was necessary, called at Santa Maria in Posterula on Monday evening and received bis ticket. During the ceremony of to-day he handed the Prior a cheque for £50. Mr Peter O'Donabue, of San Francisco, doubled the noble Duke'.s offering, he giving the Prijr a cheque for £100. Tbe weather during the morning was cold ; heavy snow, for Rome, had f .lien, and the deputation to the Pope had in many cases hrn no carnages plied while the ground was frozen. But the lapkept good and the sun shone brightly at intervals during tie c^emony in the Villa Ludovisi All preset t seem* dto feel that it was one of the most rem-rkable occasions that Rome has seen, even i» this jubilee year,

P. L. Connellan.