The Retribution of Sin
by VP
Posted on Sunday August 10, 2025 at 12:00AM in Sunday Sermons
Enrique Simonet
1. Our Lord's lament over Jerusalem.
2. That city the type of the fate of sinners.
3. The mistake: sinfulness not liberty but slavery.
4. This remembrance helps us to be watchful and to pray.
"It was as our Blessed Lord was riding towards Jerusalem, during His brief triumph on Palm Sunday, that He uttered these words. For the last time before His Passion He looked down upon that city which had been blessed in so many ways-the chosen city; the home of the Temple; the city that had heard so many of His divine words and warnings; that had witnessed so many of His miracles. But all to no purpose; for during the next few days that city would resound to the cries," Away with Him, crucify Him !" Our Lord wept over it as He realized that all His mercies had been of no avail, and foretold the dreadful judgment and punishment that would befall it for its rejection of its Saviour. It was all its own fault, its impenitence and hardness of heart. Alas! Jerusalem is the type of so many of God's creatures of ourselves, perchance. God gives a sinner many chances, graces innumerable; visitations of mercy; warnings to urge him to give up his evil ways. But there is an end of God's mercies, for this life is short, and remorseless death is hastening to overtake us.The last grace offered and disdained, then the allmerciful God has to abandon us, because we "have not known the time of our visitation." Words that verify this flash across our memory. And Jesus hid Himself" (John vii. 59). "You shall seek Me, and you shall not find Me " (ibid. 43). You shall seek Me, and you shall die in your sin " (ibid. 21).
It seems almost impossible that man could prove himself thus obdurate, in spite of all that the loving Saviour has done for him. But always and everywhere there have been men and women, who really and through their own fault have made themselves so guilty and impenitent as to be abandoned by their Saviour and their God. This hard and impenitent heart is the result of the power of the habit of sin, which enslaves them. When a man begins to sin and to turn from God, he thinks he will be his own master and independent. He will not brook the commandments, "Thou shalt " and" Thou shalt not." His own will is to be master. There is the fatal mistake! Free, independent, one's own master; yes, such is the lying suggestion of the devil. Whereas the truth, the inspired Word of God, teaches us most emphatically the very opposite.
"Amen, amen, I say to you, that whosoever committeth sin, is the servant of sin " (John viii. 34), are the solemn words of our Blessed Lord Himself. And St. Peter, who, alas knew what sin was, says, "They themselves are the slaves of corruption, for by whom a man is overcome, of the same he is a slave " (2 Pet. ii. 19). If by sinning we become the servants, the slaves of sin, to what a state of abject slavery, indeed, must a habit of sin enthral us! Of his own power such a man is utterly unable to free himself. He has bound himself beyond release. A bad habit is like a rope. A child can snap a few slight hempen meshes of which a rope is made. But when countless strains have been twined and formed into a stout rope, the man that is bound with it is powerless. And so with our souls. Habits slight at first, that a good will and a sorrowful heart could break, by degrees form themselves into bonds that defy our efforts, and will become everlasting bonds, unless God's gracious mercy intervenes.
But why all this? We are not as bad as this; no, thank God; but we should be humble and thankful that we are not. For how many graces have the best of us disregarded! How many sins have we not committed! How many habits have begun to twine themselves round our souls, but, by God's mercy, they have been snapped by our repentances and confessions. A good man, therefore yea, a very good and devout man - should fear and watch any starting of a careless, sinful habit. He should break it at first, lest it grow too strong and enslave him. This holy fear and watchfulness will make us careful to use God's graces and the means of our salvation, and to obey the admonitions of the Church. And there is one practice that will ensure this carefulness and piety, and it is this: to pray for others. Pray for others, who are in the sad state of habitual sin, and who do not see and understand their peril. It is likely that we know someone who needs prayers. What an act of charity to rescue their soul! Let us give them of our best.
And at this very hour it is certain that there is someone near to death. Remorse, despair, agonizing his soul that he has not known the day of the visitation of God's graces. He may doubt God's goodness and the tender mercy of the Sacred Heart. If our prayers, our Mass, our Holy Communion could whisper hope to that poor soul, and bring him, writhing in the bondage of his evil habits, humbly to plead for mercy once again, he would find it was not too late! What more precious offering could we make to our heavenly Father than that of a soul redeemed by the precious Blood, snatched from the evil one, even at his last hour? Such prayers will help to save others, and secure for ourselves a holy life now, and a welcome to heaven after a merciful judgment, because we have not stood idly by and let our brethren perish." Short Sermons on the Epistles & Gospels of the Sundays of the Year By Rev. Fr. Francis Paulinus Hickey OSB 1922 (9th Sunday after Pentecost)
Sons of God
by VP
Posted on Sunday August 03, 2025 at 12:00AM in Sunday Sermons
Le Pater, Jacques Tissot
"Whosoever are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God."-ROM. 8. 14.
1. This glorious title "sons of God" fails to touch so many hearts.
2. They prefer the world, which is the enemy of God.
3. They object to being "led": fatal mistake.
4. What follows from being sons? Heirs also.
"WHAT joy and enthusiasm should be enkindled in our souls by the announcement of this truth, that St. Paul declares to us, that we are destined to be "the sons of God; and if sons, heirs also; co-heirs with Christ." But, alas! this announcement awakens no echo in the souls of so many. They are in this world; they raise their eyes to nothing beyond, but find occupation, pleasure, contentment in the fleeting joys of the present. What a misfortune to disregard the glorious destiny to which they are called, and to content themselves with the world" which passeth away." They give no heed to the warnings of the Scripture: "Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world" (1 John ii. 15); and that other, “The friendship of this world is the enemy of God; whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world becometh an enemy of God' (Jas. ii. 4).
An enemy of God! and they are called to be the sons of God. It is all-important, then, that we watch ourselves, and do not make the fatal mistake of becoming an enemy, whereas we are called to be sons. And it is easy and natural to make this mistake, deluded and misguided by self-love and self-sufficiency. Witness those of whom our Blessed Lord speaks, as claiming heaven because they have prayed and done miracles in His name: but they had been ruled by self, and not led by the Spirit of God. Therefore the gospel continues, "And then I will profess unto them, I never knew you; depart from Me, you that work iniquity" (Matt. 8. 23).
How can we explain this? Alas! in all that they had done, it had not been the Will of God they had sought to do, but their own will. They had not been "led by the Spirit of God." This is the test by which we make sure of our calling. "Whosoever are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." It is the word "led" that is the stumbling-block! A man has faculties and intelligence: he determines to go by them, imagining that they are all-sufficing. He forgets their limits; of how much he is ignorant; how prone he is to evil; the insidious enemies around him. He chooses his own way.
A fatal mistake, indeed, to imagine we can choose our own way and be independent. Our own way! Blind men choosing their own way, and refusing assistance and guidance. Our own way! Forgetting that we are prone to evil; that we have deceitful enemies around us, leading us to destruction-enemies, who craftily conceal the dangers and the evils under the guise of pleasure and freedom and independence. Our own way! And yet we cannot shake ourselves free from the thraldom, for we are slaves to our sins. Such a man forfeits the grace and help of the Spirit, and is powerless of himself. For instance, some Sunday he may hear some word of our Lord in the Gospel that is a rebuke to him; he knows that he should change and repent, but no, he clings to his own opinion or to the habit he has formed. He thinks he is free and independent, yet in reality he is a slave, enthralled in his evil ways. Warnings are given; even a bad conscience can be stricken by fear of some evil that seems impending. He is powerless to change, though he dreads the consequences. Aided by the tempter, he stifles the voice of conscience, and remains a miserable slave of sin. Thus, from the practices of a good Christian life, he is led astray and, sooner or later, the tempter leads him from the Faith... Good practices he has abandoned; next some doctrine or precept of the Church annoys him, persistently rebukes him. Will he be humble enough to obey, or rebel and choose his own way and cling to his own will? Alas! he thus falls from the Faith! For what is a heretic, but a chooser, as the meaning of the word implies; and one that clings obstinately to his own opinion in defiance of the Church? He becomes one of those of whom the prophet speaks: "They hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, but walked in their own will, and in the perversity of their wicked heart" (Jer. vii. 24).
But how different all is, thank God, for those who lovingly yield themselves to be "led by the Spirit of God." They are “partakers of the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit dwells within them, as St. Paul tells us, and securely in His strength and under His guidance they tread the path of life. Their faith, received at Baptism, strengthened within them at Confirmation, beams down upon their path of life, enlightening them day by day to fulfil their duties to God and man. Walking in the light of this divine Faith, there is no hesitancy, no doubt, no difficulties in following the road that leads to eternal life. Faith points out the way; hope sustains them in the journey, both the gift of that divine Spirit by Whom they are led. The hope that they are thus the sons of God inspires them with courage to bear their cross, to dare and do whatever the Spirit bids them. This hope bids them also remember that, if they are the sons of God, they are "heirs also, heirs indeed of God, and joint-heirs with Christ." Let us pray, then, for the Holy Spirit to endow us with wisdom and understanding to give ourselves to be led by Him, and not by the false maxims of the world, of self, of the evil one. Pray that He may teach us to set a right value on the means to salvation; to relish the things of God; to be ever ready to follow His leading and His guidance, for then we shall be "the sons of God."
Short Sermons on the Epistles & Gospels of the Sundays of the Year By Rev. Fr. Francis Paulinus Hickey OSB 1922 (8th Sunday after Pentecost)
