The Negligent Christian
by Rev.
Francis A. Baker
Third Sunday in Lent
“He that is not with Me is against Me;
and he that gathers not with Me, scatters.” Luke 11:23
I
A
There are many seeds planted in the ground that never come up. There is a great deal of fruit on the trees that never comes to ripeness. So among Christians there is a great deal of good that always remains incomplete and inadequate. Who of us has not seen such?
B
Who of us does not know such? They have some faith, some religion, but they bring no fruit to perfection. Now, what is the blight that destroys all their goodness? It is sloth, negligence, tepidity, call it what you will. Religion influences them, but does not control them. They do not reject it, but they do not obey it, at least consistently and in principle. They are languid Christians.
C
They are not the worst, but they are not good. They seek with eagerness the pleasure of the word, and make no conscience of avoiding smaller sins, even when willful and deliberate. They neglect the means of grace, prayer, sermons, and sacraments, with but little scruple, or approach them carelessly. They allow themselves a close familiarity with evil, dally with temptation, and now and then fall into mortal sin.
D
So they go through life, conscious that they are living an unsatisfactory life, but making no vigorous efforts to better it. It is of such men that I would speak this morning; and I propose to show how displeasing this negligence of our salvation is to God, and how dangerous it is to ourselves.
II
A
The
negligent Christian displeases God because he does not fulfill the end for which
he was created. What is the end for which God created us? Certainly it is not
for ourselves, for before God created us we were not, and could not have been
the end for which He made us. He must have made us for Himself, for His glory.
B
Yes, this is the end for which He does everything, for Himself. From the very fact that we are created, our end must be to love and serve God. We are bound, then, to love and serve God, and we are bound to do it with perfection and alacrity.
C
What kind of creature is that which renders to God a reluctant and imperfect service? Suppose a king were to appoint a day to receive the homage of his subjects, and while he was holding his court, and one after another was coming forward to kiss his hand or bend the knee, someone, ill-attired, and with slovenly demeanor, should approach and offer a heedless reverence. Would it not be taken as an act of contempt and an offence?
D
Now, God is our King, and He holds a levee every morning and invites the creation to renew its homage. The world puts on its best array. The sun comes forth as a bridegroom from his chamber, and rejoices as a giant to run his course. The mountains and hills clothe themselves in blue, and the trees put on their robes of green. The birds sing, and the waters move and sparkle. Holy and humble men of heart rise from their beds to enter on their daily course of duty and of prayer, while within the veil the spirits of the just and the ten thousand times ten thousand angels bow before the Throne of Him that lives forever.
E
And now in this great Act of Praise, this ceaseless sacrifice that creation is offering to its Maker, there comes in the negligent Christian, cold, distracted, and unprepared to take his part. He does not kneel down to pray. He goes to work without a blessing. He does not think of God. Nay, in His very presence says and does unseemly things. Oh! is he not a blot on the scene? Is not his presence an offence?
F
In the Old Testament, God complains of the Jewish priests because they brought to Him the halt and blind and the sick for sacrifice. He says: “Offer it now to thy prince, will he be pleased with it, or will he regard they face?” (Malachi 1:8) So in like manner, negligent Christian, God complains of you. You bring to Him a “lame sacrifice,” those feet of yours that stumble so often in the way of justice; a “blind” and “sick sacrifice,” that heart of yours, so found of the world and so weak in the love of God.
III
A
Yes, God requires of us all fervor and perfection – of each one of us. It is a great mistake to suppose that perfection is required only of priests or religious; it is required of everyone. We are not all required to seek perfection in the same way. The married seek it in one way, the unmarried in another. The man of business seeks it one way, the recluse in another. But everyone is required to seek it in such way as accords with his state in life.
B
“That is a faithful servant,” says St. Gregory, “who preserves every day, to the end of his life, an inexhaustible fervor, and who never ceases to add fire to fire, ardor to ardor, desire to desire, and zeal to zeal.” Our own hearts tell us this when they are really under the influence of the Spirit of God.
C
Take a man at his first conversion, either to the faith or to a good life, and how fervent he is! It is not enough for him to come to Mass always on a Sunday, he will come now and then on a weekday. It is not enough for him to keep from what is sinful, he will not allow himself all that is innocent. He does not think of bargaining with God. This is his thought – that God is All, and he is creature, and that God deserves his best, his all.
D
By-and-by, alas! As he becomes unfaithful, another spirit comes over him. He asks: “Is this binding under mortal sin? That duty is irksome; is it a great matter if I omit it now and then?” God tells us what he thinks of such a man in the Parable of the Talents.
E
When the Lord came to reckon with his servants, he that had received one talent came and said, “Lord, I know that you are a hard man; you reap where you have not sown, and gather where you have not scattered. And being afraid, I went and hid thy talent in the earth.” And his Lord in answer said to him: “You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered. You ought put my money with the bankers, and upon my return, I would receive my own with interest. Cast this unprofitable servant into the darkness outside." (Matthew 25:24-27)
IV
A
Again, if fervor in our duties is due to God as our Creator, it is none the less due to Christ as our Redeemer. Oh how strong are the words of St. Paul: “The love of Christ presses us; judging this, that if one died for all, then we were all dead. And Christ died for all, that they also that live may not now live to themselves but to Him who died for them.” (2 Corinthians 5:14)
B
You see what his idea was – that the love of Christ was a debt that could never be paid, that it was a claim on us that pressed continually, and was never satisfied. And surely it is so. When we think at all, we must all acknowledge that it is so.
C
Who is Christ? The Son of God, the Splendor of His Father’s Glory, and the Image of His Substance. Who are we? Lost sinners. And for us, He did not abhor the Virgin’s womb.” He did not refuse “to bear our infirmities, and carry our sorrows.” He gave His body to those who beat him, and turned not away from those that rebuked Him and spat upon Him. He gave His blood a ransom for many, and laid down His life for sin.
D
Was there ever love like this? While gratitude lives among men, what shall be the return given to Christ by those whom He has redeemed? Is the return we are actually making such as He deserves? Was it for this that He died, that we should not commit quite so many mortal sins? Was it for this that He hung on the cross, that only now and then we should omit some important duty? Was it for this that He sweat those great drops of blood, that we should live a slothful and irreligious life?
E
O my brothers, when I see how men are living; when I look at some Christians, and see how when Easter comes round it is an even chance whether to go to their duties or not; when I see them on Sunday stay away from Mass so lightly, or listen to the word of God so carelessly; when I see them omit most important duties toward their families; when I see how freely they expose themselves to temptation, and how easily they yield to it; when I see how slow they are to prayer, how cold, sluggish, sensual and worldly they are; above all, when I hear them give for an answer, when they are questioned about these things, so indifferently, “I neglected it,”
F
I ask myself, did these men ever hear of Christ? Do they know in whose name they are baptized? Did they ever look at a crucifix, or read the story of the Passion? Alas! Yes, they have seen and heard and read, and have taken their side, if not with Judas in his deceitful kiss, or the soldiers in their mockery, with the crowd of careless men who passed by, regardless and hard-hearted. But let these men know that their Savior sees and resents their neglect. “Because you are lukewarm,” He says, “and neither cold nor hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of my mouth.” (Revelation 3:16)
G
His soul loathes the slothful and half-hearted. Yes, slothful Christian, far different will be the estimate you will make of your life when you come to die, from what you make now. Then that negligence of yours, of which you make so little, will seem the crime it really is; and bitter will be the second you shall render of it to Christ your Judge.
V
A
But if it be not enough to rouse us from our torpor, to think that we are offending God, let us reflect how great is the danger which we are bringing on our own souls. A negligent Christian is in very great danger of being lost. I said just now that he falls into mortal sins now and then. It is hardly possible it should be otherwise. One will certainly fall into mortal sin if he does not take pains to avoid it.
B
We all have within us concupiscence or a tendency to love the creature with a disordered love, and this tendency is much increased in most men by actual sins of their past lives. Now, this principle acts as a weight on the will, always dragging it down to the earth. Fervent men make allowance for this. They aim higher than it is necessary to reach. They leave a margin for failures, weakness, and surprise. They build out-works to guard the approaches to the citadel.
C
But with the negligent Christian it is the contrary of all this. Unreflecting, unguarded, unfortified by prayer, in his own weakness, and with his strong bend to evil, he must meet the immediate and direct temptations to mortal sin which befall him in his daily life.
D
Is not his fall certain? Not to speak of very strong temptations which can only be overcome by a special grace, which grace God has not promised to grant except to the faithful soul – even ordinary temptations are too much for such a man. He falls into mortal sin almost without resistance.
VI
A
And what is also to be taken into the account is, that the difference between mortal and venial sin is often a mere question of more or less. So much is a mortal sin: so much is not. The line is often very difficult, nay, impossible to be drawn, even by a theologian. Now, who can tell us in practice when we have arrived at the limit of venial sin, when we have passed beyond it and are in mortal sin?
B
Will not a careless, thoughtless man, such as I have described, will he not be certain sometimes to go over the fatal line? Yes, my brethren, negligent Christians commit mortal sins. They commit mortal sins almost without knowing it. They commit mortal sins more often than they imagine. Without opposing religion, without abandoning themselves to a reprobate life, just by neglecting God and their duties, they fall into grievous sins; bad habits multiply upon them apace, their passions grow stronger, grace grows weaker, their good resolutions less frequent and less hopeful, until they are near to spiritual ruin.
C
The wise man gives us in a striking picture the description of such a soul: “I passed by the field of the slothful man and by the vineyard of the foolish man: And behold, it was all filled with nettles, and thorns had covered the face thereof: and the stone wall was broken down, which when I had seen, I laid it up in my heart, and by the example I received instruction. Thou will sleep a little, said I: thou will slumber a little: thou will fold thy hands a little to rest: And poverty shall come upon thee as one that runs, and want as an armed man.” (Proverbs 24:30)
VII
And
what is to secure you from dying in such a state? Our Lord says, “If the
master of the house had known in what hour the thief would come, he would have
watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken open.” (Matthew
24:43)
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VIII
A
But he knew not, and so in the dead of night, when deep sleep falls on man, the thief came. And so it is with death. It come like a thief in the night. Death is almost always sudden. Sometimes it comes without any warning at all. A man is sent into eternity in a moment, without time to utter a prayer.
B
Sometimes it comes after sickness, but sickness does not always prepare for death. The sick man says: “Oh, it is nothing; I shall soon be well.” His friends say the same. If he gets worse the priest is sent for; he would like to receive the sacraments. But too often he has not yet looked Death in the face, he has not heard the dreadful truths he has to tell, he is much as he was in life, slothful and negligent.
C
And after the priest is gone, when he is alone, at midnight, that comes to pass of which he has thought so little. Death enters the room, and with his icy hand unlocks the prison of the body, whispering to the soul with awful voice, “Arise, and come to judgment.” O my brethren, how dreadful, if at that hour you find yourself unready!
D
If like the foolish virgins you are forced to cry: “Our lamps are gone out.” “Cursed is he that doth the work of the Lord negligently,” (Jeremiah 48:10) says the Holy Scripture. The work of the Lord is the work of our salvation. That is the work of our life, the work for which we are created, and he, who through negligence leaves this work undone, shall hear at the last that dreadful sentence: “Depart ye cursed.”
IX
A
We come back, then, to this truth, that the only way to secure our salvation is to be not slothful in that business, but fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. Salvation is a serious work. We are not sufficiently aware of this. We seem somehow to believe that the way of life is not straight, and the gate not narrow.
B
Certainly we feel very differently about our salvation from what our fathers in the Catholic Church felt. How many have gone out into the desert and denied themselves rest and food, and scourged themselves to blood! How many have devoted themselves to perpetual silence! How many have willingly given up wealth and friends and kindred! How many, even their own lives!
C
Will you tell me they were but seeking a more perfect life? They were but following the counsels of perfection, which a man is free to embrace or decline? I tell you they were seeking their salvation. They were afraid of the judgment to come, and were trying to prepare for it. “Whatever I do,” says St. Jerome, “I always hear the dreadful sound of the last trumpet: ‘Arise, ye dead, and come to judgment.’”
D
Now, can salvation be a work so serious to them and so trivial for us? Grant that you are not bound to do precisely what they did, are you at liberty to do nothing? If you are not bound to a perpetual fast, you are at liberty to darken your mind and inflame your passions by immoderate drinking? If you are not required to walk with downcast eyes and to observe perpetual silence, are you free to gaze on every dangerous object, and to speak works of profanity, falsehood, impurity, or slander?
E
If you are not required to flee from your homes, are you not required to forsake the occasions of sin? If you are not called to forego all innocent pleasures, are you exempt from every sort of self-denial? If no rule obliges you to spend the night in prayer, are you not obliged to pray often?
F
Yes, it was the desire to place their salvation in security that led our fathers into the desert. Surely, we have to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, who remain behind in a world which they left as too dangerous, and have to contend with passions which they felt well nigh too strong for them.
G
We must be what they were. “The time is short: it remains that they who have wives be as those who have not; and they who weep as they who weep not; and they who rejoice as they who rejoice not; and they who buy as they who possess not; and they who use this world as if they used it not; for the figure of this world passes away.” (1 Corinthians 7:29-30)
X
A
My brethren, then be earnest in the work of your salvation. While we have time let us do good, and abound in the work of the Lord. Serve the Lord with a perfect heart. He deserves our very best. Our own happiness, too, will be secured by it, for He says: “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, and you shall find rest to your souls.” (Matthew 11:29) And to the fervent: “An entrance shall be ministered abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of Jesus Christ.” (Peter 1:11)
B
This is my desire for you , to see you fervent Christians. I would like to know that you are anxious to assist at the Holy Mass on week days as well as on Sundays. I would like to know that you pray morning and evening. I would like to believe that you speak with God often as the day goes on.
C
I would like to know that you are watchful over your lips for fear of giving offense with your tongue; that you are prompt to reject the first temptations to evil; that you are exact in the fulfillment of your duties; that you are careful in confession, and devout at communion – in a word, that you are living a life of watchfulness against the coming of Christ to judgment. This includes all. This is what our Savior enjoined on us: “Take heed; watch and pray; for you know not when the Lord of the house comes: at even, or at midnight, or at cock-crowing, or in the morning. Lest coming of a sudden, He find you sleeping.” (Mark 13:35)