The Church’s Admonition
To The Individual Soul
by Rev. Francis A. Baker
Ash Wednesday
“Take
heed to thyself.” 1 Timothy 4:16
I
A
The services of the Church today are very impressive. The matter of her teaching is not different from usual. The shortness of life, the certainty of judgment, the necessity of faith and repentance, are more or less the topics of her teaching at all times of the year. But this teaching is ordinarily given to the assembled congregation, to crowds, to multitudes. But today she speaks to us as individuals.
B
She summons us, one by one, young and old, and, as we kneel before her, she says to us, while she scatters dust on our foreheads, “Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return.” It is in this individual and personal character of her warning that I find its special significance and impressiveness. There is no mistaking what she means. “Remember, O man, that thou art dust, and unto dust shall thou return.” She separates each one of us from all others, and gives her message to him in particular. It is an emphatic mode of conveying St. Paul’s admonition to St. Timothy: “Take heed to yourself.”
II
A
If we take only the sound of the words, it might seem that no such admonition was necessary. For, in one sense, men attend to themselves quite enough. But, in fact, there is more than one self in a man. There is the self that is made up of our passions, our failings and disgusts, our comforts and conveniences: this is the self that speaks so loudly in the heart, and obtrudes itself so disagreeably on others. This, when indulged, is what we call selfishness, and this it is which is one main object of religion to repress.
B
But there is another self in a man, his true and noble self, that self which makes him an individual being, which asserts itself most distinctly in that part of his soul where it comes into closest contact with God, namely, his conscience. And this self it is very possible for men to forget. A man may be a priest and have the care of souls, and be employed in preaching and administering the sacraments, or he may be a bishop, and live an active life in governing his church, and yet he may forget himself in this sense.
C
St. Timothy was a bishop, a sharer in apostolic character and apostolic gifts, and yet St. Paul did not think it unnecessary to give him the warning of the text. How must, then, a man forget himself whose occupation is more secular? Tell me: those eager crowds one meets with in the streets, hurrying here and there, do you think each one of these realizes that in some sense there is no other in the world but God and he?
D
Or in a crowded church, on Sunday, when the preacher, in God’s name, is enforcing this duty, or denouncing that vice, that woman sitting in the pew, that man standing in the aisle, does he, does she realize that the words are spoken to them individually, that it is a lesson they are to lay to heart – to practice?
E
No! I must say what I think, that there are some who pass through life, from the cradle to the grave, almost without ever once fully awakening to their own self-consciousness; to their own individual existence, apart from the world around them; and their own individual relations to God. A man may even practice his religion, may know a great deal about it, may talk about it, may listen to every word of the sermon in the church, may say his night prayers, may even go through some kind of a confession and communion, without fully awaking to these things.
F
Paradoxical as it may seem, I believe that there are not a few men, who, of all persons in the world of whom they have any knowledge, are on terms of the slightest and most distant acquaintance with themselves.
III
A
And I will give you one proof that this is true. You know how troubled many men are in sickness, or in a sleepless night, or in times of great calamity. Some persons are greatly troubled in a storm, when the thunder rolls over their heads, and the lightning flashes in their eyes.
B
Now, of course, nervousness, physical causes, mental laws, and social considerations, may enter more or less into the production of this uneasiness, but is there not very often something deeper than any of these? Is it not something that the man has done yesterday, or last week, or last year, and that he has never set right; some unjust transaction, some evil deed, some act of gross neglect of duty, some miserable passion cherished, some impure words spoken, some cruelty or shrinking from what is right, or falsehood, or mischief-making.
C
It is not a matter of imagination. Is is not fancy, but fact. He remembers but too well; he knows when it was done, and all the consequences of it, everything comes up distinctly. He shuts his eyes, but he cannot shut it out. You know the clock ticks all day long; amid the various cares of the day you do not hear it, but oh, how distinct and loud it is at night when your ear catches it.
D
Did you ever have an aching tooth, which you could just manage to bear during the excitement of the day, but which began to throb and become intolerable when all was still at night, and you had gone to bed? So the uneasiness I have denoted is a real pain of the soul, which we manage to keep down and forget, or deaden, during our seasons of business and enterprise, but in hours of loneliness and danger makes itself felt.
E
And what does this show but that you do not attend to your real self; that there is some dark corner of your heart in which you fear to look. You keep the veil down, because you know there is a skeleton behind it, and you are afraid to look at it.
F
And so you go through life, playing a part, something that you are not, with smiles on your lips and honeyed words in your mouth, laughing and jesting, eating and drinking and sleeping, working and trading, going in and out, paying visits and receiving them, seeking admiration and flattering others, while all the while, deep down in your soul, there is that nameless something, that grief-like lead in the bottom of your heart, that wound that you are afraid to probe, or to uncover, or even to acknowledge.
IV
A
And now,
it is this deceitful way in which men deal with themselves, this forgetfulness
of themselves, that makes death and judgment so terrible. Death brings out the
individuality of the soul in the most distinct light. Everything that hides us
from ourselves shall then be removed, every veil and shred torn away, and only
ourselves shall remain.
B
A well-known writer has expressed this in a few short words: “I shall die alone;” and the same thought is suggested by the language of the Gospel in reference to the end of the world: “Two men shall be in the field, one shall be taken and the other left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill, one shall be taken and the other left.” One shall be taken, and he shall be taken alone – out of all the surroundings which have enveloped him here like an atmosphere, and into which he has been fitted like a long-worn garment.
C
When our first parents heard the voice of the Lord God calling to them in the garden after the fall, they hid themselves, and Adam said: “I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” So will it be when the soul stands before God in its nakedness, ashamed because of its guilty self-consciousness. So it was with the rich man in our Lord’s parable. He lived like the multitude. He had four brothers, and they were all alike. They had heard the sermons of Moses and the Prophets, but little did they think it all concerned them. But at last one of them died, and then he woke up to himself. His life is all before him. “You in your lifetime received your good things.”
D
That was the story of it. He sees it all now: he sees what a glutton, what a proud, hardhearted, avaricious man he had been; he sees what a creature of sensuality and self-indulgence he is. Very different is his judgment of himself now, from what it was when, in his purple robes, he reveled in his banqueting-hall, the air heavy with perfume, and the table flowing with silver and flowers, and the slaves bringing in the costly dishes, while Lazarus, the beggar, sat at his gates, full of sores, and hungering for the crumbs that fell from his table.
E
And so it will be with us: awakened to a full consciousness that our relations to God are the only reality. Stripped of all the circumstances that deceived and misled and blinded us here; with conscience fully awakened, with all the consequences of sin open before me and all its guilt manifest; I shall be brought face to face with myself, with what I am, with what I have been, with what I have done, with my sins, and my self-will, and my pride.
F
Yes, this is the real terror of death and judgment. We think its fearfulness will be in the frowning Judge, and the throne set amid thunder and lightning. Oh, no! the Judge does not frown, He is calm and serene. He sits radiant in beauty and grace. “When these things begin to come to pass,” says the evangelist, speaking of the signs of the end of the world, “then look up and lift up your heads, for your redemption draws nigh.”
G
No! Christ is not transported with anger. He is always the same; but the way of His coming is different as they to whom He comes are different. The object is unchanged, but the medium through which we view it will be different. There shall be an apparition of terror to the wicked, but it will not be Christ, it will be themselves. The face of Christ shall be a mirror in which each man shall see himself.
H
Young man, after your career of vice and profligacy, you shall see yourself, the moral leper that you are. There the extortionist, the fraudulent merchant, shall see himself as he is, the un-convicted thief and robber; there the unfaithful husband or wife shall see themselves branded with the mark that tells their shame. The proud woman shall see there the deep stains of her soul in all their blackness, and her worldly, guilty heart, all laid bare. O sight of piercing anguish!
I
“O hills and mountains fall on us, and cover us, and hide us from the wrath of God and of the Lamb,” But no, it is not from the wrath of God and of the Lamb, that we need to be hidden, it is from ourselves. Which way I fly is hell, myself am hell.
J
A lost destiny, an existence bestowed in vain. A life passed as a dream; capacities for happiness never used; graces refused; time gone; opportunity lost not merely a law broken, a punishment inflicted; but I, myself, with my supernatural grace and destiny – I, with all my lofty hopes and powers – I, ruined and crushed forever: that is the hopeless, boundless misery.
K
This is the sore affliction of the guilty after death; and it is the dread of this dismay that keeps thee trembling all thy life. But, on the other hand, for a man to face himself, to excite himself to a consciousness of his own individuality, and to a fulfillment of his own personal obligation to God, is the way to a peaceful and happy life.
L
The
Scripture uses a notable expression when describing the return of the prodigal:
“He came to himself;” and in our ordinary language, when we wish to
express the idea of a man’s seriously reflecting on his destiny and duty, we say
he enters into himself.
M
These expressions are full of significance. They teach us that something is to be done that no one can do for us. Others can help us here, but each one for himself must make his own individual and personal election sure. Each must go down into his own heart, search out all the dark corners, repent of its sins, resist its passions, direct its aims and desires. It is not a work done in a day.
N
It is sometimes a difficult work. There are times in which it pierces to the very quick of our sensitive being, but it is the real and only way to true peace. And oh! it is true and living peace when the soul in its deepest center is anchored to God; when nothing is covered over, nothing kept from His sight.
O
There may be imperfections, there may be sins and repentances, but there must be, when such a course is habitual, a true and growing peace. Do not look abroad, my brethren, for your happiness. It is to be found in yourselves. Happy he who knows the meaning of that word: “My God and I.”
P
This is to walk with God like Abraham. Of this man the Almighty says, as he did of Jacob, “I have known thee by they name.” His relations to God are not merely those general ones that grow out of creation and redemption: to him God is his life, his very being, the soul of his soul.
V
A
Today, my brethren, if I have led your thoughts in the direction I have wished, you see that each one of you has a great work to do, that he must do himself. It will not do for you that you have had a pious mother or a good wife. It is not enough that someone around you who lives near you, or sits near you in the church, is a good Christian.
B
It is not enough that you are a Catholic, one of the vast body of believers in the world. Religion is a personal, individual thing. All other men in the world may stand or fall: that does not affect you. Each one of us has his own independent position before God.
C
If you are one of a family, if you live in a house with others, or work in a room with many companions, if you are one of a gang of laborers, or a clerk in an office where many others are employed, or a scholar in a school where there are many others of your age, there is a circle around you that separates you from each one of your companions.
D
If you were to die tonight, your sentence would be different from that of every other. It might be contrary to those of all the others. They might be friends of God, and you His only enemy. And the difference would be not from any outward cause, but from yourself. “I shall see God,” says the prophet, “whom I myself shall see, and my eyes shall behold and not another.” (Job 19:27)
E
And now, if your conscience tells you that there is something unsatisfactory in your character, something sinful in your conduct, it is for you to set it right, and to do it without delay. It is the first duty of Lent. The forty days of grace and penance are given for redeeming our sins and saving our souls.
F
What then, should be each one’s resolution? I will enter into myself, not we will do this, or I will do it if my friend does, but I, myself, I will enter into myself. I will ask myself what this strange, mysterious life of mine in earnest means, and whether I am today advancing to my destiny. I will break off my sins, and I will pray. It is in prayer that I shall understand my duty. It is in God that I shall find myself.
G
The solemn words of the Church shall not be uttered in vain for me: “Thou art dust, and unto dust thou shalt return.” How many have heard that warning and are now no more. The young have died, the old, the pious, the careless, the rich, and the poor, and each has gone to his own place, the place and portion fitted to his deeds and his character. Perhaps it will not be very long before these words will be verified in me.
H
The Mass shall be said for me, the holy water sprinkled over my lifeless form. What shall it then profit me what others have said in my favor or against me? I shall be simply what I am before God. “What shall it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” “I shall see God, whom I myself shall see, and my eyes shall behold and not another.”