'STAND FAST IN THE FAITH'

New Zealand Tablet, 20 May 1915, Page 9

'STAND FAST IN THE FAITH'

J (A'-Weekly Instruction- specially written for the \; -•■- v N.Z. Tablet by Ghimel.) ;1;/ A TIME TO WORK. : .--/:' C .. 'I must work the works of Him that sent me; whilst; : it is day the night cometh, when no man can work' (St. John ix. 4). ' ■ -r .' ~ ' •- '- \ .. Our Lord's attention having been drawn to the sad spectacle of a man blind from his birth, He was asked to say whether it was the man's own sin or that of his parents' which was the cause of his misfortune. In His reply the Saviour would neither deny the existence of sin nor yet set up any connection between the fact of sin and the fact of the affliction . v The presence of suffering such as this, He would say, gives us no right to pass judgment on those who suffer ; it only summons us to fulfil a Divine mission towards them by assisting them. ' As truly as evil exists in the world, so truly has God His work on earth; and His work consists in finding matter for good in evil itself. Hence all the acts by which we concur in the accomplishment of this Divine purpose are called "the works of God." But this word is here applied more specially to acts which bear the seal of Divine omnipotence, such as the physical cure of the blind man, and his spiritual illumination. The call to heal this unhappy one has made itself felt in the Lord's heart at the very moment when His eyes beheld him, and it was with this feeling that He fixed them upon him. Jesus seeks to make His disciples share with Him the point of view from which He regards suffering, by applying it to His personal task during His sojourn on earth.' Christ felt Himself compelled to work. ' I must work.' It was because He was so closely bound to the sons of men by the cords of love that He could not but do something to enlighten their minds, warm their hearts, and even cure their bodily ailments. He could not be clothed in our mortal flesh and. remain a careless spectator of evil and misery. He must needs work for men, even sacrifice Himself for them. His disciples, too, must work the works of God, while it is day. The springs of human misery are perennial and offer countless occasions of Christian duty. It is vain to say that we have no special work to do. Time passes ; what is lost to-day cannot be gained tomorrow. Who can honestly stand idle all the day? ' One it must be who can find neither poverty, nor ignorance, nor wickedness at hand ; who cannot influence one person by the Christian tone of his own life ; who cannot/sweeten the daily life of his home with kindness who never comes near a sinner rushing headlong to his ruin ; who cannot even find a child to encourage in struggling with an evil temper, or a stricken heart to be consoled by a word of sympathy.' Two incidents will serve to illustrate this point. The first is told by Bishop Feriton in the Life of Cardinal Vaughan. ' In the summer vacation of 1856 I -remained behind for a few days. A message came from Royston that there was a German woman dying there who could not speak English, and was a Catholic. They asked if anybody could go to her from the college. Dr. Vaughan, who spoke German, at once volunteered to go. . . . He found the poor woman alive, heard her confession, and gave her the last Sacraments. I believe she died the next day. Some forty years afterwards, on my recalling this to his memory, he said, "Ah, yes; I remember it well, and I have often quoted it as an instance that we never know how anything we learn may be turned to God's account. He has His own design in prompting us to acquire, say, a language, and I have often cited this example of my visit to that poor German woman as an illustration of this, for it was the only occasion in my whole life that I ever had any practical need of the German language. I have no doubt"that God inspired me to study German for the sake of that poor woman's salvation." ' The other incident is told by Mandell Creighton, the distinguished historian, in one of his letters: 'I should have said your letter delighted me, but for the

news you gave me of D-— 's death. . ■ . fi It is awful; not that death is awful or even to be regretted, but I could have borne with more composure the news of the death of my most intimate friend. Learn from me what I never so fully realised before, the self-reproach that follows upon the omission of duty. lam most deeply, grieved when I think that D—'s appearance, manners, peculiarities, stood in my way of doing what I might have done time after time I have thought of his real , merits, of his honesty, integrity, zeal, conscientiousness, and I have thought, “Some day when I have more time, when I am less worried, I will try and see if I cannot make his solitary life happier, make him less eccentric.’’ I have felt that it was hard for him to be condemned to loneliness, to be cheered by scanty sympathy on his course, which was an honest hardfought one, because his voice was loud, and other little matters. I feel that I have weakly disregarded a noble human soul because it had an unsightly body; and now he has gone, and I cannot ask his pardon or make amends.’