The Catholic World

“ The Catholic Church alone possesses, as her undivided property, the glorious character of Catholic. In her communion alone, numbers of holy apostolic men have abounded in all ages, who, leaving all they possessed or could expect in this world, and burning with zeal for the conversion of souls to God, have dedicated themselves entirely to carry the light of the Gospel to those who " sat in darkness and in the shadow of death," and to bring heathen nations to the knowledge of Jesus Christ. ”

“ Is it not undeniable, that the very life of personal religion among Catholics lies in a knowledge of the Gospels? It is the character and conduct of our Lord, his words, his deeds, his sufferings, his work, which are the very food of our devotion and rule of our life. "Behold the Man," which this author feels to be an object novel enough to write a book about, has been the contemplation of Catholics from that first age when St. Paul said, "The life that I now live in the flesh, I live in the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered himself for me." ”

“ These are some of the bitter fruits of the separation from Catholic unity: those who took this step under the pretence of seeking a higher spiritual life are afflicted with spiritual languor and death; and they who were led by a boasted independence of Christ have fallen into the snares of Satan and become his dupes and abject slaves. Behold the revenge of neglected Catholic truth; for only in Catholic unity every truth is held in its true relation with all other truths, shines in its full splendor, and produces its wholesome and precious fruits! ”

“ No Catholic will misunderstand us. We appreciate as much as any one can the external authority of the church, her supremacy, her infallibility; we accept ex animo the supremacy and infallibility of the successor of St. Peter in the See of Rome, as defined in the recent Council of the Vatican, and should be no better than a Protestant if we did not; but that external authority is not alone, or alone sufficient, as every Catholic knows, for the soul, and its acceptance is not sufficient for salvation. The Holy Ghost must dwell in the individual soul, forming “Christ within, the hope of glory.” ”

“ Right in the face of this scornful infidelity or shaky faith, it is noble to see the Catholic world, especially the young Catholic world, rising up everywhere to proclaim openly, boldly, and with no hesitation in the tone, its whole-souled faith in the Roman Catholic Church, its tenets, its doctrines, and its practices. Allusion, as will be understood, is made chiefly to the pilgrimages in Europe, and more particularly to the contingent furnished by Protestant England. ”

“ One who disdained the thought of diluting Catholic doctrine to suit the delicate palate of the age, who was regardless of the opinion of men, who plumed his pinions for a kind of audacious flight into the lofty ether in which saints alone are wont to soar and poise in contemplation, who threw off all drapery from the glorious form of Catholic truth, and loudly called on all men to gaze and worship, is the one who wins the confidence and captivates the hearts of the greatest number of the church’s lost and estranged children. ”

“ Now, brethren, all of us ought to be messengers of God to our neighbor and to the world. {28} We are all Catholics, have all been called to know the true faith, and we have all been taught how to observe God's moral law. First, then, we Catholics ought to be the angels of God on earth to those who are not Catholics. We ought to do our best in our own little circle to spread the knowledge of our holy religion. By our lives we ought to show the world that the Catholic religion makes us better citizens, better and more honest men of business, and truer lovers of our neighbors and mankind. ”

“ The preacher continues:
"'Is IT HONEST to accuse Catholics of putting the Blessed Virgin or the saints in the place of God or of the Lord Jesus Christ? You have the answer. You know the place which God claims for himself the 'honor which He will not give to another.' You have heard from the very words of the Roman Catholics themselves the place to which they exalt the spirits of departed men and women." ”

“ A Catholic feels truly that the life of the apostles and evangelists glows in his bosom, that the blood of martyrs runs in his very blood and ennobles it, that the guileless simplicity and innocent loveliness of the virgins beams on his countenance, that the virtues of all the saints are transfused into him; because at the eucharistic banquet he can meet them living in the eternal mediator of all things, the Theanthropos, and in him and through him he mingles with them, associates with them, comes into the closest possible communication with them. ”

“ The infallible Church Catholic is, really, the prophetic soul of the wide world dreaming of things to come; the whole human race, in its onward progress, discovering truth more complete than the parcel of truth any momentary individual can seize. ”

“ To ensure this the father of the faithful sets the whole Catholic world together praying, and fasting, and giving alms, and confessing their sins, and making holy, devout communion, so as to take heaven by storm, as our Lord said we might. "For the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away." What a sublime spectacle, which only the Catholic Church can show—two hundred and fifty millions of people all turning to God at once! No wonder the Catholic Church saves the world. ”

“ The church, therefore, was not taken by surprise, when the “Syllabus” appeared, however much its publication may have struck with astonishment and alarm the party of revolution and unbelief. Catholics, at least, could not fail to be swayed by such a masterly exposition of Catholic theology on so many subjects, all intimately connected with human conduct in private life as well as in affairs of public [pg 270] import. And there were Catholics everywhere—among the rulers of the world and its leading statesmen, no less than in all classes and grades of society. ”

“ The Catholic religion has covered the world with its superb monuments. Protestantism has now lasted three hundred years; it was powerful in England, in Germany, in America. What has it raised? It will show us the ruins which it has made amidst which it has planted some gardens, or established some factories. The Catholic religion is essentially a creative power, built up, not to destroy, because it is under the immediate influence of that Holy Spirit which the Church invokes as the Creative Spirit, "Creator Spiritus." ”

“ The Catholic Church is to-day more zealous, more compact, more united, more confident of herself, more energetic, and better organized, than she was at the commencement of 1871. The Roman Catholics have good reason to be thankful that their church has gained in faith, in the spirit of sacrifice and prayer, in devoutness in worship, and in all Christian virtues. ”

“ If they receive you not, says the Lord unto his disciples, go your ways out into the streets of the same city, and say, Even the very dust of your city, which cleaveth on us, we do wipe off against you; yet know this, that the kingdom of God is at hand. The invincibility of Catholicism grows out of the power of its principle. As of old in enabling the apostles to heal the sick, so at the present day in her varied fortunes the Church approves herself the kingdom of God.
But how is the interior of the Church related to the exterior? The word of the kingdom is the seed of Catholicism. ”

“ But I can say for myself and for every Catholic who has been properly instructed in his religion, that we do not undertake to defend what has been done weakly or wickedly by men, even though they too called themselves Catholics.
I believe that light travels from east to west, and the faith which Judea gave to Rome, and Rome to Europe, and Europe to us, is the faith by which we are to be saved, if saved at all. ”

“ In face of this universal, protracted, bitter, and resolute opposition to Catholicity on the part of so many great states, we find the church, as in the days of the apostles, adding daily to her number “those that should be saved.” Here, too, we find, as in all Christian history, the greatest and sharpest contrasts—those contrasts that it baffles human ingenuity to explain. The Catholic Church is to-day strongest where, according to human calculation, she ought to be weakest, and weakest where she ought to be strongest. ”

“ The idea of Catholicism, therefore, coincides with that of fulness. As the pleroma of him who filleth all in all, the Church harbors in her bosom a treasure, the richness of which is inexhaustible. Every created thing, every single period, every particular phase of the culture of the human mind, has some good attribute. ”

“ The church is the purest, most perfect, and most enlightened revelation of the divine Being, and none other understands what is worship. From a religious stand-point the Catholicism of the Latin peoples is the best, the most rational, and the most perfect. Rome, in spite of her repeated and frightful falls, remains the only legitimate church. ”

“ The Christian religion must be held by us, and the communion of that church which is Catholic, and is called Catholic, not only by its own members, but also by all its enemies. For, whether they will or no, the very heretics themselves and the offspring of schisms, when they talk not with their own friends, but with people outside, call the Catholic Church nothing else but Catholic. ”

“ In spite of all the shocks which the feeling of a good Catholic has in this Protestant country inevitably to undergo, in spite of the contemptuous insensibility to the grandeur of Rome which he finds so general and so hard to bear, how much has he to console him, how many acts of homage to the greatness of his religion, may he see if he has his eyes open! ”

“ It happened that in those days, as now, the government and people of France were of the Catholic religion. England, on the other hand, was Protestant. There is a great difference between the Catholic and the Protestant systems. The Catholic Church, though it extends nearly all over the world, is banded together, as the reader is aware, under one man—the pope—who is the great head of the Church, and who lives in state at Rome. The Catholics have, in all countries, many large and splendid churches, which are ornamented with paintings and images of the Virgin Mary and of Christ. ”

“ This spiritual insight springing from the light of faith is the secret source of Catholic life, the inward principle which prompts the obedience of Catholics to the divine authority of the holy church, and from which is born the consciousness of the soul’s filiation with God, whence flow that perfect love and liberty which always accompany this divine Sonship. ”

“ Hence it is that Catholics, in all emergencies, even in the most calamitous, nay, even in those caused by the worst iniquities of unscrupulous men, do not fail to adore the goodness and justice of Almighty God, and to acknowledge the inscrutable dispositions of his most holy will. ”

“ The Catholic is taught to base his belief on a higher motive—the divine assurance of our Saviour himself that he would always be with his church until the end of time, that he would send the spirit of truth to teach her all truth and to abide with her for ever, and that the gates of hell should never prevail against her. Our ears catch the words of the Saviour, "Whosoever heareth you, heareth me;—whosoever despiseth you, despiseth me;" ”

“ We Catholics, on the contrary, are rich in the possession of a divine promise which keeps us cheerful and buoyant with hope in the face of what seems like the final triumph of the wicked. And this is more especially true when we have to deal with those who plot against the church and its visible Head, adversus Dominum, et adversus Christum ejus. ”

“ We celebrate on this day the foundation of the Catholic Church. For it was on this day that the Holy Ghost came down on the Apostles to bestow those gifts of grace which make the Catholic Church a reality. This descent of the Holy Ghost was the fulfilment of prophecies made by the ancient prophets of the old law, who, under the figures of Sion and Jerusalem, have described the Holy Roman Church, and the universal Church under her obedience, diffused through out the world. ”

“ Looked at with the eyes of ordinary common sense, and from a merely worldly standipoint, the Catholic Church, under these governments, which are so strong and powerful, and play so large and important a part in the world, is in about as bad a condition as its worst wisher could desire. ”

“ Aided by divine grace, they awakened the indifferent, converted heretics, gathered about them the few Catholics who immigrated from Europe, attracted all men by their affable and conciliating manners, their intelligence and education, and the disinterestedness of their lives. Soon on this apparently sterile soil Catholic parishes grew up and flourished in the midst of people who had never before seen a priest. ”

“ Yet, this is the first lesson that the Catholic child learns at his mother's knee, As he goes on, he learns more and more of God's works of mercy toward man, of his institutions for our salvation and our sanctification, and all he learns he sees reproduced in a glance in the ceremonial of the church, which speaks to him in accents more and more eloquent, as his knowledge expands and his heart is brought more fully into conformity with God's holy teachings. In the liturgy and the various other rites of the church, she has enshrined all the great dogmas of religion. ”