Let us face about, therefore, brethren, and look back over the past twelve months, and question the seasons of the old year. How did I begin the old year and how did I behave myself last winter? Did I make my Easter duty last spring? Did I attend Mass regularly and worship God through the summer, or did I make the Lord's Day one of carousing and picnicking and drinking? Have I used my tongue for blaspheming, my body for lust, my soul for slavery to the evil one? Have I unjustly gotten any of my neighbor's property? Have I been brutal to my family? These sound like ugly questions. But there's no happy New Year for you or me till we have answered them and many others besides, repented of our sins and make good resolutions for confession and Communion, and for a good life for the future." Five minute Sermons, Congregation of St. Paul 1893

How blessed are we, preparing to celebrate the anniversary of the coming of that divine Redeemer, to look upon Him portrayed so clearly by His own Blessed Self! As in those days, so now, there are countless ones that need Him. And He comes to us with the same benevolence, the same readiness, the same power to do us good. Have we not ourselves been amongst the crowds, and have we not ourselves felt the divine touch of His mercy? Perhaps we were blind, and He opened our eyes to the Faith! We may have been lying helpless on the road to heaven, powerless to proceed, and the lame have been made to walk. Lepers in sin, more than once - yea, many a time - have we been cleansed and forgiven. Alas! perhaps for years, our souls, dead to God through sinful habits, have been raised to life again by His grace. And our hard, laborious lives have been sweetened and filled with hope of eternal joy in heaven, because we poor have had the gospel preached to us.

It is well for us to realise this merciful character of the Saviour. It was not always thus. Formerly, under the old Law, the Almighty was the God of justice. His wrath flamed out; His vengeance overtook the wicked. But now with the coming of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, how different! And this is why the Baptist gave testimony of Him and our Lord revealed Himself, so that no one could mistake the object of His coming, and no one feel that he was too utter an outcast not to be forgiven.

Then why did the Redeemer thus come, filled with compassion, ready and longing to befriend and forgive? Becoming Man Himself, He wished to be one with us, to dwell amongst us, to share our sorrows, to take upon Himself our sins and miseries: for He remembered that we were but the dust of the earth-poor, weak, and helpless creatures. He had in His mercy created us for Himself, and He came to restore us, to re-establish us, that we once again might be "the sons of God and heirs with Christ.' He is the Saviour, who "loves the souls of men."

And again, He came pitying us, ready to help us, for He knew the enemies that would plot our ruin. He could not leave us helpless amidst such perils. It was through spite and hatred against Himself that the devil would never cease from trying to work our ruin. The envy of the evil one is our constant danger. Envy because the Redeemer came to raise us up and fit us for the thrones left empty by the fallen angels. To know that we are meant through the Redemption of Christ to reign in glory, whilst the fallen spirits pine in the abyss of misery, is the cause of the enmity, which can never cease, between the devils and the souls of men.

The Blessed Redeemer came to do all that even an Almighty and all-loving God could do to save poor mankind from eternal death. He came to save His people from their sins."Will it not, then, be all our own sad, miserable fault if the evil one prevails against us? Shall we not, then, welcome Him at this holy time, and offer Him loyalty and loving obedience? Trust in His goodness, for He came " to seek and to save that which was lost." Short Sermons on the Epistles and Gospels of the Sundays of the Year by Fr. Francis Paulinus Hickey

But is it not the boast and glory of the Holy Catholic Church that its faith is and has been always the same? That what was believed from the first is the faith of all its children always and everywhere? How can this be, says the world, when within our memory the Immaculate Conception was declared to be an article of faith? The definition was simply a declaration that belief in the Immaculate Conception had always existed, and was the mind and sense of the Church. Proof irrefragable of this is found in holy Tradition, in the writings of the Fathers of the Church, in the unanimity of the rulers and the faithful of the Church in venerating our Lady's Conception as such. What had been formerly freely, willingly, lovingly believed, was now declared to be a necessary part of our belief. Henceforth obedience to the Church demanded full, explicit belief and profession of this doctrine, that Mary in the first instant of her Conception was preserved from every stain of original sin by the power of Almighty God, to His honour and glory, and the glory of His chosen Mother.

And why was this declaration necessary? To defend the honour and glory of Mary. Impiety was assailing her; disbelief was denying her holiness; and the world was sneering at her purity. Cowardly Catholics thought it prudent not to provoke impiety to insult our Lady and wished to be silent; and doubt was stealing into the souls of the poorly instructed, and of many seduced by the irreligious. Therefore for God's honour and glory, and of His Virgin Mother, it was made imperative to believe and to own that the Virgin Mary was Immaculate. What had formerly been professed in love, had now to be professed in obedience as well, by the loyal children of the Church.

The other saints and blessed ones of God are crowned with many graces, but Mary is "full of grace" and is favoured with one that no other can share with her. She is Immaculate! And this being her unique privilege, no other supplication to her touches her Mother's heart as this: "Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us, who have recourse to thee."

How meet and appropriate it is, then, that our Blessed Lady's festival is the harbinger of Christmas. Her unique dignity -Immaculate from the first moment of her Conception - was given that she might be worthy to be the Mother of our divine Saviour. Praise and glorify her on this great day, and for a reward for our devotion pray her to show us at Christmas her Son, our Saviour, and to obtain for us loyalty and fidelity to Him." Short Sermons on the Epistles & Gospels of the Sundays of the Year By Fr. Francis Paulinus Hickey

But how little did the world understand of the divine mercy that was to come! True, God's chosen people knew that a Messias, a Saviour, had been promised. The prophets had spoken of Him. Devout men had longed for His coming and prayed that they might live to see it. But as time went on these holy aspirations faded, and in a very different and earthly way the children of Israel looked for their deliverer. A leader, a ruler to establish an earthly kingdom, a prince of peace was their expectation. Vague was their knowledge, and their yearnings were for something infinitely lower than what was to come. Not an earthly kingdom but a heavenly one was their Saviour to establish, not transient glory that would shortly perish, but immortality amidst indescribable splendour and happiness. He was to come not to rule merely, but to love mankind. He was to come, not to be inaccessible and seldom to be seen, but to be with them, one of them, whose delight was to be with the children of men.

Oh how blessed are we, who know so well this Saviour, "this most high God and our Redeemer "(Ps. lxxvii. 35). He that had been promised, came not only for the people of Israel, but for all mankind. He came to "save His people from their sins" (Matt. i. 21). Let us realize it more intimately. He came not simply to proclaim a universal pardon for all the multitude of the children of men. He came for me! To pardon me, to win my love, my loyalty: to recognize me as His child for whom He had opened the gates of heaven. And is this all? What could hope expect more than this? If He had brought us redemption once, would not this have been an infinitely bountiful mercy?

Let us bow down in humble confusion as we think of this! Forgiveness once; restored to our heavenly Father's favour once! An eternity of thankfulness would not suffice to pay for such a mercy. But what is the reality? Oh! the times and times that He has poured out upon our souls His "copious redemption." Our very sins bring out His mercy more and more. We are the children of the merciful goodness of God! Let us recall with grateful hearts the times without number that our redemption—our forgiveness—has been renewed. It is always at hand indeed. An act of sorrow; a humble owning of our sins; and He that came to redeem His people from their sins ratifies the words of absolution, and our sins are forgiven us once again. And our relapses, what do they mean? Do we not believe in our forgiveness? Do we despise it? Are we not trespassing on the Almighty's patience, tempting Him to repent that He made us?

Let us resolve that this rejection of God's pardon shall never occur again. But as this blessed anniversary of the coming of our Saviour approaches, let us prepare our hearts to receive Him and bid Him welcome. No wonder good people rejoice at holy Christmas-time ! It is not a mere memory of the redemption that came, but it is an actual redemption that comes again to the souls of men. How many anniversaries of His coming have we celebrated, and yet we are no better than we are! To so many in the world the message of Advent finds no admittance to their hearts. But to us it must not be so. We must prepare a home for Him, lest the first coming should be repeated: "He came unto His own, and His own received Him not " (John i. 11). Short Sermons on the Epistles & Gospels of the Sundays of the Year by Rev. Fr. Francis Paulinus Hickey

Even as mere matter of curiosity and contemplation, I can imagine no subject more choice and inviting to the mind: the last of days-the great epilogue; -the closing page of man's eventful history, which is to shut up the long-expected volume, or rather to supersede at once all its insignificant records! But, my brethren, the subject is not merely curious; it is one of deep interest and expectation; for it speaks of a scene, in which you are yourselves to appear, not as remote spectators, but to act your several parts. Induced by these considerations, and, above all, encouraged and authorized by the Church of God, I venture this day to approach the awful and interesting, but arduous, subject. Attempting little of my own, I will assemble, select, and digest for you, what has been said by those who alone have a right to speak on the subject-the inspired writers.

Man, by his fall, seems to have involved in that mortality, which was its punishment, all that is connected with him: even the world, which he inhabits, is become mortal, like himself. As it is decreed for all men once to die, so it is decreed that the world shall perish. There will come a day, which to this universe will be final and fatal. That day is already known in the counsels of heaven: but, to us, one of its most awful and alarming circumstances is its inscrutable uncertainty. In this, as in other particulars, it bears a remarkable resemblance to man's individual sentence, which from nothing borrows so much terror as from that mysterious darkness which hangs over its execution. As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be then. For as, in the days before the deluge, men were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, till the very day when Noah entered the ark, and they knew not, till the deluge came and carried them all away; so shall be the coming of the Son of Man.

This uncertainty, too, will subsist in the midst of the most pointed warnings; for no future event was ever marked out by more striking and plainer preludes. Here, also, it keeps up its parallel with the dissolution of man. For, as that dreaded event is commonly preceded by a succession of appearances and symptoms, both remote and proximate, which indicate to every eye, but perhaps the interested individual, that the human machine is running down and hastening to its last stroke; so, it has pleased the Almighty to usher in the great day of the world's dissolution, by a series of preludes, which shall clearly announce that its last hour is approaching. Its remoter indications may be said to be the general decay of faith and piety among men; the coldness and almost total extinction of charity; the wide-spread corruption of manners; the neglect of divine worship, and the appearance of that mysterious character, called in scripture anti-christ, or the man of sin, who is to seduce many from the true faith, to deceive with signs and wonders, and to make war on the Church of God. When these have subsisted their due period, then shall commence those more immediate symptoms, so awfully accumulated in the divine oracles. You shall hear, says the Son of God, of wars and rumors of wars; nation shall rise up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and there shall be pestilences, and famines, and earthquakes. These are the beginnings of sorrows. Let us expand a little, and dwell on these fearful particulars.

There shall be wars. Man himself shall begin the work of destruction, and co-operate with the vengeance of heaven. This is signified under the figure of the red horse, which was seen by St. John. And to him that sat thereon it was given, that he should take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and a great sword was given him.-Men, restless and agitated with all the furies of discord and revenge, will turn their ferocity against their own species, will assemble in vast bodies for the destruction of each other, and cover the earth with the blood of its inhabitants. If past history speaks of rivers of blood shed in battle, here shall be a deluge. The wine-press, in the mystic language of St. John, was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the wine-press, even up to the horses' bridles, for a thousand six hundred furlongs.And there shall be famines. Famine is the natural concomitant of war, and accordingly is the next figure presented to us in the Apocalypse, as the black horse, the rider of which held a balance in his hand, wherein he was to weigh rigorously the scanty necessaries of existence. And Pestilence, the other attendant of war. And behold, says St. John, there was a pale horse, and he that sat upon him his name was death, and hell followed him. These three, War, Famine, and Pestilence, as we see in the history of David, are the commissioned scourges of the Almighty, which he sends forth, at intervals, to punish the sins of men. And if they are even now so terrible, devastating whole nations, as we read and even see, when yet their visitations are only limited and partial, what will they be, when they shall become unbounded and universal, like the deluge of iniquity which shall call them down? If they are so formidable in the day of God's mercy, what will they be when sent as harbingers to what is emphatically called the great day of his wrath?

And at Bethlehem - still the least of all seeds- "she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him up in swaddling clothes, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them at the inn " (Luke 2. 7). And outcasts again were the Child and His Mother, for the Angel warned St. Joseph to flee with them to Egypt for fear of King Herod. And the long years at Nazareth, where the child grew up - how poor, secluded, uneventful were they. How despised a life in the eyes of the world, for when her Son began His public life, was it not cast against Him, "Can anything of good come from Nazareth?" (John 1. 46).

Come to Calvary! Behold that poor, heartbroken Mother standing by the Cross on which her Son died, scoffed at, derided, blasphemed by those for whom He died. Well may unbelievers sneer at such an apparent failure the life of the Virgin Mother and the death of her Son! But we - thank God for the faith within us- deny the failure and humbly adore God's marvelous providence. The seed must die in the ground before the growth ensues. Yes, Mary was "the least of all seeds", indeed, but we see and believe and bless God for the result of her humility, her acceptance of the Will of God, her hidden life, her poverty, her sufferings. Behold the result! Immaculate Mary herself tells us,"Behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. Because He that is mighty hath done great things to me" (Luke 1. 48, 49).

This poor, unknown, sorrowful Virgin - what has she become? The Queen of heaven, the Queen of Angels and of Saints! Acknowledged, reverenced from the earliest ages of the Church with a love and devotion increasing as the centuries roll on. A new era began for her at the Resurrection of her divine Son. Then did she realize, as He appeared to her, glorious, impassible, and immortal, what it was indeed to be the Mother of the Savior, for this was the Child of Bethlehem, this the Victim of Calvary. And at the Ascension what a vision of the glory of heaven was revealed to her longing soul! Ten days after, when the Holy Ghost came down upon the Apostles and filled their souls with His marvelous gifts, even Mary's heart was enlarged, she realized that a new work was laid upon her-she became the Mother of the infant Church. For twelve years she remained with the disciples, a living answer to all who doubted that God had become man to redeem the world, for there still amongst them was found His Mother. From the earliest days there were self-opinionated men holding heretical doctrines, but one after another they failed and perished as true belief in Mary was taught and maintained by the successors of the Apostles. The powers of the wicked one, having ensnared the hearts of so many, were concentrated against our Blessed Lady. But the prophecy of old was verified, and the Virgin Mother "crushed the serpent's head" when, in the days of St. Cyril of Alexandria, at the General Council of Ephesus, it was declared as an article of faith that Mary was the Mother of God. The least, indeed, of all seeds had grown and become glorious in its triumph. The title "Mother of God" was the test of orthodoxy.

Not only did Mary become the test and strength of our faith, but hope in her, as the mediator with her divine Son, en-kindled piety and devotion to her.

A moment's thought, the raising of our mind to God, the intending every word or work to be said and done in the name of Christ, for the love of Christ, would spiritualize our lives, and make of them an offering acceptable to God and blessed by Him with an eternal reward. And this pure intention, this morning offering, must be a daily work. We are so fickle, so inconstant, that even then self-love or yearning for praise will creep in. The fairest bud may have a canker in its heart.

No longer let our days be profitless for want of a little thought. With our morning prayers-yea, before them; as soon as our mind awakes-a moment's earnest thought will do-all for Jesus-and the day and all its thoughts, and prayers, and words, and works are offered to God and blessed by Him. "Do all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ."

You may say that is a trifling thing indeed, and can that bless and ennoble our daily life? Yes, it is a little thing, but, as St. Francis of Sales says, "Little things are but little things, but fidelity in little things is a great thing." And the fidelity in making this pure intention, this offering to do all in the name of Jesus, and for the love of Jesus, is a great thing. For it is this being united to our Blessed Lord that gives its value, its eternal value, to all we do.

Let us picture to ourselves what this pure, heartfelt offering would mean. Sloth and tepidity would instantly stand abashed and ashamed. Sin and all desire for sin would be warned off, for our souls are giving themselves to Christ. The evil one would see that his plans and intrigues were detected and thus rendered powerless. In a moment the bright thought of Mass, of Holy Communion, perchance, would irradiate our soul. Our thought would question-Have we time? Can we make time for them? What an offering indeed to our dear Lord if we can; yea, a pleasing offering indeed for only wishing that we could. The daily toil, whatever it may be-laborious, poorly paid, wearisome-also, offered humbly, without a murmur, according to the blessed Will of God. Recording Angels are busy throughout the day adding up the wages due to such a worker.