CARDINAL GIBBONS ON "THE STUDY OF CHRIST."

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIX, Issue 37, 19 June 1891, Page 29

CARDINAL GIBBONS ON "THE STUDY OF CHRIS T."

" The Study and Imitation of Canst, the Shortest and the Safest Road to Perfection " was the subject of a Bermon delivered in the Cathedral, Baltimore, on Sunday, March 15th, by His Eminence Cardinal Gibbons. The sermon was in part as follows : "Various methods are proposed for obtaining Christian holiness. For my part 1 am firmly persuaded that the shortest and safest road to Christian perfection is found in the study and imitation of the life of Christ. Contemplate your Master as He is presented to you in the pages of the Gospel. Meditate on tbat life. No matter bow fast we rnn on th«roadof perfection, He is tver before us, urging uson to the goal of victory. No matter how high we may soar into the regions of spiritual light, He is still hovering above ua inviting us to ascend higher, us the eagle entices her young ones to fly. No matter how much we may endure in the cause of rightousness, we find Him laden with a still heavier cross and bearing deeper wounds, Jesus never inculcates any virtue that he does nut practice in an eminent degree. We are drawn toward Him more by the charm of His life than by the sublimity of His doctrine and by the eloquence of His words. •' The most admired discourse He ever delivered was the Bermon on the Mount. But even the Sermon on the Mount pales before the Sermon on the Cross. There we fijd eloquence in action, and if Our Lord had restricted His mission to the preaching of the Word, like the Scribes and Pharisees, without illustrating that Word by His glorious example, Hewould never have caused tiat mighty moral revolution which has channel the face of t' c wor d. Waen we hear Him fay, ' Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy,' we are 'Relighted with Ha doctrine, but w<t «r.i roora prof>undly moved 'when we witness His compassion to the huagjring multitude ia the desert and His mercy shown to the erring Magdalen, who wi,g spurned by the sanciim miuus but lecheruua Pharisees. " When he kays, 'If you will not forgive, neither will your Heavenly Father forgive you,' He ia only clothing an old commtndment in new words. But when we see Him praying from the Crsa for his executioners, ' Father, forgive them, for they kuow not what they do,' He gives us a sublime lesson of forgiveness nsver before exhibited by sage or prophet. When we see His calm dignity under

the most provoking inialti, His sublime tlleaoe nnder the moat bias* pbemoas calumnies, what a lesion to at to keep oar tamper whea hard words are said against os ; to keep down the spirit of resentmeat that would arise in oar breasts. " In His conduct when He sees the temple of God changed to a market place you learn never to compromise with sin, bat to let yoar face against all corruption whether it larks at band, or stalks abroad in social or political life. Now witness Him at the tomb of Lasaras. See how the lion of the temple is transformed into the lamb at the tomb, how the lion among thieres becomes the lamb among the mourners. Toe eye that flashed with indignation in the temple melts with tears at the grave of a friend. The Gospel tells as that whea Jesus stood at the grave of L&Eiras, He wept. I never read in the Gospel that Jesus laughed, but I read that He wept ; and yet the tears of Jesus have brought more joy and consolation to the human heart than all the mirth-provoking books that ever were written. Jesus wept to teach us that He had a human heart as well as a divine personality. " This incident teaches as that the most delicate sensibility is not incompatible with the most sturdy manhood. Nay, it teaches xm more— that tender sympathy and Bensibility are essential to trn* manhood. The courage of the man is not the courage of the brute. The mao that has gone down in the hnman he rt and sounded the depths of its sorrows as Christ has done, he is best fitted to bear his own cross when the hand of adversity presses heavily upon him. Make yourself familiar by frequent perusal with the words and deeds of your Master. Christ will be your light in darkness. He will be yoar companioa in solita ie, yoar rest in weariness of soul, your teacher in doubt, your joy and consolation in sorrow and affliction, and He will lead you into everlasting life."