Hunolt Sermons/Volume 12/Sermon 39

St. John was a penitent, and therefore a wonderful man. Preached on the feast of St. John Baptist.

"And all they that had heard them laid them up in their heart, saying: What an one, think ye, shall this child be?" (Luke 1:66)

All that happened before, during, and after the birth of St. John the Baptist was most wonderful. St. Thomas of Villanova gives us a pithy description of those wonders: " An angel brings the message," he says; " his father becomes dumb, a barren woman conceives, the virgin greets, the boy leaps for joy, the moth er prophesies, the name is given from heaven, it is known to the mother by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, it is written down by the father, the string of his tongue is loosed, and from, being a dumb man the father becomes a prophet: what a number of miracles happened at his birth!" With reason were all who heard of them astonished, so that they asked each other; " What an one, think ye, shall this child be? " If, my dear brethren, I had been present, and had foreseen the life of St. John, I should have answered: This child will prove the greatest miracle of all. And I should have been right; for we must consider St. John as a living miracle when we look at his penitential life: as I shall now show.

St. John was a penitent, and therefore a most wonderful man. Such is the whole subject of this panegyric. Sinners! ye just! ye innocent! whoever you may be, you, too, must do penance; such shall be the conclusion by way of a moral lesson.

That all may profit by it, grant us Thy grace, Almighty God, through the intercession of Thy Mother Mary, of Thy holy precursor St. John, and of our guardian angels.

If I read the Lives of the Saints I find many examples of servants of God who led such penitential lives and were so hard on themselves that I have reason to shake with fear, and to say to myself: Alas, how little I have done for heaven! I think of the saintly David, and the words resound in my ears that he sighed forth to God: " I am ready for scourges, and my sorrow is continually before me." The tears he shed during the night in his constant vigils were enough to bedew his couch: " Every night I will wash my bed; I will water my couch with my tears. " His fasting and mortification were so severe that he ate ashes in stead of bread, and tears of repentance were his drink: " I did eat ashes like bread, and mingled my drink with weeping." Then I remember the holy apostle St. Peter, whose cheeks were furrowed and ploughed up by the tears of bitter sorrow he was constantly shedding; St. Paul, that chosen vessel of election, who in the midst of his trials and sufferings chastised his wearied body most mercilessly: " I chastise my body, and bring it into subjection," as he says of himself. Then I behold St. Mary Magdalene, who separated herself from the society of men, and lacerated her body with scourges even to blood. If I enter in spirit into the deserts and wildernesses, I find hearts broken with continual contrition and sorrow; bodies blanched and wasted by uninterrupted vigils, hunger, and thirst, more dead than alive, clad with hair-shirts furnished with sharp iron nails, scourged with thongs armed with spurs and knives, and other terrible implements of penance with which those repentant souls chastised the flesh. Amongst others, I seem to behold a St. Victorinus placing his hand like a wedge between the parts of a cleft tree, and there holding it until it was crushed, to his great pain and torture; Jacobonus, who buried himself alive in the grave of a dead person, and there, amid the fearful stench of corrupting flesh, passed his life in shedding tears of contrition; Guarinus, who crawled out of his solitude to Rome on his hands and feet, like a dumb beast, returned in the same manner, and continued in that posture for the remainder of his life, until, covered altogether,like a beast, with hair, he was captured by hunters. I pass over others.

What think you of this, my dear brethren? Are you not horrified at the penitential lives of such holy people? Truly, you have reason for wondering; yet I cannot help thinking that they are no great miracles of penitence after all. Why not? Read the account of their previous lives, and you will agree with me.

All these penitents, although they then served God truly, had been great sinners and had grievously offended God. David had been an adulterer and murderer; Peter had denied Christ; Paul had been a persecutor of the Christians; Magdalene had been a notorious sinner in the city: "A woman that was in the city, a sinner." (Luke 7:37) Victorinus had committed impure actions with the hand that he crushed in the cloven tree; Jacobonus had been guilty of carnal lust with the person in whose grave he had lain; Guarinus also had misused the body that he allowed to grow in to the semblance of a wild beast for brutish lusts. What wonder, then, that all these, after they had entered into themselves and become converted to God, inflicted such severe penances on, themselves.

It would have been more astonishing if they had done no pen- And penance at all, for to what purpose are austerities, if sinners are not in want of them? What is a sinner? asks Tertullian. He is a man, is the answer, who after having committed sin lives still on earth to do penance, that is, to suffer, to deny himself, to mortify his senses and sensuality, to chastise and crucify his body. And this is only right and just. For could the great God expect any less from a mean creature by whom His infinite majesty has been wantonly insulted, vilely treated and offended, than that the creature should humble himself and punish himself by works of penance, in order to make some reparation to the divine justice, and in some manner to restore the divine honor by sin? Is it too much for a man to rob himself of some lawful comfort, after having wantonly stretched forth his hand to unlawful actions? Is the untamed flesh less deserving of punishment after it has enjoyed the forbidden pleasure, and thus merit ed the pains of hell? No! One who has been a sinner must either punish himself by penance or expect chastisement from the justice of God.

Show me, my dear brethren, a man who is quite innocent and has never done any wrong, and yet submits to severe penances of his own free will, and of him will I say: truly he is a great miracle of penance! And behold, of all mere holy men, the only miracle of the kind is St. John the Baptist. Consider his mode of life could it will have been more severe? St. Matthew describes it in the following words: " And the same John had his garment of camel's hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins; and his meat was locusts and wild honey." His garment was a kind of mantle made of the hard and bristly hairs of the camel, a sort of penitential garment that rather tormented his body than covered it. His meat was locusts; what food for a human being! Other solitaries, although they fasted strictly, had at least bread or cooked vegetables to eat. Who ever heard of any one eating locusts, a vermin found in the desert? So that he must have suffered continual hunger and thirst. And such, in deed, was the case; for with him fasting and eating must have been the same thing. Therefore with reason did Christ, the eternal Truth, say of him: " John came, neither eating nor drinking." (Matt 3:4) Of which passage St. Bernard says: "According to the Apostle, if we have food and clothing we should be content; this was the perfection of the apostles, but it was not enough for John; " it seemed too small for him. " For he came, neither eating nor drinking, nor wearing clothing; for as locusts are not proper food, unless, perhaps, for some unreasoning animals, so neither is camel's hair a proper kind of clothing for a man." And we may well add to this: he lived without food, without drink, without clothing, without a bed; for as locusts are not food, nor camel's hair clothing, neither are the caves in the desert a fit resting-place for a man. Thus by a miracle he lived in an almost uninterrupted fasting and watching. Has any one ever heard of any other saint who did the like?

And when did he begin that penitential life? how long did it last? Other hermits, in order to do penance, went into the desert in their old age, or at least in their manhood, while they still had the strength necessary for that severe mode of life. But when did John commence? "In thy tender years, sings the Church to him in the office of to-day, " flying the turmoil of men, thou didst seek the caves of the desert." "As soon as he had passed the years of infancy," says Denis the Carthusian, "he hastened to the desert;" there, creeping into the caverns of the earth as a companion of the wild beasts, he began his life of penance. " He began," says St. Thomas of Villanova, " where any perfect man would wish to leave off. wonderful child! hermit, miraculous even in the sight of all the angels! " How could it have been possible for a child of such tender years to practise those austerities if the Almighty God had not worked in and with him in a miraculous manner? And so it is, continues St. Thomas: " Human frailty would not have been capable of such perfection at that age, especially if God had not been pleased to show in John to all ages a miracle of holiness." How long did John endure this severe life? " The child grew, and was strengthened in spirit," says St. Luke, "and was in the deserts," mark this well, my dear brethren, "until the day of his manifestation to Israel; " that is, until he announced Christ as the true Lamb of God, and pointed Him out to the people. So that John lived alone in the desert from his child hood until his thirtieth year, for that was the age of Our Lord when He began to preach publicly, and it was then that St. John pointed Him out to the world. Even when John was preaching penance, he did not leave the desert, for the people came in crowds to hear him, to see the wonderful man, and to be baptized by him, as St. Mark testifies: "John was in the desert, baptizing, and preaching the baptism of penance. And there went out to him all the country of Judea, and all they of Jerusalem, and were baptized by him in the river of Jordan." Here I remark, with St. Thomas already quoted, another instance of self-denial and mortification in John, that is indeed admirable, besides his other austerities. What was that? John had never seen Jesus for thirty years, although he was so nearly related to Him, and was appointed His precursor. What think you of this, my dear brethren? Have you any doubt that he felt a most ardent desire to see and be in the society of the Saviour of the world? Why, then, did he not leave his solitude now and then, and visit Christ in Nazareth, to make His acquaintance, to receive consolation from Him, and to enjoy the presence of His holy Mother? No, that much comfort was denied him. " I knew Him not," he said afterwards." What a wonderful thing! " Although," says St. Thomas, "he knew that Christ was dwelling among men, he deprived himself of the presence and acquaintance of Christ, and remained in the desert; which was to him a most bitter martyrdom, and worse than all the rigors of his life. " " Oh, how he desired to see Christ, to speak to Him, to enjoy and delight in His presence and conversation, for he knew Our Lord to be God in human shape!" And yet he constantly, through a spirit of mortification and penance, resisted this vehement desire of his, although he might easily have gratified it. Thus, my dear brethren, the whole life of John, from, his childhood upwards, was nothing else but a constant and uninterrupted penance, until he exchanged the desert for a prison, in which, at last, for the cause of truth, he ended his penance by martyrdom when his head was cut off.

But great Saint, how am I to understand all this? Let me ask thee, with St. Thomas: " What was the reason of such severe penance?" what crime hadst thou committed? If anyone had seen thee in the rough garment of camel's hair, living in the dens of wild beasts, would he not have thought that thou wert the greatest sinner in the world, and obliged to condemn thyself to that mode of life to do penance for thy sins? Tell me, then, what crime thou didst commit? It is the infallible truth, my dear brethren, that John did not even bring into the world the stain of original sin in which all men are born, but that he was cleansed from it in his mother's womb: " He shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother's womb." " Behold," says St. Chrysostom, " how John went to heaven before he touched the earth; and how he received the divine Spirit be fore receiving that of man, and the graces of heaven before the limbs of his body." "And," adds the Saint, "he began to live for God before living for himself." What but a holy life could follow such a holy beginning? And it is also a certain truth, confirmed by the Fathers, that during the whole course of his life John never committed any sin against God, neither mortal sin deserving of hell nor the least venial sin, and that he lived more like an angel in the flesh than a mortal man: " For this is he of whom it is written: Behold I send My angel before Thy face." Whereupon de Lyra says: " I send My angel: be cause he led an angelic life." " His life was not human, but angelic," says St. Thomas; " he was indeed a man like us; but he seems to me to have had nothing of a man but the color and form; all his thoughts, wishes, desires, and actions were angelic; " that is, pure, as if he were an angel. Nay, as far as a spot less life is concerned, St. Bernard places him among the seraphim: "He obtained such a high place in the angelic choirs that he is among the highest of the seraphim." See how great was his innocence, how wonderful his holiness and unspotted sanctity!

But again I must ask: Why such excessive rigor of penance? Is it right for an innocent man, who has never done any wrong, to be to be punished and chastised? I know well that some of the saints led innocent and holy lives, and yet did severe penance; but they had now and then committed venial sins, or at all events found something in their lives which they thought merited chastisement. Thus if I were to ask the innocent and holy Bernard: What crime hast thou committed to make thee take the scourge in thy hands, and, besides thy strict and constant fasting, so unmercifully chastise thyself, weak and sickly as thou art, that thou walkest about like a living corpse or a skeleton? he would point to some fault of his early youth, and say that he had once happened to cast a rather incautious glance at a person of the opposite sex, although he at once turned his eyes away. See, he would say; have I not done wrong? do I not deserve punishment? If I ask a St. Francis Xavier why he tied rough hair ropes so tightly round his feet and limbs that they grew into the flesh, and caused him excruciating agony, he would answer that this chastisement was meet for him, in order to atone for the vanity he felt formerly when in the world in dancing. If I ask the angelic youth St. Aloysius why he slept at night on a hard board, weighed his midday meal with an ounce weight, and scourged himself till the blood come forth in torrents, he would tell me about what he thought to be his sins; how when a child he spoke an improper word heard from a soldier, a word of which he did not know the meaning; and how, on another occasion, during his childhood, he once took a cartridge out of a soldier's bandolier. Mark, my dear brethren, these had at least the appearance of sin to atone for and do penance for. But John cannot point to a single fault that deserved penance, for in his whole life he had done nothing wrong, committed no sinful act, spoke and thought nothing that was not holy. Why, then, such severe and constant penance?

But, on second thoughts, perhaps he was afraid of falling in- to sin if he had not chastised the flesh and kept it in restraint? Ah, it was this fear that drove other innocent servants of God to practise severe penances, and to arm themselves with constant mortification. They knew well that their weakness and frailty amid so many dangers and occasions of sin were in need of being strengthened by mortification; they experienced the power that our corrupt inclinations and the desires of the flesh have, even against our reasoning will, so that they are always inclining, and, as it were, violently drawing us to evil; and if we do not bravely resist them and chasten the wanton flesh we cannot long keep from sin; they knew the many attacks, allurements, temptations that have to be sustained from men and demons, and which cannot be overcome unless we do violence to ourselves. There fore the hermits withdrew into the deserts, that they might not run any danger of losing their souls in the society of men; there fore St. Jerome beat with a stone his emaciated breast; there fore St. Bernard plunged into a frozen pond; therefore St. Ben edict rolled about in the sharp thorns; and all this they did to tame the obstinacy of their flesh, and drive away the temptations that plagued them. Therefore Edmund, Aloysius, Stanislaus, and other innocent youths girded themselves with hair ropes and iron spikes, that they might keep free from sin and retain their innocence. But this could not have been the object of St. John in doing such severe penance. Why so? According to the teaching of the holy Fathers, he was confirmed in grace even in his mother's womb, and, as it were, assured that he would never fall into any sin; the fulness of grace was in him; "He shall be filled with the Holy Ghost," as the angel said of him. Mark the words: he shall be filled. Namely, grace was given him in such abundant measure that his parents received of it. " Into those who had given him the substance of flesh," says the Abbot Guaricus, " he infused the superabundance of his spirit and of grace." Clearer still are the words of St. Emissenus: " It is a great thing to be illumined by the Holy Ghost, but a greater still to be filled with Him." For just as a vessel when quite full cannot contain any more, " so in him no spot of worldly imperfection could find place, for the fulness of holiness reigned in him." St. Chrysologus calls John all holiness, for he says of his parents: " In them was prepared the source whence all holiness was to be born." Finally St. Thomas gives him this eulogy: "John was made by God a prodigy of sanctity, a miracle of all perfection, an admirable spectacle of all virtue to all ages." So that he could hardly be distinguished from the Holy of holies, Christ, Our Lord, the Son of God; many, on account of the wonderful sanctity of his life, looked on him as the Messias and Redeemer of the world, although they had never seen him work a miracle; and they would have remained in their error, had not John himself undeceived them. "And as the people was of opinion," says St. Luke, "and all were thinking in their hearts of John, that perhaps he might be the Christ, John answered . . . there shall come one mightier than I." Nay, after Our Lord had worked many wonders, the like of which they had never seen John do, they yet looked on him as Christ, and took Our Lord for John. When Christ asked His disciples: " Who do men say that the Son of Man is?" they answered: " Some, John the Baptist." But why have recourse to so many proofs, when the words of the infallible Truth Himself are more than enough to convince us? After Christ had called him an angel and more than a prophet, He adds: "Amen, I say to you; there hath not risen among them that are born of women a greater than John the Baptist." From which St. Augustine draws this conclusion: " Whoever is greater than John the Baptist is not only man, but God also." " Hence I am driven to the conclusion that John, although he had the freedom to commit sin, yet, humanly and morally speaking, could never have offended God, and therefore in this respect he was not at all in need of such severe penances.

What, then, was the reason of such austerity of life? There is another reason, my dear brethren, which has driven even the most innocent and holy to the practice of penance, and which should drive them to it, namely, the example of the suffering and dying Son of God. What! thought those servants of God, are the watchings, fasting, and chastising of the body which Christ willingly bore for my sake too much for me to undertake for the sake of a God crowned with thorns? for the sake of a God beaten over His whole body with ropes, rods, and scourges? for a God whose hands and feet were pierced with cruel nails? for a God whose bitter hunger and thirst were satiated with gall and vine gar? for a God who died in the greatest agony, hanging on a disgraceful gibbet? fora God who, innocence itself, bore all this for our sake? What! exclaims the holy penitent St. Bernard: "It is a shame for a member living under a thorn-crowned Head to be delicate. Christ, our Lord and Model, suffered even to the death of the cross; therefore we, too, must suffer with Him. " He that taketh not up his cross and followeth Me is not worthy of Me." If we wish to be in the number of the elect we must be like our crucified Lord, according to the express words of St. Paul: " For whom He foreknew, He also predestinated to be made conformable to the image of His Son." So that the saints argued rightly in favor of their austerities. Hence I no longer wonder so much why John led such a hard life, although he was quite innocent, pure as an angel, had never committed the least fault, and being confirmed in grace, was not in the slightest danger of sinning, and, after Christ and His virginal Mother, was the greatest of all the saints. For he did not wish to be a delicate member under a thorn-crowned Head. But what am I saying? Am I wrong again? For John had not seen anything of the kind in Our Lord, my dear brethren, since he was beheaded in prison before Our Lord began His passion, and died while He was still accompanied by crowds of people, who followed Him everywhere, wondering at His miracles; so that John had not in Him then an example of suffering. Nevertheless from his child hood upwards he led that strict and penitential life!

Now, all I can think or say is this; there you have the truth of my proposition fully proved: the penitent John is the greatest miracle! And let me repeat with St. Thomas: John was made by God a prodigy of sanctity, a miracle of all perfection, and an admirable spectacle of all virtue to all ages. If any one asks me, then, why, according to the gospel, John worked no miracle, I shall answer in the words of the same St. Thomas: " He was not in need of miracles, for everything in him, if you rightly consider it, was a miracle; " and his penance alone was the greatest miracle of all!

Christians, what are our thoughts on this? We wonder at the innocence and the great austerity of the life of St. John, And is that all? Is that to be the only fruit of the panegyric have just heard? Oh, if so I had better have kept silent, and you would then perhaps have gone away just as well off. No; we must bring home something better. Let us, then, briefly enter into ourselves and see what manner of life we have been leading hitherto. Are we all so innocent, I will not say as St. John, but so that we can say with truth that we have never offended God by mortal sin, and can we venture to boast as Job did: "My heart doth not reprehend me in all my life"? Can we say that with truth? Alas, must we not most of us confess with the penitent David: " To Thee only have I sinned, and have done evil before Thee"? Alas, what a heap of sins we shall find in our consciences that we have committed from youth upwards in thought, word, and deed! But where is our penance? We have disclosed our sins in confession, and performed the penance enjoined by our confessor; and thus we imagine we have fully atoned to God. We sleep just as peacefully as before; we laugh and amuse ourselves as unrestrainedly as before; we eat and drink to satiety as before; we enjoy ourselves as if we had never done any wrong. Fasting, mortification, wearing penitential garments and chastening the flesh we leave to religious in their convents; those things are not for us. Truly, that is a fine way of doing penance! A fine way of atoning for the pains of hell that we have merited so often! Do we think we shall thus find the road to heaven, which penitent and innocent servants of God had to work so hard for? No, no, that will not do! He who has sinned must do penance and often deprive himself even of lawful pleasures and delights, and withdraw those things from the flesh even against his natural inclination, since he has enjoyed forbidden pleasures against the will of God. Wanton eyes, curious ears, talkative, uncharitable tongue, unchaste, unjust hands, impure, vindictive hearts, dissolute, dissipated flesh, what else have you been but arms of malice to make war with on the most high God? So St. Paul calls them when he says: "Neither yield ye your members as instruments of iniquity unto sin." What is then more just than to take up arms against those that have made war on God? And so it is. " Present yourselves to God," continues the Apostle, " as those that are alive .from the dead; and your members as instruments of justice unto God," that wage war on themselves. In a word, he who has ever sinned grievously is in need of penance.

And if we have never sinned? if we are innocent? Ah, would I might say that of myself! But supposing we are all in our first innocence, and have never committed mortal sin; yet we may sin, and oh, how easy it is for us to sin! We all have natural inclinations and desires, no matter how. good we may be, which we inherit from our forefather Adam, and which will never be completely extirpated. How are we to restrain and keep them in check, unless we often do violence to ourselves, and call in the aid of frequent mortification and self-denial? We know by experience that he who wishes to keep free from sin must carefully avoid the occasions and dangers that lead to it; for as the Holy Ghost says by the Wise Ecclesiasticus: " He that loveth danger shall perish in it." (Ecclus 3:27) Now the wanton flesh and our outward senses are the most frequent and dangerous occasions of sin to us: that is to say, when we think we may look at, hear, say, taste, and feel all we wish; and mortification and self-denial are the means of cutting off those occasions and dangers. In a word, a delicate, comfortable life, in which one seeks to gratify all his senses, can not long continue without sin. A soft and luxurious life cannot lead to heaven, of which Christ has said: "From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away." A soft, easy life is not at all in harmony with the life of our suffering and crucified Lord and with the lives of His saints. And them we must necessarily follow, and with them take up our cross daily, if we hope with them to enter into glory. Therefore, even if we are the most innocent, we must still do penance.

But, my God, why do I talk so much about innocence, which I have long ago and so often lost? I am ashamed, Lord, to appear before Thee, for Thou hast seen all that I have done. I am sorry from my heart that in spite of all my wickedness I have hitherto lived such an easy life, and so studiously sought my comfort and gratified my senses, as if I had been almost guiltless! I have not been able to bear the least bodily pain nor the least mental trouble without murmuring; I have always granted every freedom to eyes, ears, and the other senses, as if I had never done anything to repent of. Ah, how long is this life to last? I now acknowledge that I must do penance. Yes, Lord! I will not refuse it. Even if I had never offended Thee, and, alas! my sins are only too grievous and numerous (pardon, Lord, my presumption!), nay, if I were, like Thy holy precursor St. John, confirmed in grace and assured that I could never commit a sin, yet I should be ashamed to wish to live in comfort and without penance when I adore a God who suffered and died on a cross. I should be ashamed to wish to enter so easily into the heaven which Thy servants have bought so dearly! There fore I will do penance by patiently bearing all the insults and injuries offered me by men, and by receiving from Thy hand with resignation all the trials and afflictions Thou mayest send me. Moreover I will do penance by constantly overcoming my self, by mortifying my inordinate passions and inclinations, and by frequently chastising my flesh and its senses; so that I may atone for my past sins, be saved from committing sin again, be come in some measure like to my crucified Redeemer, and imitate Thy saints, at least at a distance, that I may one day enjoy with them in the kingdom of heaven the consolation Thou hast promised to the penitent. Amen.