77

Bf. Bez^.

Fulton J. Sheen



Digitized by the Internet Archive

in2016

https://archive.org/details/lovethatwaitsforOOshee



THE LOVE THAT

WAITS EDR YOU





THE LOVE THAT

WAITS FDR YDU

Sixteen addresses delivered over the nationwide Catholic Hour, produced

by the National Council of Catholic Men, in cooperation with the

National Broadcasting Company, from January 2, 1949
through April 17, 1949

BY

RT. REV. MSCR. FULTON j. SHEEN

of the

Catholic University of America

Fourth Edition 25,000

September, 1951

NATIONAL COUNCIL OF CATHOLIC MEN
1312 Massachusetts Avenue, N. W.

Washington 5, D. C.

Printed and distributed by Our Sunday Visitor

Huntingdon, Indiana



Nihil Obstat:

VERY REV. MSGR. T. E. DILLON

Censor Librorum

Imprimatur:

JOHN FRANCIS NOLL, D.D.

Bishop of Fort Wayne

PweMWed



TABLE OF CONTENTS

THE TWO TRAP-DOORS OF THE SOUL 7

THE PERILS OF A FALSE CONSCIENCE 18

WHAT MAKES US AFRAID OF GOD ? 20

MORAL CONDITION OF FINDING GOD 27

SELF-KNOWLEDGE 33

ASCETICISM 39

THE NEED OF GRACE 46

ACTUAL GRACE 52

SANCTIFYING GRACE 59

HOW TO BUILD CHARACTER 66

THE SANCTIFICATION OF THE NOW-MOMENT 73

MEDITATION 80

REPARATION FOR SINS 87

TASTE AND SEE THAT THE LORD IS SWEET 94

FOR THOSE WHO HAVE THE FAITH 101

EASTER 108





THE TWO TRAP DOORS Of THE SOUL

Friends

:

The most beautiful gifts are

invisible, such as air for our

lungs, grace for our souls and

the devoted friends of the radio.

To further that intimate bond

between us may these broadcasts

flower and blossom in the Eter-

nal Triangle: You and me, in

and through God. That is what

I mean by “Friends.”

Many in our audience know,

love and serve God in the ful-

ness of Faith. There are others

too who want God, though they

deny it with their lips while

inwardly craving for Him in

their hearts. I start with the

assumption that everyone is

looking for God. If you go into

the world in the belief that

everybody is trying to cheat you,

it is surprising how many cheats

you meet. If you go at the

world on the assumption that

everyone is looking for God, it

is beautiful to find how many

really are. It makes no differ-

ence whether they be commun-

ists or bigots, sinners or liber-

tines, tyrants or weaklings, or

the three classes outside of the

Body of Christ that divide the

world: the pre-Christians who

have not yet heard of the ful-

ness of Christ; the post-Chris-

tians of our Western civiliza-

tion who once possessed, but

now abandon Him; or the anti-

Christians who would destroy

His memory from the earth but

whose energy for anti-Christ

puts us to shame, verifying the

words of T. S. Eliot: “The best

lack all conviction, while the

worst are full of passionate in-

tensity.” All these are actual or

potential sons of God and we

love them in the charity of

Christ and His Blessed Mother,

praying that God may use us as

His feeble instruments to draw

them closer to the fires of Love

Divine.

Anyone seeking to bring God

to souls ought to start with

modern man as he is, not as he

ought to be, and not as he was a

century ago. Apologetics, or the

science of presenting divine

truth to unbelievers, is in some

instances half a century behind

the times; we are beating the

dead dogs of rationalism and

deism while ignoring the trag-

edies of the modern soul locked



8 THE LOVE THAT WAITS FOR YOU

inside itself—cynical, morose
and afraid. The modern soul is

not going to God through order

in nature, as he did a genera-

tion ago, but through his dis-

ordered self; he is looking for

God not through a search for a

cause of the cosmos, but

through a yearning for redemp-

tion from his own frustration.

It is one of fhe marvels of grace

that God can start there, de-

spite the fact that we too often

feel that He must work on souls

the way we start in our text-

books. I am sure that no mem-

ber of the Church in the decade

following the Ascension of our

Lord would have given a Roman

penny for the bigoted Paul's

chance of conversion. It is very

likely that many in the Church

were secretly wishing that God

would take him out of this life,

by sending him a coronary

thrombosis, or else they were

praying that He would send one

to answer Paul. No one in the

Church was capable of dealing

with his intellect since Stephen,

the learned deacon, had been

stoned, Paul, himself, holding

the garments of those who

stoned. And yet in a moment of

his greatest bigotry, in the in-

stant of his blood-boiling per-

secutions, or as he himself said

when he was ‘^breathing out

threatenings against the Lord,"

the grace comes to him and the

prayer of the Church was an-

swered. God did send some

learned philosopher to answer

Paul; God sent Paul!

God's grace can start any-

where, and with any condition

of mind or heart. If the mod-

ern soul is frustrated, we will

start with frustration. Our

divine Lord began the conver-

sion of the woman of the well

as He found her—a much di-
vorced and therefore frustrated

woman in search of a drink of

cold water, from which the

Saviour led her to the fountains

of Everlasting Life. So Paul

himself after his conversion

started with men as they were

in Athens, telling them they

were religious because he saw

in the streets a statue of the

Unknown God, and from that in-

scription He led them to love

God whom they knew not.

And I say to you of the

twentieth century what St. Paul

said to the Athenians, I perceive

that you are religious men, for

walking through your streets, I

find two statues to your un-

known gods. You, too, are look-

ing for God whom you know not.

I see a statue to Marx and the

brotherhood of man, which he

cannot give, because he denied



THE TWO TRAP-DOORS OF THE SOUL 9

the Fatherhood of God. I see a

statue to Freud and peace of

mind, which he cannot give, be-

cause he overemphasized sex and

left out God and redemption

from sin. That brotherhood of

man, that peace of soul which

you know not, we give you in

the Fatherhood of God, the Re-

demption of Christ.

You are hungry, thirsting,

starving, famished souls; so are

we all. You may be bigoted,

prejudiced, fed up with the

world; you may be imprisoned

with your fears and anxieties;

you may be still full of illusion

because young, and at that

stage of life where false pleas-

ures have not yet slapped you

in the face. It makes no diifer-

ence what you are. You may

even think yourself a god, and

that every man must think he is

if he denies God, for he makes

himself his own creator and his

own redeemer. In the face of

that kind of a god, I am an athe-

ist. But I care not what you

are now.

God can still get into your

imprisoned self. There are two

breaches in your walls
;

two

cracks in your armor; two hid-

den entrances to your soul

through which God can enter.

They are so much a part of your

nature that you cannot alter

them. When God made you. He

put two trap-doors in your soul,

and through them the Love that

waits for you breaks in on you,

though you may not always

recognize Him.

The first of these trap-doors

in your soul is your love of good-

ness. In chasing after the iso-

lated tid-bits of what is good,

your soul is really in pursuit of

Goodness, and Goodness is God.

Your every quest for excite-

ment, your every love of a good

friend, your every comparison of

good and better, implies some

Goodness beyond all good things,

and therefore is a want of God.

To say that you want good

things but not Goodness which

is God-ness, is just like saying

you like the sunbeams but you

hate the sun. We even do evil

because it seems to be good in

some of its aspects. No one sins

except because he longs for

goodness
;
he may be mistaken in

his choice of what is good, as the

stomach is mistaken in its

choice of what is good for

health if it lives of a diet of

pickle juice. Drunkenness seems

good to the alcoholic, money to

the miser, and carnality to the

Freudian. Everything that God

made is good, even fire, though

it burns houses, and water

though it drowns children. Even



10 THE LOVE THAT WAITS FOR YOU

the most perverse atheist can

love only because something

seems good. Good deeds too are

mingled with our evil deeds.

Sometimes a sinner is planting a

rose, nursing a sick friend, or

fixing a neighbor’s tire. Because

there is something in us that

escapes infection, we are not in-

trinsically wicked, nor incur-

able, nor
'

“impossible.” But

even though the will is perverse

and enthralled and captivated by

a great sinful adhesion, whether

it be iust or power, there are

some few good commendable

acts which cut a tangent across

the will as an exception; these

good acts are like a clean handle

on a dirty bucket; through

them God can lift our souls to

His Sacred Heart.

The second trap-door by which

God enters your soul is your

ennui, your satiety, your fed-up-

ness, your loneliness, your mel-

ancholy, your sadness. Every

libido, every passion, every

craving of the body is finite,

concrete, carnal, and therefore

bores you, but there is still one

choice that has never been

made, one great chord that has

not yet been struck, and that is

the infinite. Your ennui means

there is still something to be

had; you possess, but not all;

you know, but not everything;

you love, but not always. Despite

all your adhesions to the con-

crete and the temporal, as the

fish needs the water, the eye the

light, the bird the air, the grass

the earth, so your spiritual soul

needs an all-loving God. Be-

cause the Infinite has been left

out, God has been left out, and

because God for whom you were

made is left out, your soul feels

a boredom with what it has, a

loneliness for what it has not.

This is the negative presence of

God in the soul, as sickness is

the negative presence of health

in the body, and hunger is the

negative presence of food in the

stomach. Into this trap-door of

emptiness God enters to inten-

sify your dissatisfaction and the

loneliness until finally you accept

the Love that waits for you, as

your Guest and your Eternal

Host.

Such are the two secret en-

trances by which God insinuates

Himself into your soul; in the

good that is done, and the infi-

nite that is left unheeded; in

your craving for goodness and

in your emptiness without it.

When you do good, God begins

to work in you as a gift; when

you are bored and dissatisfied.

He begins to work in you as a

desire. This accounts for the

feeling we have that we are not



THE TWO TRAP-DOORS OF THE SOUL 11

only pursuing something, but

that we are also being pursued;

not only seeking the Infinite,

but being sought by it.

St. Francis de Sales likens

this quest for the Infinite to an

interesting fact of the animal

kingdom. Partridges sometimes

steal the eggs of other part-

ridges. But when the chick

which is hatched under the wing

of the thievish partridge first

hears the cry of its true mother,

it immediately abandons its

thievish parent and flies to its

real parent. As the mother bird

put a trap-door in the tiny

breast of its young to pull it

back to herself, so God put two

inclinations and impulses in us,

which pull us toward Him: one,

our love of Goodness, the other,

our reaction from disappoint-

ments of life. But we are not

guided by instincts like part-

ridges, but by reason and free

will; hence the return to God

is not a mechanical reaction but

the result of a free choice. But

whether we respond or not,

notice that the first impetus

comes from God, not from us.

There is God-priority every-

where; we are touched first by

Him, not He by us; He knocks

before we invite; He loves be-

fore we respond just as the

mother loves the child before

the child can react to the moth-

er’s kiss.

Though the Divine Invader

cannot be prevented from enter-

ing your soul. He can be pre-

vented from staying. He is a

kind of Divine Squatter on the

no-man’s land of the soul, and

can be evicted at our word. It

would make no difference to an

ignorant person whether he met

a teacher or an ignoramus, if he

had no will to learn. If, how-

ever, he knows he is ignorant,

it is likely that he will want to

learn. He, therefore, who loves

good things will not recognize

God until he wills Goodness

more than he wants good things

;

he who is bored with life will

not recognize the Divine Physi-

cian unless he wills to be

healed, even at all costs.

There is not a single soul

among you at which God has not

knocked thousands of times.

Though you may ignore Him,

as you might cross the street to

avoid meeting someone to whom

you owed a debt. He is still

within you like a spiritual law

of gravitation drawing you to

Himself.

Your discontent, confusion,

fear and unhappiness is His

way of telling you that you are

restless without Him for Whom

you were made. Not all, but



12 THE LOVE THAT WAITS FOR YOU

many who are mentally sick, are

such because they have no faith,

and as Dr. Jung the celebrated

Viennese psychiatrist said, he

never met anyone whom he

could say was really cured until

he found God.

I have been dealing with

souls for many years, and I am

more and more convinced, that

there are only two kinds of per-

sons in the world: those who

have the faith and those who are

looking for it—even the perse-
cutors and the hateful. No one is

happy who is unloved, but think

how many of us would be un-

loved, if there were no God

—

we who are so unloveable. Do

I hear some saying: “My con-

science is at peace; I have no

need of religion”? Very well,

we will take up that subject

next Sunday.

The fish will never drown within

the tide.

Nor birds fall from the air on

which they ride.

The flame will not corrode or

blacken gold.

For fire burns clean and the

Hand gives it a mould.

To all His creatures God has

granted

To live according to their nature.

How then could I deny my

breath and bone?

In all things I submit to God

alone.

Who is my father by nature.

Who is my brother by His

humanhood.

Who is my bridegroom by His

love.

And from the outset I am all His

own.

Saint Mechtild of Magdeburg

(1207-94).God love you!



THE PERILS OF A FALSE CONSCIENCE

Friends

:

This broadcast is dedicated to

Escapists: An escapist is one

who calls religion ‘escapism’ be-

cause he is too cowardly to

give up an evil life to find God.

He generally justifies his flight

from responsibility saying: “My

conscience is at peace.” Such

an attitude we will now analyze.

There are two kinds of con-

sciences; the one God gave us,

and the one we made for our-

selves. In the first instance, we

recognize that God not only im-

plants in us a desire to make a

journey to the Heavenly City,

but that He also gives us the

map. In the second instance, we

deny we have any journey to

make, throw away the map and

call any road we take the right

road, simply because we took it.

It is this latter kind of consci-

ence that boasts it is at peace.

Now peace is a nice word, but

there can be false peace and true

peace. False peace is peace of

mind
;
true peace is peace of soul.

True peace deepens in sorrow;

false peace is shattered by it;

true peace has no wants; false

neace is restless and covetous;

true peace is humble; false

peace lives in fear of inferior-

ity. In brief, the good consci-

ence is given by God; the false

conscience is made by us. There

are three steps in the making of

false consciences :

—

1. It is dulled.

2. It is drugged.

3. It is seared or killed.

Let us consider them in rela-

tion to stealing. Though they are

frequent m all sins, at the first
temptation to steal, the inner

voice recalls the seventh Com-

mandment : “Thou shalt not

steal.” The ego answers: “This

fountainpen is of no great Value

anyway, and the owner will

never miss it; he has at least a

dozen others
;
furthermore, I will

steal this only once.” This is the

dulling of conscience. Next fol-

lows the drugging: The voice oi

conscience speaks: “You ought

not do this. You said you would

never do it again. Stealing will

.become a habit if you do it

often enough.” The ego an-

swers : “I guess I am built that

way. How can I help it? Any-

way, I heard one of my profes-^

sors in college say that we are



THE LOVE THAT WAITS FOR YOU

.lOt free, but are determined to

be the way we are. Since I am

inclined to steal, I probably in-

herited stealing from my grand

uncle whom I heard was a horse

thief. Then too I may have an

inferiority complex due to a re-

pression of my ego when I was

an infant, and this is one of the

ways I am trying to compensate

for it, by the extension of my

ego in the acquisition of prop-

erty.” After such a rationaliza-

tion, the last stage is reached:

The searing or killing of consci-

ence. The voice no longer

speaks
;

it only faintly whispers.

A worker in a boiler factory can

hardly bear the noise at first, but

after some time he becomes used

to it. The voice of conscience in

like manner seems to lose its in-

sistency as it murmurs: “Steal-

ing is wrong.” The ego answers

:

“What is wrong? Who decides

what is right and wrong except

myself? Conscience is only the

vestige of infantile dread. How

do I know there is a God? Con-

science is only a residue of social

taboo and totem. I have heard

of some primitive tribe that did

not consider stealing a wrong;

anyway, one has to live his own

life; stealing is wrong only if

you get caught.”

At the end of this trail of

self-justification, in the lan-

guage of Scripture the “consci-

ence is seared with a hot iron”

(1 Tim. 4:2) and a false consci-

ence is bom.

Who in the first act of self-

indulgence could picture the

bloated drunkard? Who at the

first stifling of conscience

could foresee the calloused thief?

The little infractions of youth

become the grave rebellions of

maturity, as Hannibal if he re-

turned to earth now, would read-

ily switch from crude battering

rams to atomic bombs. What

crime is inexcusable if one

makes his own conscience the

standard? If each man is his

own judge, who will be con-

demned? Though such a soul

says its conscience is at peace,

it is only because it has identi-

fied conscience with the ego’s in-

terest. Instead of his desires

following conscience, he makes

conscience follow his desires.

When personal interests are in-

volved then his conscience is so

keen, so sensitive, so respectable,

but when the interests of others

are at stake, conscience seems

to have evaporated.

If such a conscience were

really at peace, it would not

boast so much about its peace.

The healthy do not go about



THE PERILS OF A FALSE CONSCIENCE 15

thumping their breasts saying:

“I am healthy.” It is those who

have poor health who talk most

about health. The right consci-

ence never boasts of its right-

eousness for its judge is God,

not self. As St. Paul said: “For

I am not conscious to myself of

anything, yet am I not hereby

justified.” (1 Cor. 4:4) Did you

ever notice that people who

boast of their consciences being

at peace are those who are try-

ing hardest to escape even con-

sciousness? An easy conscience

ought to be an enjoyable consci-

ence. Why do these so-called

peaceful consciences seek to fly

from consciousness through al-

coholism, drugs and excitement

and the seeking out of charlatans

who explain away guilt, if they

are so devoid of worries? Pigs

do not worry. Cows are content-

ed. But the false conscience

worries because it cannot separ-

ate its actions from an uncer-

tain future wherein it will have

to render an account of its ste-

wardship.

The uneasy conscience of the

modern soul tries to cover itself

up with three forms of escap-

ism:—1. Hyperactivity, nerv-
ous excitement, jitters, impa-

tience, restlessness, so that by

being completely occupied on the

outsi(je, it is kept from entering

into its own conscience and

inner misery.

The man with a true consci-

ence works because of external

compulsion, namely the necessity

of providing the necessities of

life; the uneasy conscience works

like a hyperthyroid, because of

the inner compulsion of escap-

ing from self or absorbing inner

guilt. Each period of life has its

nervous exteriorization as a

way of escaping the inner voice

of God. In youth it can be the

restlessness of uncontrolled pas-

sion; in maturity it becomes ex-

cessive interest in business,

profit, styles, fashions, struggles

and conflicts. The God-less per-

son who makes sex the goal of

his youth, often sublimates in

later life to the mad pursuit of

the wealth or power. He does not

want to make money, for he

does not stop when he makes

it, but rather that he wants to

give himself an external satis-

faction to compensate for want

of inner peace, and to measure

greatness by what he has,

rather than what he is.

Another segment of false con-

sciences drown their unhappi-

ness in the pursuit of violence,

aggressiveness and Commun-

ism. A man who refuses to sub-



16 THE LOVE THAT WAITS FOR YOU

mit to the Divine Will, makes

up for it by the repressive sub-

mission of others to his egotistic

will. Inner guilt is always ac-

companied by a deep sense of in-

feriority in the face of the good-

ness. This is compensated for

by violently trying to make the

neighbor feel his inferiority.

Thus do class conflict, bickering,

scandal-mongering, hate and per-

secution become the indirect

witnesses to consciences that are

not right on the inside.

Another group of false con-

siliences escape from the Voice

of God by a false interest in so-

cial causes. The interest is true

when the individual himself is

righteous; the interest is false

when the individual is unright-

eous. Many a person today de-

velops a passion for defending

the rights of others, to take his

mind off his inner want of right-

eousness. Such was the case

with David. David stole the wife

of Urias and put Urias in the

front of his army in battle so

he would be killed. He justified

it saying : ^‘Someone must die in

battle.” One day Nathan the

prophet told David about a poor

man who was robbed of his only

ewe lamb by a rich man to en-

tertain a guest. David with a

keen sense of political justice

and as a defender of the down-

trodden said in righteous anger:

“He shall die.” But Nathan an-

swered: “Thou are the man.”

David then saw that instead of

reforming others, that he should

first begin with self and cried

out in the agony of a soul that

was beginning to find its peace:

“Have mercy on me, 0 Lord,

have mercy on me, 0 Lord.”

All these false interests are

but vain flights from Divine

Love. Nowhere else is there such

a feverish and cowardly escap-

ism as there is in the souls who

refuse the embrace of their

Divine Saviour. They construct

a thousand and one more cruci-

fying crosses than the crucifix;

they call religious people “cow-

ards,” but they know in their

own hearts that they are the real

cowards — because they are
afraid to give up the e^dl in their

own lives. Not brave enough to

put out the flames that devour

their own houses, they shout “es-

capism” at the neighbors who

want them to send for the Fire

Department. To such false con-

sciences, may we offer these re-

flections: Did you ever think of

it:—Perhaps what you call wor-
ry, anxiety, fear, melancholy is

really remorse. This can be

the starting point for recovery



THE PERILS OF A FALSE CONSCIENCE 17

of true peace. As a broken bone

pains because it is not where it

ought to be, so a conscience is

uneasy because it is not where

it ought to be, i.e., in right rela-

tion to God. This inner hell, in-

stead of being fled from should

be approached. To get away from

yourself, you must flrst of all

get into yourself. Remorse is

the negative presence of God in

your soul, as Grace is the posi-

tive presence of God. Remorse is

self-disgust divorced from God.

Remorse becomes sorrow and

hope the moment your soul turns

to God. In your uneasiness God

is saying to your soul: “Peace

is not in the way you are living.

If it were, I would not have

troubled you.” Unrelated to God,

the emptiness and loneliness of

a guilty conscience begets des-

pair. Related to God, the mis-

ery of remorse becomes repent-

ance for sin. Once your soul

turns to the Redeeming Saviour,

the burden of your guilt will dis-

appear, as a patient forgets his

pain, in the joy at seeing the

physician who can cure.

Finally, to all false consci-

ences :—Let us stop deluding
ourselves, and recall that one day

we will all be judged by God,

and the judgment will be based

not on the conscience we made

for ourselves, but on the consci-

ence God gave us. That will be

the conscience of our youth, be-

fore it was perverted by sin
;
the

conscience we covered over, or

rationalized by a phony educa-

tion; the conscience which once

considered as wrong, the sins

we now justify as self-expres-

sion
;

the conscience before it

was polluted by license and

mixed with selfishness; the con-

science before it became “broad-

minded” and gave right and

wrong as an equal value. This

conscience will drag up from our

unconsciousness all its hideous,

leprous mass of sins in judg-

ment. As a business man at the

end of a day takes out from his

cash register a record of debits

and credits, so the slip of con-

science will be pulled out at the

end of life for the final reckon-

ing. God will not judge us as

much as we will judge ourselves.

Our conscience will speak and

say: “I am the conscience God

gave you! Behold yourself in it

as a mirror. What gravitation

is to the stars, what atoms are to

chemistry, what instincts are to

the animal, that I was to you to

help you in your course. I

warned you; I shouted; I whis-

pered; I murmured; I kept you

awake at night; I made you



18 THE LOVE THAT WAITS FOR YOU

afraid to awake in the morning.

I troubled you in your pleas-

ures; I gave you no rest in your

sins; I filled you with a sense of

fed-upness and satiety and emp-

tied you of inner peace. To

escape me you thought you would

find peace in a second, or third

marriage, or a fourth or fifth

drink; you were analyzed, but

never synthesized
;

you were

taken apart, but never put to-

gether; you tried to stop worry-

ing when you should have wor-

ried
;

you should have mis-

trusted yourself when you were

most certain you were without

blame. But I, thy conscience,

wearied not; I would not let you

escape though you did fly; I

would not desert you, though you

deserted me; with remorse, re-

proach, uneasiness
;

in shame,

disquiet, bitterness, fear, an-

xieties, I kept you restless.”

Let this conscience not be

awakened only at the bar of

God’s judgment, but now. Start

worrying and begin living! You

will discover that the noise in

the prison of your conscience is

really only the clanging of the

keys of the Divine Saviour Who

has come to release you. His is

a Love that waits for you. Des-

pair not! Not until you begin t(

be infinitely wicked and God

ceases to be infinitely good may

you begin to give up hope. You

can have peace, but you will find

it not on a couch having your

sins explained away, but on your

knees or in a confessional box,

begging the mercy of God.

Divine Love is calling you

!

Why is such Merciful love un-

loved ?

Are you afraid? Afraid of

God? Yes! Some are! But

why? That would be interesting

to know. Listen in next week

and I will tell you.

God Love You.

With eager heart and will on

fire,

I strove to win my great desire.

“Peace shall be mine,” I said;

but life

Grew bitter in the barren

strife.

My soul was weary, and my

pride

Was wounded deep; to Heaven I

cried,

“God grant me peace or I must

die”;

The dumb stars glittered no

reply.

Broken at last, I bowed my

head.

Forgetting all myself, and said,

“Whatever comes. His will be

done”

;



THE PERILS OF A FALSE CONSCIENCE 19

And in that moment peace was

won.

Henry van Dyke, 1852-1933.

(“Peace” from “The Poems of

Henry van Dyke,” copyright,

1911, by Charles Scribner’s

Sons, 1939, by Tertius van

Dyke.)



WHAT MAKES US AFRAID OF COD?

Friends

:

No one hates Beauty. Why

then are men afraid of God,

Who is the Beautiful? Because

there is a difference between

what is bea,utiful on earth and

what is beautiful in heaven.

God’s beauty makes moral de-

mands: earth’s beauty does not.

God’s beauty is inseparable

from Truth and Goodness, but

earth’s beauty can be loved even

in error and crime. That inci-

dentally is why a decaying civi-

lization develops a cult of the

beautiful; because it gives an

ideal above the sordid and the

ugly, without committing anyone

to a change either in his philos-

ophy of life or his morals.

Here we touch on the psy-

chology of those modern souls

who are afraid of God or who

sometimes call the Divinely

Beautiful the God of Wrath. It

is because they fear Goodness

and hate Truth.

This seems impossible at

first, but after it is explained,

let each decide for himself

whether either of these reasons

is keeping him from God.

1 fear of Goodness: Why

do we dread having a decayed

tooth pulled. Is it not because

the permanent good effects will

not appear until we have passed

through a moment of pain? In

like manner, spiritual goodness

can be feared because we know

it demands an uprooting of what

is evil. As some fear and put off

dieting which would be good for

their health, so many dread^

fasting which would be good for

their soul.

God is feared not because He

is not good enough, but because

He is too good
;
because we know

His Goodness tolerates no im-

perfection. As Francis Thomp-

son said, “fearful lest having

Him, I might have naught else

besides.” If the human lover

likes to see his beloved perfect

in manner, speech and appear-

ance, may it not be more true

that the Divine Lover wants to

see souls perfect as the Heaven-

ly Father is perfect? As an un-

educated, coarse man is afraid

to court a refined well-educated

lady, so does the unspiritualized

soul turn from Goodness Who

wants nothing less than the re-

finement of the soul in virtu<



WHAT MAKES US AFRAID OF GOD? 21

and holiness. Because the vio-

linist loves his violin, he tight-

ens the strings of penitential

discipline, until they give forth

the perfect note. If endowed

with consciousness, the violin

would probably protest against

the sacrifice it had to make in

fear of the perfection it was

destined to attain. It was the

fear of Divine Goodness that

made St. Augustine say : “I

want to be chaste, dear Lord, a

little later on; not now.”

Some justify their flight from

Goodness on the grounds that

we who are happily members of

the Church are not good enough

—^which indeed we are not. But
we beg them to remember that

we know it, and we are trying

to amend. It is very hard being

a good Catholic, but it is so easy

being a materialist. Then, too,

may we ask such critics how

perfect must we be before we

could ever inspire them? Have

they ever thought that if the

Church were as perfect as they

want it to be, there would never

be any room in it for them?

Another reason why some

souls are afraid of God, His

Divine Son and His Mystical

Body is because of a hatred of

Truth. There is a difference be-

tween goodness and truth.

Goodness is feared not hated,

because in rejecting perfect

Goodness, one still loves imper-

fect goodness, or an evil under

the aspect of the good; as the

alcoholic loves alcohol which in

itself is a good. But truth is not

so much feared as it is hated;

some souls call it, “the awful

truth.”

Truth can be hated for any

one of three reasons:

Some hate truth because

of their intellectual pride or ego-

tism which refuses to admit the

truth of any position except

their own. Atheists tolerate no

God except themselves. They do

not want their eyes opened to

Truth, falsely believing that

then everything will be permit-

ted. This is the tragedy of pre-

judice and bigotry which blinds

the mind to Truth and keeps

souls in a constant state of

hate and frustration.

Others hate Truth because its

acceptance requires giving up

their evil ways. Many foolishly

believe that if they do not in-

vestigate the Divinity of Christ

and His Church, that they will

not be held responsible for their

evil lives. But they will, because

such ignorance is deliberate. He

who stays away from a doctor

because he is afraid that doctor



22 THE LOVE THAT WAITS FOR YOU

may discover something wrong

with him, dies in his disease.

As the alcoholic hates the truth

that liquor ruined his health

and therefore he ought to give

it up, so one can hate a truth

which is in the Christ and His

Church because it demands a

way of life contrary to the

present.

Finally, Truth can be hated

when we wish that no other

mind knew the truth of our sins.

An unfaithful husband, for ex-

ample, will hate the faithful

wife because she knows his sin.

Often he tries to cover it up in

bitterness or cruelty. This ex-

plains also why many hate the

Truth of the Last Judgment or

belief in hell. Have you ever

noticed that saints never deny

the Truth of hell, but the evil

often do
;
the latter have to calm

their uneasy consciences; the

saints have no need for escapism.

The penalty for such fear of

Goodness and hatred of Truth is

terrible for the more souls hide

from Truth, the more Truth is

hidden from them; the more

they fear Goodness, the less

beautiful Goodness seems to

them.

As St. Augustine said:
—
“Men

love Truth when she enlightens;

they hate it when she reproves.

They love Truth when she dis-

covers herself to them, and hate

her when she discovers them.”

But since nobody would ever

admit that he feared Goodness

or hated Truth, because these

are so admirable in themselves,

the mind resorts to a rationali-

zation to justify itself. This is

what makes all anti-religious

people escapists. How often the

virtuous and the devout and the

religious in offices and factories

and at dinner tables, are scoffed

at and ridiculed by the escap-

ists. By dragging down the

goodness of others, the scoffers

feel they justify their own

want of goodness. Little do they

realize that he who makes fun

of Divine Goodness or Truth

has already uprooted it from

his own soul. Herod still has his

posterity, who being confronted

with an accusing Truth, balms

its conscience by robing Christ

in the garment of a fool. To be

in sin and to dread sin is the

path to goodness, but to be in sin

and dread goodness and hate

Truth is the demonic.

One wondered if in all litera-

ture there is clearer evidence of

how men fear Goodness and

hate Truth than in the history

of John the Baptist. Our Divine

Lord praised his Goodness say-



WHAT MAKES US AFRAID OF GOD? 23

ing “he was the greatest man

ever born of woman” (Luke, 7

:

28). One day this good man was

invited to preach in the court of

Herod to an audience that was

rich, much divorced and remar-

ried. The sermon was brief.

Ponting a finger at the King, the

Baptist thundered a Truth: “It

is not lawful for thee to live

with thy brother’s wife.” In a

minute, John was in chains. A

few months later Herod, intoxi-

cated with wine and the sensuous

dance of the daughter of his

wife by a previous marriage,

promised that he would grant

her any request. Well-coached by

her mother, she said: “Give me

the head of John the Baptist.”

A short time later a slave car-

ried across the dance floor on a

silver platter, the head of John

the Baptist. Evil will kill or

crucify Goodness when it be-

comes a reproach. That is why

the Mindszentys and the Stepi-

nacs, like John, are in chains.

Everybody in the world loses his

head, and this gospel story sug-

gests it is better to lose it

John’s way than Herod's

Now that we understand why

some are afraid of God, because

He is Truth and Goodness, we

also have the key to why some

say God is the God of Wrath

—

it is because of the way they

live. There is no wrath in God;

what seems wrath is only a pro-

jection upon God of one's inner

sense of guilt. When a boy is

caught stealing jam, his first

words to his mother generally

are: “Now, Mummy, don’t get

mad!” There is no wrath in the

mother but he attributes wrath

to his mother, because he knows

that he is deserving of it on

account of his disobedience. In

like manner, God seems an

angry God to the sinner. Living

contrary to the Divine Will and

the purpose of existence, creates

a feeling that we are being

opposed and frustrated. This

sense of wrath is anticipated

hell.

It follows that the way to

change our idea of God is to

change our behavior. Once

Goodness and Truth are sought,

the soul by-passes self-accusa-

tion and no longer feels the

need to project its own self-con-

demnation on others, particular-

ly God. The moment one leaves

off sin, his philosophy of the

universe and the psychology of

his own soul changes. God Who

a moment before seemed Wrath

now appears as Mercy. There is

no change in God, but only in the

soul. The sun which shines on



24 THE LOVE THAT WAITS FOR YOU

mud hardens it; but when it

shines on wax, it softens it.

There is no change in the sun,

but only in the object on which

it shines. So God appears as

Love and Mercy to the penitent

and as Wrath to the sinner.

Moses and Cain each hid his

face from God. Moses hid his

face because he could not bear

to look upon such Goodness;

Cain hid his face because he

could not bear to have Divine

Goodness look on him. The

sinner cannot bear to have the

eyes of God upon Him, for he

does not want to know how

wicked he is. God cannot

change His Nature to make up

for our perversity, as the sun

cannot change its nature to

make up for the mole who

chooses to live under the ground.

Therefore, we must change our

ways.

Everyone knows God—every-
one. They know either the God

of Wrath or the God of Mercy.

The God they know depends on

the way they live. As a brown-

colored glass makes the water

seem brown though it is not, so

the Love that waits for us, pass-

ing through our sinful lives

seems like wrath and anger. A

change in our behavior removes

all the prejudices against God.

Fear not Goodness! Hate not

Truth 1 The Cross is frightening

only at a distance and not up

close, as a hill always seem'

steeper when we look at it fror

afar. Be prepared to look foj

Truth where you would least ex

pect to find it:—in a stable, oi
a Cross, in a Body of Christ th

world still hates. How many o.

us would like to know all there

is about an airplane, because

knowing the truth about it, we

would be free to fly it. So with

Life! To know the Truth of

what I am: the Truth of why

my body and soul are in con-

flict; the Truth of how they

can be reconciled; the Truth of

how to find Divine Strength to

overcome sorrow and sin, and

Divine knowledge to overcome

my mistakes, would mean I

would be free to live! This is

what Our Lord meant when He

said : “The Truth will make you

free.’’

0, we thank Thee, 0 Christ,

that Thou hast not scattered that

Truth to Galilean winds but

hast given it to Thy Body, the

Church, on Pentecost so that we

may drink deep of it, make sense

of life, and be free with the

glorious freedom of the Children

of God. Thou canst not compel

or force, 0 Christ, as do these



WHAT MAKES US AFRAID OF GOD? 25

authoritarian systems, based on

fear and compulsion for Thou

art nailed! Crucified Love can

only entreat! What a glorious

freedom in the world—^the free-
dom to be a Saint!

Then, too, fear not Gnodness

because Goodness is Perfect

Love. All of us in varying de-

grees are going about the world

drinking from paper cups of

paper-pleasures fearful to drink

deep of the draughts of the

Fountains of Everlasting Love.

That Love, of course, costs

something, as it cost the woman

at the well five husbands and a

passing lover, but she so thrilled

to the new-found ecstasy of the

Spirit that her lips called Him,

“Saviour of the World” {John

4:26).

Be not disheartened ! Those

who now hate Truth and fear

Goodness are not far from the

Kingdom of God. Some of you

are fighting against it, and yet

knowing that it is a losing

battle! The more violently you

hate Truth, the more you think

about it; the more you fear the

Goodness that demands Perfec-

tion, the more you know it is

what you want. As Our Lord

told Paul: “This is a thankless

task of thine, kicking against the

goad” (Acts, 9:6). The goad

was a nail on the end of a shaft

which pricked the donkey when

he backed up and refused to go

forward. So God is making you

restless that you may cast your-

self to His Divine Heart. It

makes no difference what the

past is or how many falls or re-

lapses there may have been.

When a sheep falls into a mud

puddle, it tries to get out and

bleats for rescue; when a pig

falls in, it relaxes and stays

there. We are aU in the mud

—

all of us, for who is clean in the

sight of God ! If we but take one

step from out of that mire to

Him, He will advance a mile to

us as a cleansing Fire!

What keeps us back most from

The Fire of Love? Is it our

doubts or is it our behavior?

Interesting question! We will

answer it next week.

God Love You!

Too late have I loved Thee, 0

Beauty

Ever ancient, yet ever new

!

Too late have I love Thee!

Behold, Thou wert within

And I searched for Thee

abroad

;

Thou wert with me, but I was

not with Thee,

I am a burden to myself;



26 THE LOVE THAT WAITS FOR YOU

I feared Thy Goodness because

I wanted

The spark, not the Flame;

I hated Thy Truth,

Because it revealed my errors;

X hide not my wounds;

Thou art the Physician, I the

sick!

Thou The merciful, I the

miserable

—

Have mercy on me, 0 Lord!

Have mercy!



MORAL CONDITION OF FINDING COD

Friends

:

I wonder how many ever real-

ize the importance of behavior

on religious belief. It is too gen-

erally believed by those who

have the Faith, that to bring a

person to Divine Love, it is

necessary only to cure him of a

doubt. They assume that people

are irreligious only because they

are ignorant; that if they read

a few good books, or listened to

a few arguments in favor of

Divinity, they would immediately

embrace the Faith. Religion

seems to them to be a thing to

be known rather than a Person-

ality to be embraced and lived

and loved. There is no doubt

that ignorance plays a dominant

role in irreligion, but it must

never be forgotten that Our

Divine Lord Who is Truth itself

did not convince the Pharisees

and certain sinners. They were

so intellectually confounded by

His knowledge that after one

encounter no man dared ask

Him any more questions, but

they did not believe. Not all

Ph.D.’s are saints and not all

the ignorant are devils. As a

matter of fact, a certain type

of education can make a man a

clever devil instead of a stupid

devil, and a stupid devil has a

better chance for salvation. It

is not enough to be intellectual,

one must be morally intellectual.

It requires more courage than

brains to know God. God is the

most obvious fact of human ex-

perience, but accepting Him is

arduous. God is easily known;

He is loved only with effort.

The point we are making is

this: Besides grace and knowl-

edge, there are certain moral

conditions necessary for knowing

Divine Truth; it is not the way

people think, but the way they

live, which constitutes the major

obstacle to union with the

Spirit. It is not always the

Creed that keeps some away

from Christ in His Church, but

the Commandments. Among the

moral factors affecting belief, we

mention two: (1) Good-will and

(2) The necessity of living up

to the Truth as we already

know it.

(1) Good-will: Why is it

that when a strong intellectual

argument for the Faith is given



28 THE LOVE THAT WAITS FOR YOU

to A and B, that A will accept

and B will not: Since the cause

is the same, the effect ought to

be the same, but it is not. There

must be some other factor pres-

ent which makes one embrace,

the other reject, as the sunlight

striking a wall does not produce

the same effect as the sunlight

striking a window. This x-factor

which makes for the rejection of

Divine Truth in one person, and

its acceptance in the other is the

will. As St. Thomas put it in

his finely-chiseled way: “Divine

things are known in different

ways according to the diversity

of our attitudes. Those who

have good-will, perceive Divine

things according to Truth;

those who have not good-will,

perceive them in a confused way

which makes them doubt and

feel that they are mistaken.” It

follows then that what a man

intellectually sees, depends to a

great extent on what a man is or

what he wants to be. The will,

instead of following the truth

presented to the mind, can some-

times get behind the mind and

hold it back. This is the case

with atheism. I doubt that

there is any such thing as in-

tellectual atheism. Reason is on

God's side not the devil’s, and

to deny an Absolute is to affirm

an Absolute under another

name. But there is atheism of

the will, i.e., a deliberate decision

to live without God or against

Him. The Psalmist rightly

places atheism not in the in-

tellect, but in desires: “The fool

has said in his heart, there is no

God.”

It is therefore not enough to

hear the Truth; we must also

desire it. The will not to believe,

is like willing to go through life

without opening one’s eyes, in

order to deny the existence of the

sun and escape the necessity of

work. On the contrary, the firm

resolution to God’s Will will

bring an understanding of the

Faith. We have Our Lord’s

word for it: “Anyone who is

prepared to do the Will of Him

Who sent Me, can tell for him-

self whether such learning comes

from God.” {John 7:17). As

the will to be rich makes men

rich, so the will to be Christ-

like makes us Christians. It

might, therefore, be well for

each of us to look into his heart

and ask if it is his ignorance or

his will which is keeping him

from peace and joy through

union with God.

(2) Another important ele-

ment in coming to God besides

grace and knowledge is the

necessity of living up to Divine



MORAL CONDITION OF FINDING GOD 29

Truth as we presently see it.

Many know about God, but few

act on that knowledge in their

lives. I have often wondered

why some professors and edu-

cated men who know the proofs

of the existence of God and the

dogmas of the Church never

became men of God. The answer

is because they never acted on

the knowledge they had. Since

they never d3mamized the Truth

they knew, even that knowledge

became sterile. The corn that is

kept in the cribs too long, rots.

To such unproductive souls, the

Savior orders: “Take the talent

away.’^ (Matt. 25:28). But the

simple soul living up to the moral

implications of the knowledge

he possesses, is given new knowl-

edge and finally surpasses the

intellectuals, as climbing a hill

opens new vistas. Our Blessed

Lord thanked His Heavenly

Father that He hid His Truths

from the intelligentsia who were

educated beyond their intelli-

gence and revealed them to the

little ones who would live up to

them.

Christianity is founded on the

historical fact of the union of

Truth and Deed: “The Word

became Flesh.” Wisdom became

incarnate
;

God became man

;

knowledge passed into act;

oughtness became is-ness, and

theory became practice. He not

only gave the theory that the

greatest of all His followers

should be the least, but He

washed the feet of His own dis-

ciples. This order of first the

Word of Truth, then the Truth

in the Flesh, was changed by

Goethe into: “In the beginning

was the Deed”—First, you live;
then you rationalize. First, you

act, then you think of a way to

justify your action. First, you

seize property; then you write a

law to sanction the theft. From

this primacy of the act over

Truth has come all the moral dis-

orders of the present day, as men

no longer fit their lives to a

creed, but a creed to the way

they live.

Divine Truth, on the con-

trary, involves me uniquely and

with an urgency that at first is

frightening. It will do no good

for me to know the world’s

theological attitudes, if all the

while pride, sensuality, selfish-

ness are allowed their license and

anarchy. When a man stands off

from religion and admires the

Truth from afar, he is full of

praise of it and says: “If I

ever became religious I would

certainly join the Church.” He

knows very well that such a

choice is not like choosing be-

tween a rose and a carnation; it



30 THE LOVE THAT WAITS FOR YOU

is a commitment, an allegiance,

a surrender. Agnosticism, scep-

ticism and cultivated doubt do

not represent an intellectual

position, for wherever there is a

shadow of a doubt there must be

the light of Truth. Agnosticism

and scepticism represent rather

a moral position in which a per-

son attempts to make himself

immune to pivine Truth by

denying its existence, turning

his back on it as did Pilate

sneering: “What is Truth?’' Our

Lord said an evil life blinds us

to the Truth : “Anyone who acts

shamefully hates the light, will

not come into the light, for fear

that his doings will be found out.

Whereas the man whose life is

true comes to the light, so that

his deeds may be seen for what

they are, deeds done in God.”

{John, 3:20-21).

A perfect example of how

minds react to Truth, we find in

the woman at the well whom Our

Blessed Lord met at high noon

as she came to draw water. He

engaged her on the subject of

religion, telling her that her sovl

was thirsty for Heavenly waters

just as her body was thirsty for

the water from Jacob’s well.

When she admitted that Truth,

Our Lord brought up the sub-

ject of her moral life: She had

five divorces and was living

with a sixth man. To her, this

was meddling. What right had

He to interfere in her personal

affairs. In order to avoid the

embarrassment of the moral ob-

ligations of the Truth, like

many of us, she changed the

subject and lifted the conversa-

tion back to the abstract by ask-

ing the relative merits of Jeru-

salem and Samaria as places of

worship. Many love religion as

a subject of discussion but not

as a subject for decision. To

the eternal glory of the woman

at the well, she finally got down

to the moral plane, reformed her

life, converted her men-friends,

and saluted the Lord for the

first time in history as “Savior

of the World.” {John, 4:42),

Three practical considerations

follow:

(1) The moral preparation

for the Christian life is as im-

portant as the intellectual, and

both should go together as the

Wisdom and Love of God, the

Son and Holy Spirit are equal

in the Trinity. Those who live

a naturally good moral life with-

out the intellectual and dogmatic

stiffening, often become narrow

kill-joys, critical, Pharasaical or

else end in a religious emotional-

ism which cannot stand up under



MORAL CONDITION OF FINDING GOD 31

shock and storm. On the other

hand, those who have the intel-

lectual understanding without

the moral, become legalistic,

sceptics, cynics and doubters. We

can never love anyone unless we

know him; but once we know

him, our love will increase our

knowledge of him. So it is with

God. Do His Will and you will

know the Truth.

(2) It is not our doubts

about religion which explains

our behavior, but our behavior

which causes our doubts. It is

not always our thinking which

explains the way we live, but the

way we live which explains our

thinking.

(3) It is not so important

what people say about God,

Christ and His Church, but why

they say it. The what is said is

often only a cover-up of their

habits of life. A fallen-away

Catholic who says: “I can no

longer believe in the Sacrament

of Penance” really means ‘‘I am

leading an evil life and I refuse

to break off my habits of sin to

find peace with God.” What frail

mortals we be!

What holds an atheist back

from being a believer in God,

and a believer in God from

accepting the Divinity of Christ

and a believer in the Divinity of

Christ from embracing the Di-

vinity of the Church, and a

Catholic from shining forth the

Truth and Charity of Christ in

His life, is not because these

truths are a strain on his cred-

ulity, but a challenge to his

character. As Chesterton so well

answered when it was objected

that Christianity had been tried

and found wanting :
—

*‘Chris-

tianity has been found hard but

not tried.” Those who say that

Christianity is impractical mean

they refuse to put it in practice.

Each of us has lived througl

the experience of St. Augustine,

as we received grace to live on a

higher plane and refused it:

—

“But Thou, 0 Lord, didst turn

me round towards myself, taking

me from behind my back where

I had placed me, unwilling to ob-

serve myself, and setting me be-

fore my face, that I might see

how foul I was, how crooked and

defiled, bespotted and ulcerous.

And I beheld and stood aghast;

and whither to flee from myself,

I found not. And if I sought to

turn mine eye from off myself.

Thou again didst set me over

against myself, and thrustedst

me before my eyes, that I might

find out mine iniquity, and hate

it. I had known it, but made as



32 THE LOVE THAT WAITS FOR YOU

though I saw it not, winked at

it, and forgot iV*

That is the cowardly escapist

attitude of all of us in varying

degrees. The only reason why

we are not saints is because we

will not to be saints. How good

God is to bear with us! Yet

how miserable we are without

Him ! As a baby’s cry would be

meaningless in a universe with-

out a mother’s love; so our rest-

lessness with the way we are

would be meaningless without

the love of God 1

This week do two things:

—

Live without serious sin and

pray to God to reveal His

Truth, and you will be sur-

prised how much you will learn.

Learn to say yes or no to God.

There are a thousand ways of

saying No! but there is only

one way to say Yes! Do His

Will. Then you will know:

—

“Blessed are the clean of heart,

for they shall see God.” Clean

the flute of your soul and God

will pipe on it a marvelous tune.

His sunlight of Truth is outside

the window of your soul. Clean

it and be flooded with light and

inner peace.

Next week I will tell you how

to be a window cleaner!

God love you!

Lord Jesus, may 1 know myself.

May I know Thee;

May I desire nothing.

Save only Thee;

May I hate my vile self

Love Thee and do all for Thee.

May I be humbled

And Thou exalted!

May I think of nothing, but

Thee alone.

Die to myself and live for

Thee.

May I receive whatever happens

As from Thou, the Giver.

May I ever follow Thee

And to reach Thee be my sole

desire.

May I fly from myself, may I

fly to Thee

That by Thine Arm defended

I may deserve to be!

My Lord! My God! My All!

^St. Augustine)



SELF-KNOWLEDGE

Friends

:

The concluding idea of last

week was that God’s grace like

the sunlight, was outside our

window and before it could glad-

den us, we must clean the win-

dows or reform the way we live.

This is done by self-knowledge

or the purification of the mind.

Self-knowledge is possible be-

cause man is the only creature in

the universe who can know him-

self. A stone, a rose, an ele-

phant cannot stand off from

themselves and look at them-

selves as in a mirror. But man

can; he can admire himself, be

pleased with himself, be angry

with himself and even despair

of himself
;
he can be not only a

subject but also an object of ex-

perience. It is this capacity

which not only makes him su-

perior to the animal, but also

creates the possibility of men-

tal disorders and frustrations,

if he does not fulfill his high

destiny with God.

We are all conscious beings

but very few are really self-con-

scious. We are aware of the ex-

istence of objects outside of us,

but few of us are aware of our-

selves. We know ourselves to the

extent that we resemble other

human beings and conform to

their habits of dress and think-

ing, but rare are we who ever

think of ourselves personally and

uniquely, that is in our differ-

ence from other persons, and as

we stand in our relation to God.

Our modern world is geared

to the heresy of action or the

lamentable illusion fostered by

C^apitalism and Communism,

that happiness is external to

man, that goodness is identical

with movement, that inwardness

is absence of power, and that

apostolicity is propaganda.

Hence the popularity of novels

which dispense the reader from

thinking; of music given to

movement not musing; of maga-

zines with a maximum of pic-

tures for sensation, a minimum

of text for brains
;
of art that is

impressionistic which blurs col-

ors to avoid both form and sub-

stance. The modern man has

nothing inside his soul which

is not outside in the world. But

since wars, strife, and crimes are

outside, he has no thoughts or

desires apart from their fever-



34 THE LOVE THAT WAITS FOR YOU

ish chaos; he is without retreat,

without sanctuary, and without

escape. Some resort to alcohol-

ism and sleeping tablets to es-

cape consciousness; others bury

themselves in external excite-

ments and pleasures which give

little time to think. One wonders

if psychologically the contempor-

ary interest in murder mysteries,

thrillers, horror stories and

movies is not an admission that

great personal problems must be

solved. But instead of solving

the problem of self, there is the

solving of the problem of others,

and by hearing or seeing hor-

rors on the outside, one is made

for the moment to forget the

horrors of the hell within.

It must, however, be borne in

mind that the self-knowledge

about which we are speaking is

not the same as psychoanalysis.

In psychoanalysis, the self is re-

garded as a spectator of its own

mental state; in self-knowledge,

the self is viewed as the creator,

therefore responsible for deci-

sions and choices. In psycho-

analysis, there is no moral obli-

gation to change one’s habits,

because it denies moral guilt;

but in self-knowledge, there is a

recognition of a wrong and the

necessity of breaking with it;

in psychoanalysis, one enters in-

to himself to stay there, for

there is no recognition of an>

anchorage outside the human.

But in self-knowledge one makes

the journey inward in order to

fly outward from one’s self to

God.

A genuine self-knowledge

through power of self-penetra-

tion, reveals that we have two

selves : a Seeming-self and a

Real-self: and outer person and

an inner person: a man in com-

mon with other men, and a man

unlike other men: an ego and

a self. The seeming-self is what

we think we are; the real-self

is what we really are. The seem-

ing-self is the shell; the real-

self is the meat. The seeming-

self is like the clothes we wear;

the real-self is like our flesh and

blood. The ego or the superfi-

cial-self is so shut-up with its

mistaken ideas and feelings that

often the real-self is practically

suffocated. These two selves

cannot be lived simultaneously

;

the attempt to do so is the cause

of much remorse and anxiety

and inner dissatisfaction. If true

freedom of self is to be found,

the superficial-ego or self must

disappear. This is done by self-

examination, for through it we

discover the thief in the house

which explains all our previous

losses. Man is like an onion,

in the sense that he is covered



SELF-KNOWLEDGE 35

with many layers and coats of

self-deceit made up the max-

ims and prejudices of the world,

all of which are calculated to

keep him from knowing himself.

The analogy even goes so far as

to suggest that the tearing off

of these outer coats makes one's

eyes water—but with tears of
repentance.

How begin knowing self?

There are two rules:

(1) There must be a stand-

ard outside of self, otherwise we

become victims of self-deceit.

The watch is not right or wrong

except by a measurement out-

side the watch itself. In like

manner, if man is to know him-

self he must use as his stand-

ard Our Lord Jesus Christ who

becomes to our mind what the

sun is to our eyes, the Light that

tells not only the pitfalls to

avoid, but also is the Standard

of Right and Wrong.

(2) Self-knowledge must seek

to discover what is our predomi-

nant fault, or the particular de-

fect which tends to prevail in us

over all the others, affecting our

sympathies, decisions, desires,

passions, and which has some in-

timate relation to individual

temperament. The predominant

fault does not mean that there

is no good quality in us, but

rather that good qualities are

possibly ruined by a hidden de-

fect. The quickest way to dis-

cover the predominant fault is

to ask: “What do I think about

most when alone? Where do my

thoughts go when they wander

spontaneously? What makes me

most sad when I have it not:

most glad when I have it? What

fault irritates me most when

accused of it, and which do I

deny most vigorously?”

The predominant fault varies

from person to person and can

be any one of seven : Pride,

avarice, lust, anger, gluttony,

envy and sloth. Since no one ever

calls sin by its right name, and

since every sin must have a dis-

guise to be attractive, we will

define not only the nature of the

sin, but also name the disguise

it wears for the Superficial Self.

1. Pride is the sin of making

one’s self his own law, his own

judge, his own morality, his own

god. This is sometimes called,

“Success,” “Popularity,’ “Prog-

ress,” “Winning friends and in-

fluencing people” or “Fear of an

inferiority complex.” The mod-

ern man’s desire to serve the

best liquor, or the woman’s am-

bition to be the best-dressed, the

college sophomore’s studied pur-

suit of unkemptness in dress

;

the depression of another’s ego

in order to elevate one’s own;



36 THE LOVE THAT WAITS FOR YOU

the habit of back-biting, slander

and character assassination

which pull others down to our

own level, are all manifestations

of the odious superficial-self

which must be purged before

real peace can be found.

2. Avarice is the perversion of

the natural right to own proper-

ty into a pursuit of wealth as an

end without due regard to the

rights of others. In times of

prosperity, it is sometimes called.

Big Business, Thrift, Drive and

Security; and in times of ad-

versity, it uses that same wealth

to espouse leftism and revolu-

tionary causes in the hope of

preserving whatever wealth one

has. This accounts for the rich

man’s support of Communism.

3. Envy is the sin of the have-

nots as avarice is the sin of the

haves. It regards anything any-

one else has as being taken from

self, and is sometimes called “my

right,” “my cause” or “truth.”

As avarice is the sin of the capi-

talists, so envy is the sin ©f

the Communists. Every Commu-

nist is a Capitalist without any

cash in his pockets. He is the

involuntary poor man. Envy

also prompts ugly women to

make slurring remarks about

those who are beautiful. Since

the envious person will not go

up, he pulls everyone else down to

his own level. Thus does envy

become enmity, tramples on re-

spect and honor, and refuses to

say “Thanks.”

4. Lust is to the flesh what

pride is to the ego and avarice

is to wealth. It is perversion or

inordinate pursuit of pleasures

of the flesh and is sometimes

called Sex, The Dizzey report,

Freudianism or Self-expression.

5. Anger is temper, vindictive-

ness, hate, revenge, the clinched

fists. It is the external side of a

bad conscience. It is sometimes

called “Don’t let him get away

with it!” or “After all, it is not

what he did, it is the principle

of the thing.”

6. Gluttony is the inordinate

love of eating or drinking

though it is sometimes called,

“Will you have another?” or

“Health” or “Men of Extinc-

tion.”
i

\j

7. Sloth is the malady of the

will which causes us to neglect

our duties though it is some-

times called Rest, Broadminded-

ness, Avoiding high-blood-pres-

Bure. Because it has not intel-

lectural energy enough to dis-

cover truth and follow it, it

loves nothing, hates nothing,

espouses nothing, condemns

nothing, fears nothing, hopes

nothing and keeps alive because

it has nothing to die for. It



SELF-KNOWLEDGE 37

rusts out rather than wears out

and refuses to render a service

after a whistle blows.

I can think immediately of

seven advantages of practicing

self-knowledge which purges out

these predominant faults.

1. 1 will root out loneliness and

a sense of emptiness, for one no

longer understands love as the

satisfaction of the ego, but as

expansiveness in charity to God

and neighbor.

2. It cures moodiness, for your

emotional reactions are conse-

crated on God and living in His

atmosphere
;

thus you become

emancipated from life’s acciden-

tals in which a rainy day or an

unwelcome guest determines the

way you feel.

3. Self-examination relieves

boredom, because it orders the

real-self to God. Boredom comes

from loss of purpose. Life is

indeed boring if we do not know

why we are here or where we

are going.

4. Self-knowledge increases

activity in the right sort of way,

because since excuses no longer

have to be made for the Super-

ficial-Self, the Real-Self can be-

gin a life of consecration for

others.

5. Self-knowledge banishes de-

spair, for one can now face the

terrible disease of egotism, be-

cause the soul has found the Di-

vine Physician Who can cure it.

6. Self-knowledge prevents

mental abnormality for it is the

stupidity of thinking that the

Superficial-Self is the Real-Self

which causes illusions. Once the

Real Self is known the Super-

ficial-Self loses the terrible fear

of being found out.

7. Self-knowledge makes room

for God-life in the soul. If a

box is filled with sand, it cannot

be filled with salt, and if the

personality is filled with super-

ficial ego, it cannot be filled with

God. As the poet put it

:

If thou couldst empty all thy-

self of self,

Like to a shell dishabited

Then might He find thee on the

ocean shelf

And say: “This is not dead”

And fill thee with Himself in-

stead.

But thou are all replete with

very thou

And hast such shrewd activity

That when He comes. He says:

“This is enow

Unto itself : T’were better let

it be

It is so small and full, there is

no room for me.” (T. E.

Browne)

0 how grateful we should be

that Our Blessed Lord in His



6S THE LOVE THAT WAITS FOR YOU

Mercy gave us the Sacrament of

Penance which enables us to

gather up all of the criss-cross,

zig-zag sins, defects, prides, ego-

tisms, jealousies, hates and lusts

which ordinarily would keep us

awake at night, and throw all

this rubbish into the Fires of

Calvary, there to have it burned

and purged away. Some Satur-

day night enter a Church, walk

down the side aisles. There you

will see what we call confes-

sionals. Underneath the cur-

tains you will see feet, big and

small, male and female, protrud-

ing from under them like wrig-

gling little worms. The very

fact that all the outsider sees is

the lowliest part of them, name-

ly their feet, is a proof that they

do not care how they look in

the world’s eyes, but only in

God’s eyes. Instead of putting

the best foot forward, the peni-

tent puts his worst feet back-

ward. In losing his Superficial-

Self he found both his Real-Self

and God—And this is the great-
est joy in the world.

Your greatest enemy is not

outside yourself, but inside you.

Look yourself straight in the

eye : but in God’s light, not

yours. It is the ego that causes

all the trouble. Take five min-

utes a day from now on examin-

ing yourself: ask God for the

light to see yourself, not as you

think you are, nor as you think

others see, but as you really are

in His Eyes. Begin to be your-

self—Start worrying about your
egotism and begin living! But

that is enough on self-knowl-

edge; next week we will discuss

Belf-discipline ! In the meantime

you find out your predominant

fault, if you have any, and I

will dig up my predominant

faults, which I have, and may

God be merciful to us botti!

God Love You!

Lord Jesus,

By loving myself, I cease to be

lovable

;

By loving Thee, I love both my

neighbor and myself.

As I remember only myself; 1

am forgotten by all.

If I forget myself, I am remem-

bered by Thee

The more I fear to restrain my

ego.

The greater my need to do so;

Lord Jesus, may my only feai

Be to be separated from Thee!

May I distrust myself and trust

only Thee

For without Thee, there is noth-

ing to hope.

Thou Who art my Savior and My

Love 1



ASCETICISM

Friends.

From the beginning of time,

souis have asked themselves this

question
—
“How can I love sin

and hate it at the same time” or

“Why do I love alcohol and hate

being an alcoholic?” The answer

is: Every sin has a double ele-

ment: material and formal. The

material element is the good

thing on which sin centers, e.g.,

alcohol, flesh, wealth. The for-

mal element is the particular at-

titude we take toward it, or the

evil way we abuse these good

things. It is man’s will which

turns love of flesh into lust, alco-

hol into drunkenness and wealth

into avarice.

What the sinner loves in sin

is the matter of sin, which is

good; what the sinner hates in

sin is the unhappiness, remorse,

melancholy and sense of defeat

which comes from the perver-

sion or abuse of what is good.

He loves the creature God made

;

he hates himself for turning it

from its true purpose to his own

selfish pleasure.

The principal psychological ef-

fect of sin is the constant anxi-

ety in the soul of a sinner due

to the inner contradictions be-

tween loving and hating, be-

tween desiring and despising at

one and the same time. Caught

by passion or bad habits, such

distraught souls are really in

constant agony. Ovid described

them: “I see and approve the

better things of life; the worse

things of life I follow.” The

soul craves for the Infinite and

it gets the finite. It demands

gold and receives tinsel. This

inherent disproportion between

the anticipation of a pleasure

and its impoverished realization

only intensifies the anxiety, for

no sin ever realizes its promises.

Desires increase, but pleasure

decreases; compulsion continues,

but pleasure degenerates into

repetition. Man tries to escape

this inner dissatisfaction by

more and more pleasures, more

and more riches, but these make

hungry where most they satisfy.

No matter how fast the grey-

hound runs, he can never catch

up with the mechanical rabbit.

This inner tension can be over-

come only by resisting and tam-

ing our errant impulses and ego-

tistic desires, which is done by



40 THE LOVE THAT WAITS FOR YOU

self-discipline. Here one touches

on a pathway to peace of soul of

which the modern pagan is to-

tally and completely ignorant.

Because his god is his own ego,

he cannot understand why he

should detach himself from any-

thing. But as a great violinist

will abstain from ditch-digging

because he knows it would spoil

his artistic touch, so the man of

God will abstain from what is

harmful to the art of being

peaceful in God. Man’s heart

adheres more intimately to one

thing, the more it detaches it-

self from many things, as a

river loses depth the wider its

bed. Swamps are particularly

broadminded. They hold noth-

ing. The purpose of detach-

ment, therefore is to reduce the

many to one, to restrain the

body for the sake of the soul,

and to seek less instead of more.

Self-discipline does not mean

giving up anything, for giving

up is a loss. Our Lord never

asked us to give up anything,

but to exchange: “What shall a

man give in exchange for his

soul?” (Mark, 8:37). Exchange

is based on two ideas: What we

can get along without, and what

we cannot get along without. We

can^ get along without a dime,

but we cannot get along without

a loaf of bread, so we exchange

one for the other. In self-dis-

cipline we discover we can get

along very well without the

agony of soul that follows from

selfishness, alcoholism, sensu-

ality, but we cannot get along

without peace of soul in union

with God, so we exchange one

for the other. Mortification is

therefore only a means to an end,

and the end is love of God. But

to be mortified for the sake of

being mortified, like sitting on

a railroad spike for twenty years

is silly egotism. If it does not

increase our love of God it is

worthless.

The man of God will there-

fore turn his eyes away from

what would harm his love of

God, as a man will turn his eyes

away from a light so strong it

might blind his eyes. His tongue

will be denied backbiting, slan

der, gossip because only God

knows what goes on in the soul

of a neighbor. His body will

deny itself the extra cigarette,

the second cocktail, maybe even

the first, lest by giving too much

comfort to the body he forget

his soul. His love of ownership

will be tamed by frugality and

generosity, that by loving his

neighbor for God’s sake, he may

love God more. His desire to do

things for God’s sake will make

him avoid publicity and self-



ASCETICISM 41

seeking knowing that he must

grow less and less and God must

become more and more.

As he would not allow gar-

bage served at his table, so he

will not allow intellectual filth

to be served into his mind, in

the form of foolish romances, or

the like, lest these false ideas

pass into act and he becomes as

wicked as his thoughts.

As physical life is the sum

forces that resist death, so spir-

itual life is the result of con-

stant purification of those sin-

ful tendencies that would make

us sub-human or abnormal. Un-

less we are constantly taking

ourselves to the cleaners, we be-

come the victims of the new

psuedo-religion
;
the idolatry of

comfort, and become obsessed

with the fear of doing anything

unpleasant.

As St. Thomas says: “Men

must have pleasures. If they

will not have the joys of the

spirit, then they will degenerate

into pleasures of the body.” Un-

less there is some other interest

to compensate for the loss of

pleasure, minds become cynical

and bitter, with an increasing

desire to be coddled, respected,

honored and made the center of

attention. This ridding of our

egotism and surface loves is not

easy, because the modern soul

refuses to postpone satisfaction.

0 V e r - f e d, over-upholstered,

idouble-chinned, it refuses to

close doors, to open bridges, and

thus misses joy in this life and

an eternal life beyond.

It is about time we abandoned

the idea that man becomes bet-

ter because he lives in time.

Time often makes things worse

as well as better. Time makes

good apples bad apples and

young people old and wrinkled.

Evolution is not as evident a fact

in human life as devolution.

Moral progress is not automatic

;

if we do not go up by an effort

of will, we will go down. There

are no plains in the spiritual

life
;
we are either going up

hill or coming down. We are not

the same spiritually this year as

we were last; we are either bet-

ter or worse. If we think we are

the same, we are worse because

we ought to be better; time has

created an obligation. There are

no shortcuts to spirituality;

pain and purification go hand

in hand, for sin is not easily dis-

carded. Love feeds on crosses

and sacrifices. When one gets

down to rock bottom, one soon

discovers that the reason why

most of us do not come to God

is not because we are ignorant,

but because we are bad or self-

centered. This absence of humil-



42 THE LOVE THAT WAITS FOR YOU

ity and sacrificial love stands

like a wall between the soul and

God, and when it hears the Di-

vine Command to renounce it-

self, it pleads to the Lord as did

the man who bought a farm,

“Have me excused, 0 Lord.”

It costs something to come to

God, as it costs God something

to come to us. Some complain;

when a trial comes, they rebel;

when temptation assaults, they

surrender. Indeed, the service of

Our Lord is a yoke, as He said,

but a yoke that is sweet and the

burden light.

We have the purchase price of

inner joy in our hands, in the

agony and misery and boredom

and ennui of our hearts. But like

a child before a store window

with a penny in his hand and the

delirious vision of the candy

within, he misses the deliriutn of

the sweets because he refuses to

give up the coin. We cannot have

both the coin and the candy, our

self-will and peace of soul, our

sinful pleasures and the joy of

union with God.

It is our studied belief that

many weary souls in the world

today would come to God, if we

presented the faith to them, the

hard way instead of the easy

way, that is by an appeal to self-

sacrifice. There is a greater

readiness for sacrifice on the

part of the modern mind, than

even members of Christ's Mys-

tical Body perceive. Perhaps,

some of us shrink from that ap-

peal, not because we fear they

would not understand it, but be-

cause we are not sufficiently mor-

tified ourselves. We would be

suprised at their favorable re-

action, if we showed them the

pressed Hands and Feet of

Christ and asked: “How did

They get that way?”

There is a greater potential

for sacrifice in the hearts and

minds of men now, than at any

time in the last four hundred

years. Whence come the devotees

of Totalitarianism of the last

thirty years, the fanaticism, the

burning zeal and the blazing de-

votedness of Communism, if it

be not that these souls have be-

come sick and tired of the milk

and water Liberalism that de-

nied there was a Truth worth

dying for and therefore one wor-

thy of living for? Whence came

the sacrifice of soldiers during

the war, and at a time when

we’re supposed to have softened

by luxury and ease, if it was not

because a tremendous reserve for

sacrifice was in the depths of

their hearts? The world is fed-

up with broadmindedness which

is cold as a miser’s heart and as

spineless as a filet of sole; it



ASCETICISM 43

wants to catch fire, to feel the

burning heat of its passions and

above all to love even to the point

of death. We of the faith are

often frightened away by the

sight of ashes and the clinkers

in the furnace of the faithless,

little suspecting that beneath

them are flames that like Paul

could enkindle a world, and like

Magdalen set fire to penitential

hearts. What greater proof is

there of this, than the fact that

when these modern pagans re-

ceive the gift of Faith, they oft-

en surpass us in self-denial and

therefore love of God. In some

instances, what keeps them back

is a want of correspondence on

our part between light and heat,

or the divorce between our

knowledge of Divine Truth and

the self-renouncing love which

that Truth should inspire.

Because the joys of union

with God cannot be experienced

without sacrifice, and because

the modern souls without Faith

has a capacity for it, we believe

that Divine Truth should be pre-

sented to them as the Saviour

did, namely, by a Summons to

Sacrifice, by an appeal to sell

the field to gain the pearl of

great price, and to leave nets and

boats to become fishers of men.

Everyone today is in pain,

either mental or physical. Where

there are no broken bodies, there

are agonized minds, restless,

fearful, anxious. Our generation

may well be the most unhappy

that has lived in the history of

Christianity. All this adds up

to the fact that suffering is uni-

versal. But suffering is not far

from sacrifice. There is no

quantitative difference between

the two, for a toothache in a

saint is no different from a

toothache in a Stalin. There is

no material difference between a

Carmelite fasting from meat and

bread, and a fat lady dieting

from the same. What makes the

difference between suffering and

sacrifice, between fasting and di-

eting, is the love of God. Sacri-

fice without the love of Gpd, is

suffering; suffering with the

love of God, is sacrifice. The

Trappist monk who gets out of

bed at two o’clock in the morn-

ing to pray for sins of the world

is undergoing the same discom-

fort as the milkman, or baker or

the victim of insomnia who gets

up to take a stiff drink
;
but what

a difference in the attitude of the

soul! It may very well be then

that modern souls are suffering

enough—probably too much; but
it is all wasted, either because

they do not turn it into merit

by knowing God or because they

complain with defiance and re-



44 THE LOVE THAT WAITS FOR YOU

bellious protests: “Why should

God do this to me?” What we

have to do is to drive a wedge

between their actual pain and

their potential sacrifice, by

bringing to them some under-

standing of the Love on Calvary

Who suffered first and every-

thing, that man might never

say: “He does not know what it

is to suffer.”

Here we are, presumed follow-

ers of Our Lord and His Myst-

ical Body, the Church, and those

who are looking for it, without

knowing it. We are like crude

blocks of marble. Over there is

our Exemplar Christ, who mod-

els the Christian life which lives

only by dying to evil. We are our

own sculptors. With our eyes of-

ten on Him, we take the chisel

of our will, and cut off in morti-

fication huge hunks of selfish-

ness, envy, jealousy, hate, until

finally the Image of Our Lord

soon begins to reveal itself. It is

not as hard to do this as we

think; it is harder to go on liv-

ing the way we are, unsurrend-

ered, unloveable, unhappy on the

inside.

But you say you cannot do this

alone—your will is weak; your
mind is dark! How right you

are! We need God’s Grace—and

what that is we will talk about

next week.

God love you

!

A new crime has risen in the

world—The crime of believing in
God 1 Knowing this, a few years

ago when Cardinal Mindszenty

was given the colors of his office,

the Holy Father said to him:

—

“You will be the first to see these

blood red colors turn to red

blood.”

Two years ago when Cardinal

Mindszenty was in America, he

said to me : “I am going back to

be crucified.”

That hour has now struck

!

The minions of Stalin, have cru-

elly tortured and drugged him.

Only the Communist version of

the trial is allowed to reach the

newspapers. Believe it not! Our

American Government and press

are denied admission to that

mock trial, that the sons of the

Father of Lies, may take away

not only his holy life, but even

his good name.

Perhaps nothing can save his

body and blood, for long ago he

offered it to the Lord saying:

“This is My Body : This is My

Blood.” But there are three

things we can save :—By our
prayers and protest (1) We can

save the memory of another



ASCETICISM 46

Christ, suffering under Pontius

Pilate.

(2) We can save our beloved

America from Communism: —
by being Americans by resisting

all who are working to take the

innocent white and the loyal blue

out of our American flag, to

leave there only the red, which

would then stand for our servi-

tude to Red Slavery.

(3) We can save the world

by raising again in the United

Nations the question of Poland,

Hungary and all Eastern Eu-

rope, that fell from the frying

pan of Nazism into the more

terrible fire of Communism. By

doing this we will make our-

selves what we have been in our

past, the defenders of the right-

eous, and what we will be in the

future, Heaven’s secondary

cause in the liberation of the

world

!

America! Arise! Awake! If

the new crime be to believe in

God, let us all be criminals! If

the new treason be to betray

Red Nazism, let us all be trait-

ors!

If the new revolutionists be

those who revolt against the Red

Revolutionists— then onward to
the Revolution

!

You have nothing to lose but

your chains!

I beg you bend your knees to

God and you will never have

to bow your necks to tyranny.

So help us God.



THE NEED OF GRACE

Friends

:

One does not often hear the

word grace anymore, and few

there are who know its meaning.

Grace is related to the Latin

word “gratis,” and means free.

It is a gift of God which il-

lumines our intellect, strength-

ens our will and enables us to

become something we are not,

namely, the sons of God and

heirs of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Man is like a clock whose

main-spring is broken; he has

all the parts but they do not

work. Just as a main-spring

must be applied from without

by a watchmaker, but applied

within the clock itself, so too,

man needs a new energy sup-

plied from outside by His Lord

and Savior but applied within

his soul.

Perhaps these three consider-

ations will help you realize how

much you need God’s grace. (1)

You have a capacity to be more

than you are. (2) This capacity

can be realized and actualized

only by God. (3) But since you

are free, you must cooperate

with this Divine Energy before

it is effective.

(1) You have a yearning for

self-transcendence, or the desire

to get beyond and outside your-

selves. Your restlessness is born

of an inability to completely sat-

isfy yourselves within the limi-

tations of space and time. You

know certain infinities such as

Beauty, Goodness, Justice, Life,

Truth. Being spiritual, they so-

licit you beyond any concrete

realization of a good meal, or a

just cause, or a truthful saying

or a beautiful rose. You are

open at the top like sightseeing

buses which look up to the heav-

ens while moving on earth. An

elephant must always be an ele-

phant, a primrose must be a

primrose, but you have a capaci-

ty to become something that you

are not. If you refuse to realize

this capacity you hurt your mind

and heart. An acorn cannot will

to be a sapling, but you can will

to stunt yourself, and thereby

become frustrated or a mystery

to yourself. Instead of tending

toward Perfect Life, Truth and

Love Which is God and there-

fore happiness, some seek a suD-

stitute in the form of an un-

limited passion for more and



THE NEED OF GRACE 47

more pleasure, more and more

money, more and more self-will.

Because one wife fails to sat-

isfy his craving for the infinite,

a man deludes himself into be-

lieving that five wives will do

what one will not. He thinks

that because $5,000.00 could not

make him happy, that $5,000,-

000.00 could. But in the end

he discovers that all he has been

adding are zeroes. Because one

gulp of salt water does not satis-

fy, certainly a barrel of it will

not. In such a case, man’s de-

sire for self-transcendence be-

comes perverted by mistaking

where true happiness is, just as

a man who knows food is neces-

sary, ruins his health if he lives

only on a diet of caviar. The

prodigal son was right in being

hungry—that is the nature of
man; but he was wrong for liv-

ing on husks.

No man could build up false

infinities, if he were not made

for the true infinite. Only a

being made for God can make

himself God. This infinite in-

flation of one’s ego independent

of God, is like bubble gum that

one blows up with pride until it

finally splatters on his face. No

wonder so many modern souls

are saying: “I would like to get

away from myself.” But when-

ever they try to get out of them-

selves, they get hit with the very

boomerang they throw. The self

Which they thought they could

lose in anything from inordinate

pleasure to dope, is thrown back

on itself, because of the unsatis-

fying character of the subject of

the pursuits, just as a golf ball

rebounds when hit against a

tree. This throw-back upon

themselves after satiety, sin and

excesses causes hatred of self.

As you were made to breathe

air, and therefore cannot live

under water, so you who were

made to live on the Spirit of

God, cannot satisfy your passion

for being more than you are by

living on flesh or wealth. You

need help from God.

(2) This brings us to our sec-

ond point :—you cannot be all
you could be, unless God comes

down to you to lift you up, to

illumine your dark intellect and

to strengthen your weak will.

There is no such thing in the

ichemical order as spontaneous

generation. No combination of

^chemicals automatically produces

iife; babies cannot be manufac-

tured out of the contents of

chemistry bottles. There is an

X-quality in life which is not

in its chemical antecedents; life

must come from life. As you

jnust be born of human life to

be human, you must be born of



48 THE LOVE THAT WAITS FOR YOU

Divine Life to be Divine. This

superhuman life is not the re-

sult of development of your hu-

man nature, as the oak is the

development of the acorn. There

is no such thing as a man be-

coming more tolerant, more

broadminded, more interested in

social justice, less hateful and

less avaricious until he reaches

a point where he finds himself a

Christian. It is a law of physics

that a body continues in a state

of rest or uniform motion in a

straight line, unless compelled

by outside forces to change that

state of direction. Man, too, re-

mains natural or as he is, unless

changed from the outside. Stones

do not become elephants. Men

do not become children of God,

unless they are born of God. You

need not a change of direction

but an elevoMon; you need not

only development, but genera-

tion. When an old man went to

Our Lord to ask what he must

do to be saved. Our Lord said

:

“Amen, amen I say to thee, un-

less a man be born again, he can-

not see the Kingdom of God.”

(John, 3:3) The aged Nicodemus

thought that meant entering

again into his mother’s womb,

until Our Lord informed him

that being born of the flesh only

made a man flesh, but that to be

of the spirit, one has to be born

of the spirit, which is done by

Baptism.

That brings up the question of

how anything lower can be ele-

vated into something higher. Ob-

viously, only by the higher com-

ing down to the lower, and the

lower in its turn submitting it-

self to that higher power. As

the moisture, sunlight, carbon,

must surrender themselves in or-

der to live a higher life in the

plant
;

as the plants immolate

themselves and are torn up from

the roots, before they can live in

the animals; as the animal sur-

renders its life before it can live

in man’s body and become part

of a thinking, willing, kingdom,

so God must come down to us,

and we must surrender our low-

er life to Him, before we can go

up to God. God came down to

us when He became man in the

Person of Jesus Christ. But this

infinite wealth of Divine Life

does not lay hold of you forcibly,

as the plant does the sunshine, or

as the cow the clover which it

devours. We humans are per-

sons, which the lower creation

is not. We remain free in the

face of the Divine Life. It is

within our power to accept or

reject this Divine Life. As God

did not become man without con-

sulting the Virgin Mary
;
neither

does Our Lord make us partak-



THE NEED OF GRACE 49

ers of His Nature without our

free consent and that brings us

to the third fact:

(3) The cooperation of the hu-

man will. Because the Christ-

life is a gift, we have the power

of response. Our dignity before

the Eternal is something like the

dignity of bride and groom at

the altar, where love presenting

itself as a gift, answers pro-

fessed love with the sweet

words: “I will.” Sunlight is out-

side the house, but we must open

the blinds
;

the Physician can

cure, but we must know we are

sick and want to be cured. God

calls: we can either pretend we

do not hear, or we can accept or

reject. Over 140 times Sacred

Scriptures emphasized the free

acceptance of God’s grace. Hence

such appeals as: '‘Be converted,

and do penance for all your in-

iquities; and iniquity shall not

be your ruin.” (Ezechial, 18:30).

Once there is a coincidence

and cooperation between God’s

grace and your will, as there is

between your lungs and the air

outside, your whole life changes.

You will realize then that your

education depends not on a mere

mechanical substitute of one

theory or set of statistics for

another, but rather in the un-

folding of deeper and deeper in-

sights into truth and the pur-

pose of life. Your reason be-

comes stronger, for faith be-

comes to it as sunlight is to the

eyes. Your morality ceases to

be a duty or obligation, and be-

comes a by-product of love’s inti-

macy with God, as the husband’s

fidelity to the wife is a conse-

quence of his love, rather than

obedience to a law.

This Grace of Christ is poles

apart from human ideals which

can only be conceived, but

are without power to aid us or

draw us or to pour into us an

energy we do not have of and

by ourselves. Our moral en-

deavors still remain ours, but

under grace they are trans-

formed into responses to Divine

summons and contacts with God.

Thanks to this influx of Divine

Energy, your character changes

not through your temperament,

your environment, your ethics,

your reason, or your will alone,

but thanks to God’s power.

How wonderful is the Divine

Action in the soul of a sinner,

for how else could a sinner turn

from his evil ways? It is just

as impossible for a man living

a deliberately sinful life to re-

verse his Godlessness under his

own power, and truly love God,

as it would be for him to stop

himself in mid-air after he

throws himself off a bridge, or



50 THE LOVE THAT WAITS FOR YOU

to lift himself back onto the

bridge unless some Higher Pow-

er intervened. How merciful, too,

is God’s action, particularly, for

those who have lost their moral

sense, or who have plunged into

sensuality, drunkenness and evil.

Their passions might one day

leave them, but they would not

leave their passions unless a

Higher Power intervened. The

bigoted would become more big-

oted, the sinful more sinful, the

greedy more avaricious, the

hateful more cruel. But thanks

to the Divine Energy of God-

man which acts on their souls

and in it, they can be turned

completely around and begin life

all over again. They cannot do

this under their own power

alone, for when evil habits have

become ingrained, when the love

of the good has been lost and

when melancholy sits in one’s

soul as on a throne, there is not

power enough within to change.

There would never be Augus-

tines becoming saints, Magda-

lens becoming penitents, Peters

returning to a crucifixion and

Paul’s abandoning hate, were not

the Spirit of God sweetly yet

.strongly putting man on his

own feet, setting him on a new

path and holding before his eyes

a new city on the everlasting

hills.

What hope would there be for

perverted souls which like dead

birds fall to earth, were there no

Heavenly Finger to touch and

give healing to their wings? How

explain a thief who at one mo-

ment curses a Man on a nearby

Gross, at another asks Him for

forgiveness and Paradise, unless

in some way the robber was rob-

bed of his hate by the Divine

Who said : “This daj^ thou shalt

be with Me in Paradise.” (Luke,

2 .3 :43 )

Never despair! Only when you

begin to be infinitely wicked and

God ceases to be infinitely good

may you give up, and that would

never be. If now you are strong

in your pride, God seems weak;

but once you admit your weak-

ness, God appears in His

Strength. It could even be that

God in His Mercy might make

some souls weak by suffering.

At first they will cry out: “Why

did God do this to Me?” If they

reflect, they will discover that

unless the earth rotted the outer

covering of the seed, it would

never spring forth to life.

Our poor egos are too cramped

and sordid a place in which to

dwell. We just have to get out of

them, not deeper down in them.

If you try to find new dimen-

sions in your unconsciousness, as

a substitute for self-transcend-



THE NEED OF GRACE 5i

ence, you will become increasing-

ly psychotic. It is like looking

for the stars at the bottom of

a swamp.

Give up trying to live on your

own moral fat. If true good-

ness were dependent wholly on

your will, would you not have

been good a long time ago? Most

of us are like men locked in air-

tight compartments, breathing

in the same air we breathe out;

we are suffocating, because we

are trying to live on our own ex-

halation. Such is the fallacy of

Humanism; flat tires cannot

fix themselves; no analysis of a

rotted acorn can make an oak.

As your eyes need light to see,

as your ears cannot hear without

waves of sound, and your lungs

cannot breathe "without air, so

neither can you be all we could

be, unless you receive the Grace

of God.

You can be happier than you

are now; you can be peaceful,

even in your sorrows. You can

be joyful amid trials; you can

overcome your temptation; you

can master your evil habits; you

can make your marriage happy;

but, you cannot do it alone, nor

under your own power.

Pray then daily, hourly, for

God’s grace, and if you are in-

terested in its effects on your

soul, then listen in next week

and I will tell you.

God Love You

Be not foolish, 0 my soul.

For the Savior calleth thee to

return.

All the love thou hast on earth

Is but a spark from the flame of

Love Divine.

All Thy truth, 0 soul, is but a

broken syllable of the Word

Divine.

Seek then 0 soul what you

seek.

But not where you seek it now.

Wouldst thou ever want God

If thou were not once with Him?

Come then, 0 God of Love

Who will not let me go!

I’ll rest this weary soul in Thee.



ACTUAL GRACE

COD’S FIRST IMPACT ON THE SOUL

Friends

:

The religious experience I am

to describe today is common to

everyone in search of God. Such

a soul has two great moments:

The first is negative and passive,

and the other is active and Div-

ine. The first is a sense of empti-

ness; the second, a Divine Pre-

sence. The first is a discontent,

a disgust, a fedupness with life;

the second is a consciousness

that God is making an impact on

the soul. The first is psycholo-

gical emptiness or the negative

Presence of God in the soul
;
the

second is God’s actual grace, or

His positive Presence or influ-

ence.

Everyone who is not in union

with God has this emptiness, as

an empty stomach has its gnaw-

ings. But not every person is

conscious of the emptiness. The

consciousness of it is the first

moment in a God-ward move-

ment of the soul. It is, a feeling

of tension resulting from a de-

sire for the Infinite, and on the

other hand, an ennui and a bore-

dom because we were mistaken

in our idea of the infinite. In-

stead of striving for the Infinite,

which is God, we erect the false

infinite of our own ego, of

wealth, of power, of pleasure,

and since none of these can com-

pletely satisfy, we are thrown

back upon ourselves more miser-

able than before.

As Pascal has said : “The

greatness of men is so evident

that it is even proven by his

wretchedness, for what in an-

imals is called nature, we call

wretchedness in man : for who is

unhappy at not being a king,

except a deposed king? Who is

unhappy at having one mouth,

and who is not unhappy at hav-

ing only one eye? Probably no

one ever ventured to mourn at

not having three eyes, but any-

one is inconsolable at having

none.” This is another way of

saying that our restlessness is a

proof that we were made for

something more than earth. Why

does a hot coal placed on our

hand burn it? Because the coal

contradicts the hand; the coal is

the “not” to our hand, its neg-

ation and frustration. If the



ACTUAL GRACE 63

nature of our hand was the same

as the nature of coal, there

would be no burning, because

there would be no contradiction.

In like manner, a man made to

the Image and Likeness of God,

who aspires by every word, deed

and prayer to be identical with

God’s Will, has no contradiction

m his nature; therefore he is at
peace. But the man who, “nots,”

or negates his nature, develops

anxieties, fears and mental dis-

orders. This sense of emptiness

and unhappiness with its cort-

ege of the emotions of fear and

melancholy, is the negative and

passive condition for discover-

ing and knowing God. If we may

coin a name for it, it is, “black

grace”; it does not impel the

soul to God, but it does make the

soul realize its emptiness with-

out Him and therefore the need

of Him.

The second moment is not the

emptying, but the filling, not the

“black grace,” but the, “white

grace.” It is a moment in which

the soul becomes not conscious

of the inner contradiction, but

rather receives an impetus, a

thrust, or a power which comes

from God, enabling it to see

truths which before it did not

know, and to do things which

before it had not the moral cour-

age to do.

If you have felt first impulses

of God’s actual grace summon-

ing you away from misery to

union with Him, I hope you did

not shrug your shoulders and

say: “This impulse is really not

from God, but from my nature

itself.” No! Because if it were

from nature, it would not ad-

vocate a break with it, for grace

inspires discipline, mortification

and a giving-up of the occasion

of sin. If it came from nature

alone, nature would not lift the

knife against itself. Say not

either that it comes from your

unconsciousness, for there is

nothing in the unconsciousness

which was not once in conscious-

ness, and here the soul is in the

presence of a great Inexperience,

the Divine Novelty, something

absolutely new. Furthermore,

once the impulse of God strikes

us, we travel in a different di-

rection than either our consci-

ousness or our unconsciouness

has been moving. To do this,

there had to be a force from

without stronger than ourselves,

and yet one with which we co-

operate. There is no need to mul-

tiply an answer to these false ob-

jections, for there will always be

perverse souls in the world, who

when a friend offers them a rose

to smell will say the perfume is

**eally not from the rose, but



64 THE LOVE THAT WAITS FOR YOU

tlie scent of a distant soap fact-

ory.

To convince you that the im-

pact of God on your soul is not

psychological, but Divine, let me

contrast three differences be-

tween any human appeal to be

better and the action of God’s

grace.

The first difference between

the two is, that all human ap-

peals and arguments and psyco-

logical coaxings toward moral

betterment are external to the

person to he reformed, i.e., their

action is from without like a

flashy advertisement trying to

catch the eye. All that a reform-

er can do is ring the doorbell, he

cannot get inside of the house.

It is conceivable that the alco-

holic knows that he is doing

wrong, but he also knows that

by his own power, it is extremely

difficult to relieve himself of his

vice. Precisely because of their

extrinsic character, most people

regard humanistic and legal re-

forms as an interference with

their personal lives.

Divine action on the soul, on

the contrary, is internal, in fact

so much that the person some-

times feels that it is his own.

Actual Grace lights up the soul,

as light shining through a Goth-

ic window suffuses it with a bril-

liance
;

it occupies no space, any

more than the natural truth that

two and two make four, takes up

space. Grace strikes the soul

sometimes with such a terrific

impact, as to be catastrophic,

demanding a complete break

with a sinful past. We can turn

a deaf ear to the reformer’s

pleadings, but it is not within

our power to prevent God from

invading the soul that He has

made. As the sun rises without

asking the night, so does Divine

life invade without asking the

darkness of our minds. He estab-

lishes His beachead in the most

unsuspecting moments, almost in

secret, without us ever being

aware of His coming. He comes

like a sudden thought into the

mind, or like an intense desire

in the will. Because His entrance

is imperceptible, aye even u-ncon-

scious in the sense that we do

not know that it is He in the be-

ginning, there is no resistance

built up against Him, for we

have no sense of interference.

We may even think that the

sudden upsurge of our spirit is

our own, not even suspecting

that it comes from God, just as

we often think that our eyes do

all the seeing, without being con-

scious of the role the sun plays

iin vision. It is only later on,

after complete conversion, that

become conscious that the



ACTUAL GRACE 65

initiative was Divine and Etern-

al. The Divine Thief may come

zo steal away our unhappiness

in a moment of satiety with sin,

as it was with Leon Bloy, or at

the sight of death as it was with

St. Francis, or at the closeness

of the stars in the desert as it

was with Ernest Pschari, or at

the moment of reading a book as

it was to Jaques Maritain, or at

the sound of church-bells as it

was to Paul Claudel. These and

a thousand other external cir-

cumstances are of no importance.

These are only the occasions on

which we meet God, but God can

be met anywhere. Though God

has reserved Himself the right

and power to act in the soul so-

liciting it to virtue and distract-

ing it from evil, nevertheless He

has left with man the alternative

to shake the Hand of God once

he finds Him in his soul, or else

to order Him out. But enter He

does, stirring the soul, making

it restless, shaking the grates of

the heart to get rid of the clink-

ers and ashes of sin, that the

faint sparks of grace may blaze

and burn. One can turn a deaf

ear, indeed, to a plea of goodness

from a voice without, but this

Voice within does not argue.

Our choice is not to agree or dis-

agree, it is only to embrace or

reject.

A second difference between

humanistic, ethical and psycho-

logical aids to betterment and

the grace of God, is that the

former are impersonal while

grace is personal. The sinful, the

selfish or intemperate man is apt

to say to the reformer with a

book of rules: “Try it on some-

one else, not me.” A mother once

tried to get her boy to eat spin-

ach and she argued with him:

“I know a million boys in the

United States who would love

that spinach.” To which he re-

torted: “Name three.” Behind

the boy’s retort was a conscious-

ness of personal dignity and the

realization that we are not peas

in a pod nor are we saved by the

barrel load. The individuality of

the soul demands a specific rem-

edy. The one sheep that is lost

in the brambles cries out for its

own unique salvation.

God calls His sheep by name:

He leaves the ninety-nine that

are safe to find the one that is

lost; on the Cross He addresses

the thief in the second person

singular: “This day, thou shalt

be with Me in Paradise.” God

never sells His Bread of Life

wholesale. He tempers the wind

of the individual cheek and is

healing to the particular soul.

Once the soul becomes conscious

of the Divine Presence, it feels



56 THE LOVE THAT WAITS FOR YOU

itself under a Divine Imperative

and whispers to itself : “This

applies to me and to no one else.”

That is why a soul responding

to grace never blames its guilt

on insufficient playgrounds or

Oedipus but strikes its breast

saying: “Mea culpa, mea culpa,

mea maxima culpa.” At least,

there is the consciousness of the

two great personal realities, the

soul and God.

What God does to the soul per-

sonally, brings out the third dif-

ference between human action

and Divine action. The former

lacks the power to heal. It is

external to the patient, and even

though the mind might be con-

vinced, it still nevertheless is too

weak to put the suggestions into

practice. How often a mother

will say of a delinquent daugh-

ter: “If I could only get inside

of her,” the implication being

that not all the emotional plead-

ing in the world can cause an

inner regeneration. All the false

remedies for poor, weak human-

ity such as a little more toler-

ance, an increased indifference to

right and wrong, a new love to

replace the old one, all of which

are supposed to give peace of

mind, only makes the last con-

dition of a soul worse than the

first. The lock that opens the

door to the healing is on the

side of the wounded, not on the

side of the reformer or the

ciple and source of energy from

psychologist.

Here is where Divine Grace

proves its worth, namely in its

power to heal. If man is to be

piade better, there must be the

introduction of a new life prin-

without. Man has not the phys-

ical power to grow a new leg

when he loses an old one, but

thanks to Divine Grace, he has

the power to become a new man

when he has spoiled the old one.

There can be healing where

there was disease, resurrection

Where there was death, and joy

where there was anxiety. Man

iean throw that Divine medicine

lout of the window if he chooses,

but then man must blame him-

self and not God for his misery.

The external reforms can infiu-

ence to a certain point just as an

orchestra leader can inspire the

•musicians under him, but he can-

not give the power to play to one

who has not the ability. But

God’s Grace can do just that!

He can infuse the ability into

the soul which is not there

originally and which cannot even

be acquired naturally.

The actual graces of God have

come to every person who ever

lived, Jew, Christian, pagan,

idolater. God is always acting on



ACTUAL GRACE 67

che soul. As the sun is always

illumining, so God is always

shedding forth His Graces and

His healing powers. It would be

difficult to give any mathemat-

ical calculations of how many

actual graces we receive but cer-

tainly they would run into thous-

ands for each soul each year.

Resist not the grace of God!

It can come to us in remorse

after sin, in shame after drunk-

eness, in satiety after excesses,

in seeing spiritual contentment

of a nun's face, or in a sudden

realization that we do not know

everything and we cannot lift

ourselves by our own bootstraps.

It can come in an impulse to

pray, in a desire to study re-

ligion, or to live more closely

with God. It is woven so imper-

ceptibly with the fabric of your

life, that you may not recognize

it. I believe there are many who

receive actual graces to come

into the fulness of Christ in His

Mystical Body, but who having

failed to act on that belief, after-

wards lost it. An unused grace

in the soul is like undigested

matter in the stomach. Instead

of nourishing, it spoils. Graces

that are not acted on, because of

a fear of the world—which is
the principal reason—are not
often given again. As St. Fran-

cis de Sales says: “God did not

deprive thee of the operation of

His Love, but thou didst deprive

His Love of thy cooperation.

God could never have rejected

thee, if thou hadst not rejected

Him.” God cannot help us if we

refuse to be helped.

Just remember that God often

uses things, accidents, books,

and even human beings as in-

struments, not the causes, to

pour His Grace into souls. If

you already have, “The black

grace,” or a sense of the empti-

ness of life and a vague need for

something more than human, it

is coneeivable that God might

now use about the poorest, weak-

est and most unworthy of all His

instruments to give you at this

moment a “white grace.” I mean,

if He used a stupid ass for His

triumphant entry into Jerusalem,

then may He use this poor broad-

cast to ride triumphant into

your souls ! Then I will be happy

because He used me; you will be

happy because you received Him I

In that happiness

—

God Love Youj

Lord Jesus; Thy Love I know is

not for sale.

Why then am I suspicious of

what is free?

We pay for ever5rthing in life

—

save Thee.

But Thy Love once had can be

sold.



68 THE LOVE THAT WAITS FOR YOU

As Judas did for thirty coins.

My soul is empty as a nest,

Fill its black void then with Thy

white grace,

For none but Thee has loved me

from the first.

But what shall I give Thee,

Who art the Lord of all?

There is but one thing Thou has

not

—

I’ll give Thee my sins

!



SANCTIFYING GRACE

Friends

:

Do you remember that the

burden of the last few broad-

casts has been the idea that over

and above our natural, human

life there is a supernatural, Di-

vine life which is a gift of God;

that nothing lower is ever ele-

vated to anything higher unless

the higher comes down to the

lower and lifts it up, as the

chemicals are taken up by plants,

and plants by animals, and all

three by man. Hence, if man is

ever to be elevated to the Di-

vine Order, God must come down

to man; which was done in the

Incarnation of Our Lord, Jesus

Christ, while man in his turn

by a free act of his will must

surrender his lower sinful nature

to be one in Jesus Christ. As

in the natural order, life does

not come from crystals, but must

be begotten by life; as to have

human life we must be born of

humans; so to have Divine Life

we must be horn of God.

There is a world of difference

between making and begetting:

we make something that is un-

like us, for example, a carpenter

makes a table; but we beget that

which is like us, e.g., a mother

begets a child. Inasmuch as we

were made by God we are just

the creatures of His Handiwork,

but inasmuch as we are begotten

of God by grace, we become His

children.

This gift of God, or grace

which enables us to be partak-

ers of the Divine Life, and to

be begotten of God, is called the

supernatural, i.e., above the na-

tural. If a dog suddenly began

to quote Shakespeare and to

answer our questions and to rea-

son about politics, that would be

a “supernatural” act for a dog,

for it does not belong to the

powers and capacities of a dog

to do these things. If we in like

manner who are just human be-

ings, suddenly began to partake

of the Divine Nature so that

the life that is in God as the

Vine runs through us as the

Branches; so that we become

sons of God and heirs of Heav-

en—^that would be a supernatur-
al act for a man; something to

which we would be more entitled

by nature than this microphone

can bloom.

The tragedy of life is *^hat so



60 THE LOVE THAT WAITS FOR YOU

few ever avail themselves of this

gift of God which is called,

‘‘Sanctifying Grace.”

Every human can live on three

possible levels, which might be

compared to a three-story house.

The first story is the sensate

life, in which the pleasures and

the thrills of the flesh are the

supreme goal and destiny of liv-

ing. The second floor of the

house is better ordered and may

be likened to reason, whereby

man is guided solely by his own

intellect and the choices of his

own will. But even when the

mind does know the truth, the

will is often too weak to follow

it. The third floor is the super-

natural, which is the floor of

peace and joy. This corresponds

to living the Christ-life, thanks

to the illumination of our in-

tellect and the strengthening of

our will by grace.

It is so hard to convince peo-

ple who live in the sub-human

level of animality to move to the

floor above, and it is hard to con-

vince those who live a good hu-

man life to move to the third

floor of union with God. Most

people are living below their

possibilities and their lives be-

come the tragedy of what might

have been. They become like the

two tadpoles who under the wa-

ter are discussing the possibility

of a more rarified atmosphere

above. One said to the other,

“I think I will stick my head

above this water.” The other

tadpole said, “Don’t be foolish!

You do not mean to say that

there is anything else in the

world besides water.” Perhaps

then the greatest tragedy in life

is not so much what people suf-

fer, it is rather what they miss.

I know you are interested in

finding out how this Divine life

comes into your soul. The nor-

mal way of receiving the Christ-

life into your soul is through the

seven Sacraments, beginning

with Baptism which gives you

both in Him in time, and ending

with Extreme Unction which

prepares you for death in time

and birth with Him into

Eternity.

But because of the limitations

of time, we shall tell you what

grace does when it gets into your

soul. When you see what added

power it gives, you may take

ways and means to receive it. It

does not effect your emotions,

for religion has nothing primar-

ily to say about your feelings.

What makes you human and dif-

ferent from the animal is the

fact that you have an intellect

which can know truth, and a

will which can choose: hate evil

and love goodness. But they



SANCTIFYING GRACE 61

cannot carry you very far un-

aided, or without great difficulty

and only with some admixture

of error. But when God’s san-

ctifying grace is infused by the

Sacraments, it gives a tremend-

ous thrust to both your reason

and your will. It elevates your

reason with faith; it energizes

your will with hope and charity.

Consider each in turn.

(1) Your Reason:—Just as
the sun illuminates your senses,

and the light of reason il-

lumines your human acts, so

grace infuses the light of Faith

to illumine your reason to per-

ceive Truths beyond its power,

and to accept them because they

are revealed by God. You have

the same eyes at night as you

have during the day, but you

cannot see at night, because you

lack the light of the sun. Let

two individuals having the same

intellectual endowments, but one

having Faith and the other not,

look at a host on the altar: one

sees Emanuel or God in the Eu-

charist, and the other sees only

bread. This is because one has

a light which the other lacks.

This new light of faith is to

your reason as the telescope is

to your eye. The telescope does

not destroy your eye, nor does

it create new worlds, but it en-

ables your eye to see realities

which were already there, but

which it could not see under its

own power. To a person who

does not believe in the power

of the telescope, it would seem

that the astronomer was imagin-

ing that he saw distant stars,

as those who lack the gift of

faith sometimes attribute belief

of Christians to imagination,

myths and fiction.

Reason is always stronger

with Faith than without it. Just

as reason is the perfection of

the senses, so Faith is the per-

fection of the reason. A drunk-
ard who has lost his reason still

has his senses, but though he

is now like an animal, his senses

do not function as well as the

animal. He stumbles, falls, sees

double images and pink ele-

phants. This is because his sen-

ses need reason to function well.

In like manner, man’s reason

needs Faith to function well.

That incidently is why the high-

est development the world ever

saw in philosophical wisdom was

in the days of Faith of the

Thirteenth Century, and inverse-

ly why our own Godless age

which has abandoned Faith is

the age of anti-reason with the

emphases on ids, sex, determin-

ism and despair.

(2) Your will:—^When Sanc-
tifying Grace operates on the



62 THE LOVE THAT WAITS FOR YOU

intellect it gives us Faith: when

it operates on the will it gives

us hope and charity.

Hope is the supernatural

side of security. As some men

have hope in their future be-

cause they possess material

wealth, so a Christian has hope

in the eternal future, because

he possesses Divine wealth,

which is the certitude of God’s

Love and care. Because hope

makes us trust and confide in

God despite all of the adversi-

ties, it roots out of the soul a

fear of failure. Obsession of

failure or despair vary in direct

ratio with our egotism and

pride. Our melancholy general-

ly results from a failure to real-

ize our own ambitions and un-

der our own power. But once

God becomes our all encompass-

ing hope, the fear of the hos-

tility of others in a competi-

tive society, completely evapor-

ates as we no longer trust in

ourselves, for our sufficiency is

from God. Not even the abund-

ance of our past sins will make

us despair, for a contrite and

humble heart the Lord will not

despise. Thanks to supernatural

help, we can say with St. Paul:

*T can do all things in Him Who

strengthens me” (Phil. 4:13).

Fear of failure now gives way to

increased effectiveness, because

the added dynamism is from God

and not from a consciousness oi

our own power. We cease to

be the hand, and begin to be the

tool, and as a tool of God we can

do more when He guides our

hand.

Hope will finally beget confi-

dence and therefore tranquilize

your heart as the Lord becomes

everything to you. How often

we judge people by the way they

act on a particular occasion.

Later on when we come to know

them better and love them, a

complete change in outlook takes

place. Instead of judging their

personality by a particular act,

we judge a particular act by

their personality. If they do

something which we do not un-

derstand, we attribute it with

our own ignorance of their in-

tention rather than to their per-

versity. So it is with God, when

our ego is supreme, we judge

God by the way He seems to

act in a definite circumstance,

e.g., in the sudden death of a

son or daughter, and we com-

plain. But later on when we

understand the nature of God

as Love and Mercy, then we

judge what happens in the light

of His Goodness, we even reach

a point where like Job, we say:

“Though he slay me, yet will I

trust in Him” (Job, 16:33). As

true Christians we also under-



SANCTIFYING GRACE 63

stand that Our Lord never prom-

ised us immunity from suffering

in this world: “In the world ye

shall have tribulations” (John,

16:33). But He did promise

that we would never be overcome

by them. Never will we com-

plain against Him for, looking

at the Cross on the Hill of Cal-

vary, well indeed might He ask

us: “What have I done to de-

serve this?” Through His exam-

ple, therefore, we have patience

and resignation to the momen-

tary trials knowing that God

never permits an evil to happen

except that eventual spiritual

good may result.

Finally, Charity. By Charity

is here meant the indwelling of

the Blessed Trinity in the soul

of those who are in the state

of sanctifying grace. To be in

the state of grace means not

having something; it means be-

ing something, namely being the

temple in which God dwells.

Many baptised souls are ignor-

ant of this mystery and remain

unaware of it throughout their

lives. It is possible for some

people to live under the same

roof and never commune with

one another; it is likewise possi-

ble for God to be in the soul

and yet there is little intimacy

between the soul and its Divine

Guest. The more holy souls are

detached from the world the

greater this intimacy becomes.

One could indicate four steps

in the way men come to God:

I am,

I ought,

I can,

I will.

In the first stage, I am, there

is only a consciousness of our

own existence, which is egotism.

In the second, I ought, there is

a dependence of the soul on God

through conscience, in which

God is felt as a duty. In the

third stage, I can, there is a

recognition that thanks to God’s

grace we can become something

that we are not, namely. His

adopted Son. The fourth and

final stage is an identification of

our own will with His Will—and
this is our peace.

We read in the life of St.

Catherine of Sienna that one

day she was attacked by very

violent temptations against the

virtue of purity. When finally

the storm had passed. Our Lord

appeared to her and she said:

“Lord, where were you when my

heart was filled with such im-

pure thoughts?” The Lord an-

swered: “I was in your heart.”

St. Catherine said: “Yes, Lord,

you are truth itself and I bow

before you but how can I believe

this when my heart was filled



64 THE LOVE THAT WAITS FOR YOU

with such detestable thoughts?”

But the Lord answered: “These

thoughts, these temptations

—

did they cause you joy, sorrow,

pleasure or pain?” St. Catherine

responded : “Terrible sorrow,

terrible pain.” The Lord then

responded : “Know then, my

daughter, that you suffered be-

cause I was hidden in the midst

of your heart. Had I been ab-

sent, the thoughts that pene-

trated there would have given

you pleasure. It was my pres-

ence which rendered them in-

supportable to you. I was acting

in you. I defended your heart

against the enemy. Never have

T been closer to you.”

This would seem to indicate

that the very resistance that

saintly souls put up to evil, is

not just because they hate evil,

but rather because of the con-

sciousness of Divine Goodness

within. It may be psychologic-

ally true that souls that are de-

void of a sense of Divine Love,

more readily fall into temptation

and sin because they have less

to lose by that sin.
W

This Divine Charity is so

deeply entrenched in the soul

that as in romantic love, it con-

siders as traitorous any enjoy-

ment apart from the beloved. As

sometimes a dog will not take

tfood from anyone except his

master, regardless of how much

he wants food, so the soul in the

state of grace turns from all

worldly or indifferent pleasures

in which God could not have a

part. This is extremely diffi-

cult for the worldly to under-

stand because they have no one

to please except themselves, and

since their pleasure is practically

always outside themselves, it is

a mystery to them why anyone

should be looking for happiness

within.

The tragedy of life therefore

is the fact that so many people

remain diminished, unfinished

and undeveloped because they

will not be elevated to the Di-

vine order by death to sin and

life in Him through His Sacra-

ments. Many are called, but

few are chosen. Just as in the

material universe, there is an

upward evolution but not every-

thing realizes it. There are many

chemicals and minerals in the

world that do not pass into the

higher life of the plant. There

are many plants who die to

themselves but never live in ani-

mals, and there are many ani-

mals who never find their way

into man. So there are many

men who do not die to them-

selves by an act of their own

will to live with Christ. In the



SANCTIFYING GRACE 65

universe, quantity is decreasing

and quality is increasing.

If I told you where there was

a buried treasure, you would

seek it. Why then not seek the

Christ-life which will make you

happy in this life and in the

next. Now is a good time to

begin. Lent starts Wednesday.

If you are Catholic go to Mass

everyday and receive Commun-

ion; but everyone, Jew, Protes-

tant and Catholic can spend an

Hour a Day in prayer. Just ask

God for two gifts : To know His

Truth and the Strength to fol-

low it.

God Love You!

Lord Jesus,

What doth it profit Thee

To be born in a thousand stables

If Thou art not born within my

stable

Where beasts too often dwell?

Why didst Thou make Thyself

the Wine of Life,

If I were not to taste or drink?

If Thou art the Light of the

World

Then shall I see only by sun?

If a poor man to me a gift would

bring

How would I cling to him?

Come then, 0 Saviour, besiege

my heart!

My love shall be the shortest

route to Thee:

ril drive out myself! and let

Thee In!



HOW TO BUILD CHARACTER

Friends

:

There is not one of us who

is not defeated in some partic-

ular area of life. Some fall away

from grace and high ideals; oth-

ers bemoan their failure to

marry, or having married failed

to realize all its hopes and prom-

ises; others experience a decline

of virtues, a gradual slipping

away into mediocrity or a slav-

ery to vice
;
while others are sub-

jected to frustration, bad health

or economic ruin. All such de-

feats are generally summed up

in the mournful regret: “If I

only had my life to live over

again.” It is of utmost impor-

tance that in facing these de-

feats and failures that there be

no discouragement, for discour-

agement from a spiritual point

of view, is the effect of wounded

self-love and therefore is a form

of pride.

Our failings can become the

basis of character development,

for as education takes hold of

what is best in a person, e.g., a

talent for music, character train-

ing on the contrary, takes hold

of what is worst in us, and by

uprooting it and fighting against

it, finally perfects personality in

the virtue contrary to the pre-

vious vice.

There are three steps in the

development of a Christian char-

acter. The first step is to dis-

cover what is worst in us. This

is done by an examination of

that sin to which we are most

frequently tempted. It is very

wrong to think that simply be-

cause we are tempted, that there-

fore we are wicked. The blessed-

ness of temptation is that it only

reveals the weak spot in our

character, thereby providing the

raw material for victory, but it

is also when resisted an occa-

sion for merit. Self-examina-

tion reveals this basic defect in

our character, for every person

has what is known as a predom-

inant fault. The predominant

fault is the one which prevails

over all other faults and to some

extent inspires attitudes, judg-

ments and sympathies. Some are

inclined principally to sensuality,

others to laziness, avarice or

pride, others to anger; others

have a tendency to allow gentle-

ness to degenerate into effemi-

nacy, or force into cruelty. The

hidden evil must be dug up from

the remote corners of the hearty



HOW TO BUILD CHARACTER 67

brought out into the light, and

laid before God. Until the posi-

tion of the enemy is known, he

cannot be attacked.

This hidden fault must be

called by its right name, other-

wise we miss seeing our pride

under fear of an inferiority com-

plex, or our perverse love of the

flesh under the disguise of dab-

bling in Freudianism. Judas

missed salvation because he nev-

er called his avarice by its right

name, but covered it up as love

of the poor, as moderns cover it

up under the name of security.

The second step after the dis-

covery of the master-adhesion

through self-examination, is to

combat the interior defect in co-

operation with God’s grace. This

requires a daily and even an

hourly struggle. There are gen-

erally four ways of overcoming

the predominant fault: (1) We

must ask for God’s grace to over-

come the sin. Though our own

will has proven itself too weak

to conquer it, it becomes strong

enough to do so when infused

with the Power of God. As the

Church tells us in the Council

of Trent: “God never commands

the impossible; but in giving us

His precepts, He commands us

to do what we can, and to ask

for the grace to accomplish what

we cannot do.” (2) By daily ex-

amination of conscience, partic-

ularly at night. As a person

counts the money in his pocket

daily to determine whether the

current expense of the day can

be met, so we balance our con-

sciences to see if they are going

in debt morally and spiritually,

and how we can get out of it. (3)

By imposing on oneself a pen-

ance every time we succumb to

the predominant fault, e.g., say-

ing a prayer for the absent per-

son against whom we bore false

judgment, or giving five times

the amount of a cocktail to the

poor everytime we are tempted

to intoxication by the first drink.

(4) By turning the predominant

fault into its opposite virtue.

Since this is too often ignored,

it is the one upon which we con-

centrate. Strength of character

is a knowledge of our weakness

and the ultimate mastery of it.

The storm reveals the weakness

in the house, but the part of it

that was damaged and repaired,

is apt in the end to be the

strongest. Kites and airplanes

rise against the wind, not with

it. Earth does not reveal its

harvest without plowing, nor the

minds their treasure without

study, nor nature its secrets:

without investigation. Goodness

is not to be confused with pas-

sivity, but with activity in ai\



68 THE LOVE THAT WAITS FOR YOU

opposite direction. There are a

number of people who are con-

sidered to be good, when really

they have not enough courage to

do a very good act or a very evil

act. The icebergs that float in

the cold streams of the North

deserve no credit for being ice-

bergs. They cannot help being

icebergs, but let those icebergs

get down to the warm gulf

streams of the South and remain

icebergs—they have character.
In like manner, character de-

pends not on our want of energy

to do wrong, but on the use of

energy to do right when tempt-

ed to do wrong.' That is why the

greatest sinners sometimes make

the greatest saints. A Saul who
hated became a Paul who loved:

a sensuous Magdalene became a

spiritual Magdalene. The con-

vents and monasteries are full of

potential devils, potential in the

sense that these saintly souls

would have been very wicked if

they had not corresponded to

God’s grace, because they were

so full of energy. The Little

Flower says that if she had not

been responsive to God’s mercies,

she would have been one of the

most wicked persons who ever

lived. On the contrary, the great

prisons of our country house

potential saints. The energy they

used in sin was not wrong, it

was the direction that their en-

ergy took that was wrong. Lenin

was probably a St. Francis in

reverse. If the same energy he

used in violence towards others

was used in violence towards

fcelf, and in the cultivation of

love, he would have become the

fit. Francis of the 19th Century.

No saint ever found it was

«asy to be good. This is the

great mistake most people make

in judging them. It is often

said: “It is easy for him to be

good.” The fact is, if it were

easy for him to be good, he

would not be truly good, and

much less would he be a saint.

The law running through heav-

en and earth is that no one shall

be crowned unless he has strug-

gled. The Church never canonizes

anyone unless he shows a degree

of holiness which is called heroic.

The virtues of the saints there-

fore were the opposite of the

natural weaknesses they had to

overcome. In other words, the

peculiar quality of soul which

made someone else a devil, made

them saints. The moral quality

always associated with Moses is

meekness, but Moses was not

born meek. He probably was very

hot-headed, quick-tempered and

irascible. He killed an Egyptian,

and that was not the mark of a

meek man. He was the first one



HOW TO BUILD CHARACTER

to ‘‘break** the Ten Command-

ments. Coming down from the

Mount where he had spoken with

God, he found his people adoring

the Golden Calf, and in a fit of

anger smashed the Tablets of the

Law. Apparently, the weak spot

in Moses was hot-headedness.

But he took hold of the worst in

him, and later on, in his attitude

toward the fickleness of Pharaoh,

the ingratitude and wayward-

ness of those whom he delivered,

his patience to his sister and

brother, and his final disappoint-

ment at not entering the Prom-

ised Land, we find him described

in Sacred Scripture as, “a man

exceedingly meek** (Numbers,

12:3). He acquired meekness by

fighting ill temper. He rooted out

the worst in him, and with God*s

help became one of the best of

men.

John the Evangelist who is

praised for his charity, once in-

duced his mother to use political

influence, and on another occas-

ion, when the city of the Samar-

itans rejected Our Lord, he and

his brother, James, asked Our

Lord to rain down fire from the

heaven and destroy the city. This

was not charity. In fact, there

must have been a tendency to

hate in John, for not without

aptness did his Master call him

who wanted to send down light-

en

ning, a Son of Thunder. But

sometime or other in John*s life,

he seized upon the weak spot in

his character, namely, want of

kindness to fellowman, and

through cooperation with grace,

he became the great Apostle of

Charity.

The temptations of the saints

were for them opportunities for

self-discovery. They revealed the

breaches in the fortress of their

souls which needed to be fort-

ified, until they became the

strongest points. This explains

the curious fact about many

saintly people, that they often

become the opposite of what they

seemed to be. When we hear of

holiness of certain souls, our

first reaction is: “I knew him

when. . . .’* Between the “then**

and the “now** has intervened a

battle, in which selfishness lost

and faith won.

Because the development of

character requires constant vig-

ilance, occasional failures must

not be mistaken for the desertion

of God. There are two classes of

people in the world: Those who

fall down and get up: and those

who fall down and stay there.

Because a child falls, it does not

give up trying to walk. Some-

times the mother gives the most

attention to the child who falls

the most. Incidently, I think Our



70 THE LOVE THAT WAITS FOR YOU

Blessed Mother does that too. I

always liked the detail in the life

of St. Mary Magdalene de Paz-

zi :—One day while dusting a
small statue of Our Lord in the

chapel, she dropped it on the

floor. Picking it up unbroken,

she kissed it, saying: “If you

had not fallen, you would not

have gotten that.” Sometimes

in the case of continued weak-

ness, it is well not just to count

the falls, but to count also the

number of times a temptation to

do wrong was overcome. The

reverses in the heat of battle can

lead to strengthening of pur-

poses. It is worth something to

discover whether a wish-bone is

where the back-bone ought to be.

Realize then that there are

two “me’s in each of us : the

“possible me” and an “actual

me.” The “actual me” is what I

am now as a result of letting my-

self go. The “possible me” is

what I can be if I unite my will

to God’s Will by sacrifice.

No character or temperament

is fixed. To say “I am what I

am, and that I must always be”

is to ignore freedom. Divine Ac-

tion in the soul, and the rever-

sibility of character through dis-

cipline. No person regardless of

the depth of his vice or intem-

perance is incapable of being

transformed through his cooper-

ation with God’s grace into a

holy and peaceful person. Dope-

fiends, materialists, sceptics, sen-

sualists, gluttons, thieves—all
can make that area of life in

which they are defeated, the

area of their greatest victory.

The time-element is not as im-

portant as it seems, for it does

not require much time to make

us saints; it requires only much

Love.

The third step in character

development is: Concentrate not

on the eradication of evil, but

on the cultivation of virtue. The

difference in the two techniques

of fighting evil and loving good-

ness is illustrated in the ancient

story of the Greeks. Ulysses re-

turning from the siege of Troy,

knew the danger of listening to

the sirens tempting many a

sailor to his doom. So Ulysses

put wax in the ears of his sail-

ors, strapped himself to the mast

of the ship, so that even though

he wished to follow the appeal of

the sirens, he would not be able

to do so. Some years later, Or-

pheus, the divine musician pass-

ed by the same sea, but refused

to plug up his sailor’s ears or

bind himself to a mast. Rather

he played his harp so beautifully

that the song of the sirens had

no appeal. It is not a hatred of

evil but a love of Our Lord and

His Blessed Mother which



HOW TO BUILD CHARACTER 71

crowds out evil, for hate is use-

less unless we love something

else more.

Evil is never to be attacked

directly, but indirectly. Evil is

not driven out, but crowded out

Sensuality is not mastered

by saying : “I will not sin,”

but through the expulsive

power of something good.

When the soul begins to love God

it no longer has such morbid

fears that it drowns them in

vice. The joys of the spirit alone

can crowd out the pleasures of

the flesh. We must have hap-

piness, and he who will not have

it on the high road of the spirit,

will pursue it in the low road of

carnality.

Not until a nobler, finer love

is found, will man master either

his own vices or overcome his

mediocrity. In complete conver-

sion souls which were formerly

addicted to vice, like Augustine,

no longer feel any desire for it,

but rather a disgust. As the eye

blinks at dirt, so the soul now

blinks at evil. It is not so much

that sin is fought; it is rather

it is no longer wanted. The

great tragedy of life is that so

many have no one to love. A
man in love with a noble woman

will give up all that displeases

her, and a soul in love with God

gives up all that wounds that

Love.

Oh ! How much better the

world would be, if we who are

Christ’s ministers in the Sacra-

ment of Penance, Christ’s am-

bassadors in the world of unbe-

lievers, and Christ’s Shepherds

among the erring and the lost

sheep, would lay hold of what is

best in people; look for the gold

instead of the dross
;

there is

something good in everybody. It

is recorded that after the death

of a street cleaner who had the

reputation of being dissolute, un-

faithful, cruel to his wife and

children, most of his fellow

street cleaners recalled all his

wicked deeds, except one com-

panion who said: “Well, what-

ever you say about him, there

was one thing he always did

well. He swept clean around the

corners.” Help souls back to

peace by searching for what is

good in them.

Here are two rules for char-

acter building: (1) In dealing

with yourself, look always for

what is worst, and make it with

God’s grace the occasion of the

opposite virtue. (2) In dealing

with others, look for what is

best, that by showing mercy to

others, God may show you the

Mercy of His Forgiveness.

God Love You!



72 THE LOVE THAT WAITS FOR YOU

God strengthen me to bear my-

self

That heaviest weight of all to

bear,

Inalienable weight of care.

God harden me against myself

This coward with pathetic voice

Who craves for ease, and rest

and joyd.

Myself, arch-traitor to myself;

My hollowest friend; my dead-

liest foe;

My clog whatever road I go.

Thou alone dear Lord can curb

myself.

Can roll the strangling load

from me.

Break off the yoke and set me
free.

(Christiana G. Rossetti, 1830

1894)



THE SANCTIFICATION OF THE NOW-MOMENT

Friends

:

It is sad how many people to-

day are frustrated. The cause

is generally two-fold : First, a

realization of the chasm that

exists between the obstacles they

have to meet on the one hand,

and the feebleness of their own

resources on the other. 2) Be-

cause of the absence of love

which is essential for happiness,

either because they are not loved,

or because their own triviality

and egotism makes it impossible

to love others. Their lives be-

come like the householder who is

more and more depressed be-

cause of the enormity of the bills

that come in, and the absence of

money to pay out. This frustra-

tion increases in direct ratio and

proportion to the realization that

there is no one who cares and to-

morrow will be worse.

If we tried to pin down the

ground of all our anxieties, it

would probably have to be

blamed on time. Man is the

only creature who can bring not

only the past up to the present,

so that it weighs on the present

moment with its accumulated

heritage; but he can bring the

future hack to the present, ano

imagine it as happening now.

No animal ever says: “I have

suffered this pain for six years

and it will last until I die.” But

because man can unite the past

to the present by memory, and

the future to the present by

imagination, we try to distract

him in his sufferings in order to

break up that continuity. The

unhappiness of most people

stems from excessive concentra-

tion on the past, or extreme pre-

occupation with the future. The

major problems of psychiatry re-

volve around the analysis of de-

spair, pessimism, melancholy

and complexes which are inherit-

ances of what has been, or with

fears, anxieties, worries which

are the imaginings of what will

be.

Outside of cases of insanity

and mental aberration when sci-

entific psychiatry is essential,

there are many cases in which

this despair of the past and wor-

^ ry of the future has a moral

basis, namely because the con-

science is burdened with the

guilt and therefore fears a Di-

vine judgment.



74 THE LOVE THAT WAITS FOR YOU

God in His Mercy has given us

two remedies from such unhap-

piness: One is the Sacrament of

Penance, which not only blolid

out the past by remission of

sins and thus cleanses the mem-

ory; but it also eliminates anxi-

ety, by reassuring the future

through hope in His Mercy and

continued repentance and amend-

ment of life.

The second remedy for curing

the ills of time—and it is this
we wish to emphasize here—is
what might be called: The sanc-

tification of the now-moment or

the spiritualization of our state

of life. Our Lord emphasized it

in these words: “Do not fret,

then, over tomorrow; leave to-

morrow to fret over its own

needs; for today, today's

troubles are enough” (Matt.

6:34). This means each day has

its trials. Do not worry about

tomorrow, because it will have

its cross, too. Leave the past,

after confession and expiation,

to Divine Mercy, and the future,

whatever be its trials, to His

Loving Providence. Each sec-

ond of life has its peculiar duty

regardless of the appearance

that moment takes. The now-'

moment is the moment of salva-

tion. Each complaint against it

is a defeat; each act of resigna-

tion to it is a victory.

There are three characteris-

tics of the now-moment: First,

it is one of the ways in which

God’s will comes to us. God’s

will is made clear to us in sev-

eral ways : In His Command-

ments, in His Incarnate Life in

Jesus Christ Our Lord, in the

Voice of His Mystical Body the

Church, in the duties of our

state of life, and in a more par-

ticular way, God’s will is mani-

fested for us in the now-moment

with all its attendant circum-

stances, duties and trials. The

now-moment refers to things

not only over which we have

control, but over things we can-

not control, such as a business

failure, a bad cold, rain on pic-

nic days, an unwelcome visitor,

a fallen cake, a buzzer that

doesn’t work, a fly in the milk

and a boil on the nose the night

of the dance. We do not always

know why things happen, e.g.,

sickness, accidents, etc., for our

minds are too puny to grasp

God’s plan, just as a mouse in

a piano cannot understand why

it must be disturbed by someone

playing Chopin. When Job suf-

fered, he asked God many ques-

tions such as, why he was born,

and why he suffered; God ap-

peared, but instead of answering

Job’s questions. He began asking



THE SANCTIFICATION OF THE NOW-MOMENT 76

Job some questions about the

universe. And when the Great

Scientist got through pouring

queries into the head of the lit-

tle science student, Job realized

that the questions of God made

more sense than the answers of

men.

To sancify the now-moment,

we need not have a knowledge

of God’s plan in order to accept

it. When St. Paul was con-

verted he asked merely: “Lord,

what wilt thou have me do?” We

can be warmed by fire without

knowing the chemistry of com-

bustion, and we can be cured by

medicine without knowing the

theory of medicine. The Divine

Will pouring into the soul of a

simple cripple resigned to suf-

fering, will give him a far great-

er understanding of God and His

Goodness, than a professor will

get from a lifetime of theoretical

curiosity about religion. That is

why the Faith of the Church

seems so silly and stupid to those

who have only the will to ridicule

it. The good and bad thief on

the cross did not have different

things to do in order to be saved,

but the same thing, namely, to

spiritualize the brief moment of

suffering. But only one sancti-

fied the now-moment. Thus, some

souls become peaceful and happy

through the very same trials

which make others rebellious

and nervous wrecks.

The second characteristic is

that the now-moment is personal

and individual. Books, sermons

and broadcasts have the appear-

ance of being for everyone. But

nothing is more individual and

personal than the now-moment,

and for that reason it is an oc-

casion for knowledge which can

come to no one else. It is my

school, my textbook, my lesson.

The University of the now-mo-

ment has been built uniquely for

me, and in comparison with the

revelation God gives me in it,

all else is vain! This Wisdom we

never forget! It is part of our

character, our merit, our eter-

nity. Those who sanctify the

now-moment and offer it up In

union with God’s will, never be-

come frustrated; never grumble

or complain. They overcome

obstacles, making them occasions

of prayer; what were obstacles

are made opportunities. But the

modern pagan who has no prac-

tical knowledge of God, no trust

in His Providence, no assurance

of His Love, lacks the shock

absorber of Faith and Hope and

Love and very quickly his mind

disintegrates and goes to pieces.

The third characteristic of the

now-moment, is that it is not

opaque and meaningless, but is



76 THE LOVE THAT WAITS FOR YOU

transparent, i.e., reveals the Per-

son of God Who comes to me this

instant. It is peculiar how diff-

erently we accept a misfortune,

or even an insult, when we know

who did it. Perhaps the reason

why otherwise kind and charit-

able persons become sensitive,

critical and nasty to others when

driving a car is because they feel

that in the car, their personality

is unknown to the other driver,

and therefore a dirty look or a

biting word is allowable. A

bobby-soxer would probably

curse with a torrent of scorn, a

well-dressed young woman who

accidently stepped on her toes

in a streetcar. But if that same

bobby-soxer recognized that the

one who violated her constitu-

tional rights to stand unmolested

on her own feet, was her modern

“saint,” or what is sometimes

called in the lower constellations

“a movie star,” she would prob-

ably be thrilled with joy and

would hurry to tell her friends:

“Did you know that Miss Starry

Starlight, the blues singer, broke

my big toe!” What is once re-

ceived in horror, is at another

time received with joy, because

there is a person recognized

whom we love. In like manner,

it makes all the difference in

the world when we recognize

God^s will and purpose behind

the illness, the shocks and dis-

appointments of life.

As the swaddling clothes of

an Infant hid the Son of God in

Bethlehem, as the appearance of

bread and wine hides the Reality

of Christ dying again on Cal-

vary, so our sorrows and pains

are seen as “The shade of His

Hand outstretched caressingly.”

Many good souls are hungry to

do great things. They complain

they have no opportunities for

virtue and apostolate. They

would be martyrs! But when a

meal is late, the bus is crowded,

the theatre is filled, the dance

postponed, the bacon is over-

done, they are upset for the day

!

When opportunities for loving

God in the little things present

themselves, they fail. Our Lord

said: “He who is trustworthy

over a little sum is trustworthy

over a greater” (Luke, 16:10).

The Divine Beloved speaks to

the soul in whispers, but be-

cause the soul is waiting for the

trumpet and the loud speaker, it

misses the message. Each of us

wants to make his own cross so

it will fit perfectly; tailor-made

trials, as it were. But we do

not want the crosses that God

sends us. But in their accept-

ance lies the possibility of holi-

ness. The incessant grumbling

of a husband, the almost intol-



THE SANCTIFICATION OF THE NOW-MOMENT 77

erable nagging of a wife, the

boss’ habit of smoking a pipe

while he dictates, the noise of

the children with their soup, the

unexpected illness, the failure to

find a husband, the inability to

be rich, the unsuccessful tooth

paste that did not make our

smile beautiful, the memory of

wrong doing in the past—all
these can become occasions of

merit and made prayers, if borne

in patience and love for One Who

bears so patiently with us, de-

spite our shortcomings, our fail-

ures and sins.

It is not hard to bear with

others when one realizes how

much God has to bear from us.

There is a legend to the effect

that one day Abraham in the

desert was visited by an Arab,

who complained of the food, the

lodging, the bed, and the wine

which his generous host offered

him. Finally, Abraham became

exasp '•rated and put him out.

God appeared to Abraham at

that moment and said: “Abra-

ham, I have put up with him for

forty years; can’t you put up

with him for one night?”

The key word for the sanctifi-

cation is “Thy Will be done”

—

this instant, and as it reveals it-

self to me under these circum-

stances. Did we but make this

act of resignation, we would

escape the accidents of life, i. e.,

those things which we regard as

happening outside our ordered

existence, or contrary to our

wishes. It is a psychological

fact that people who have inner

worries and frustrations have

more accidents than those who

have a clear conscience and a Di-

vine goal in life. Some people

complain that they “never get a

break,” that the world is against

them, that they always have bad

luck. But I have never heard a

person resigned to God’s Holy

Will utter such a complaint.

The difference between souls

who never get the breaks and

those who make the now-moment

an occasion for thanking God, is

that the latter is in an area of

love which the other is not. A

waif on the streets has misfor-

tunes which the child in a loving

family has not. In like manner,

to be in the area of God’s love

with its attendant trust and con-

fidence, is to escape the accidents

of life, for then everything is

seen as willed by Love. God does

not show Himself equally to all

creatures, not because He is un-

fair, but because it is impossible

to show Himself to certain

hearts. The sunlight has no

favorites, but it cannot be re-

flected back in a dusty mirror

as it can in a polished one. In



78 THE LOVE THAT WAITS FOR YOU

the order of Divinity, there is

nothing accidental—^when the
human will sees that God wills

even the fall of a sparrow or a

hair. There is never a collision

of blind forces, but rather the

meeting of a human will with

a Divine Will in a perfect aware-

ness that ultimate good is in-

tended, though it may not be

known until eternity. The hu-

man will becomes like a baby in

the arms of its loving mother

who sometimes administers med-

icine. The baby cries, but the

saint in the arms of God does

not, because he knows God knows

what is best. Thus the bitter

and the sweet, joys and sorrows

as they come with each moment

are the raw-material of sanctity.

As St. Paul tells us: “Mean-

while, we are well assured that

everjrthing helps to secure the

good of those who love God,

those whom he has called in ful-

fillment of his design” (Romans,

8 :28 ).

Sanctify every moment of

your life. Each task, or duty is

like a blank check; the value it

possesses depends on whose name

is signed to it, or for whom it

is done, i.e., either for your

sake or God's sake. Sanctifica-

tion depends not on geography,

i.e., where we are. Some imagine

that if they were in another

place, married to a different per-

son, or had a different job, or

had more money, they could do

God's work so much better. The

truth is that it makes no dif-

ference where we are; it all de-

pends whether we are doing

God's will. Hence, the typist at

her desk working on routine let-

ters, the streetcleaner with his

brush, the farmer tilling the

field, the doctor bending over

patients, the lawyer trying his

case, the student with his books,

the sick in their isolation and

pain, the teacher patient with

her pupils, the mother dressing

the children—every task, every
duty can be ennobled and spir-

itualized in prayer. As a dirty

drop of water in the gutter of

a city street once kissed by the

sun, can be made a flake of im-

maculate snow on a mountain

top, so our routine, hum-drum,

work-a-day life can be ennobled,

sacramentalized, providing we

bring to it the inspiration of the

fixed flash of that instant and

intolerant Enlightenment — the
Lightening made Eternal as the

Light.

This is the Will of God—^your
sanctification, here and now!

Consider this moment! It is

God's Will that I broadcast!

That is the present duty of my

state in life.



THE SANCTIFICATION OF THE NOW-MOMENT 79

It is not God’s Will that you

enjoy this broadcast!

But it is God’s Will that at

least you offer it up as a Sunday

trial for the salvation of your

soul!

GOD LOVE YOU!
My soul, sit thou a patient look-

er-on
;

Judge not the Play, before the

Play is done;

Her plot has many changes;

Every day speaks a new scene;

The last Act crowns the Play!

(Frances Quarles)

“Trust Him when dark doubts

assail thee;

Trust Him when trust is small,

Trust Him when simply to trust

Him

Is the hardest thing of all.”

Anonymous



MEDITATION

Friends

:

This is probably the most talk-

ative age in the history of the

world. We have come to defy

talk as a means of solving all

problems. There are few lis-

teners and yet St. Paul tells us

that is the way Faith comes

—

through hearing. The more

anxious a mind is on the inside,

the more nervous it becomes on

the outside. That is why ex-

pectant fathers in the waiting

room of maternity hospitals

perambulate before they have

perambulators. The rocking

chair, it has been said, is a typi-

cal American invention: It en-

ables man to rest as he is rest-

less, to keep moving as he sits

still.

One of the powerful remedies

against the externalization ©f

life is Meditation. Meditation is

something like a daydream or

reverie with these two excep-

tions: In meditation, we think

»bout God, not about the world

lor ourselves; and instead of the

imagination which is used in

day-dreaming to build castles

in Spain, we use the will to make

resolutions about obeying the

Father’s Will. Meditation is

beyond the stage of “saying

prayers,” and may be likened to

a child who breaks into the

presence of a mother saying

:

“I’ll not say a word if you will

just let me stay here and watch

you.” Or, as a soldier once told

the Cure of Ars: “I just stand

here before the tabernacle; He

looks at me and I look at Him.”

Meditation is not an asking for

things, a petition, a using of God,

but rather a surrender and a

begging that God use us
;
a find-

ing of God not in the cyclones

of activity but in the zephyrs of

self-awareness, for God never

shouts, but whispers. Meditation

uses three powers of the soul:

The memory, intellect and the

will. Memory recalls God’s

Goodness and our blessings; the

intellect strives to know Him in

Christ Our Lord
;
the will yearns

to love Him above all else. When

I study, I know about God
;
when

I meditate I know God, and God

knows me. God knows me, that

is why I exist; but when I know

God’s Presence in me, then I

capture the heart of my very

existence. There are three mo-



MEDITATION 81

ments in the forward progress

of meditation: Hearing, acting

and Sacrificing.

(1) Hearing. Meditation is

not only a speaking to God but

a listening to the Voice of God

in our soul. In meditation, the

ear of the soul is more important

than the tongue. Most people

commit the same fault with God

as with their friends, they do

all the talking. Our Lord warned

against these : "‘Who think to

make themselves heard by their

eloquence.” (Matt. 6:7) One can

be impolite to God too by ab-

sorbing the conversation, by

changing the words of Scripture

from “speak Lord, thy servant

heareth,” to “Listen, Lord, thy

servant speaketh.” No one would

think of rushing into a physi-

cian’s office, rattling off all the

symptoms and then dash off

without waiting for a diagnosis.

It is rather stupid to ring God’s

doorbell and then run away. The

Lord hears more readily than we

suspect: “Your heavenly father

knows well what your needs are

before you ask Him.” (Matt.

6:9) It is the listening side

Our Lord emphasizes: “If any

man listens to My voice and

opens the door, I will come in to

visit him, and take My supper

with him, and He shall sup with

Me.” (Apoc. 3:20) It may very

well be that when people com-

plain that their prayers are not

heard by God it is really the

other way round : God hears, but

they don’t.

Prayer is not a monologue,

but a dialogue. It is not a one-

way street, but a boulevard. The

child hears a word before he

speaks it. His tongue is trained

through the ear. So our soul is

trained through the ear of the

soul. If our tongues are crude

in their petitions, it is because

our ears have been dull in the

hearing of the faith. One of

the important details of the Sac-

rament of Baptism is the open-

ing of the ear. The priest

touches it and says as Our Lord

did to the deaf man : “Ephepheta

—be thou opened,” implying that
once a soul is in the state of

grace, deafness now gives way to

the hearing of the Word of God.

There is a more sublime philos-

ophy than we suspect in saying

we learned our prayers from our

mother’s lips. We heard; and if

we never forget how to pray, we

listen: Prayer is intolerable

when a monologue, but it is a

joy when self-absorption gives

way to humble listening.

The best example of what hap-

pens in meditation is revealed

in the disciples of Emmaus. Sad

and depressed they began talk-



82 THE LOVE THAT WAITS FOR YOU

ing about Our Lord to a traveler

whom they met by chance on the

road. This is the first stage of

meditation : the putting our-

selves in the presence of God

without ever feeling that Pres-

ence, or knowing that He is

there. Next, Our Lord begins

to unfold to them the meaning

of His Passion and Death. This

is the listening side of Prayer.

Finally, there comes a stage of

communion, signified by the

breaking of bread where the

soul is united to God and God

to the soul—a moment one re-
luctantly abandons even when

the day is far spent.

Secondly, Action: —Medita-
tion influences our behavior. It

is often stated that it makes no

difference what you believe, it

all depends on how you act. This

is sheer nonsense because we act

on our beliefs. Hitler acted on

the theory of Nazism and pro-

duced a war; Stalin acts on the

ideology of Marx and Lenin and

begets slavery. If our thoughts

are bad, our actions will be bad.

Our Lord said: “Nothing that

finds its way into a man from

the outside can make him un-

clean
;
what makes a man un-

clean is what comes out of a

man.” (Matthew 7:15) The prob-

lem of impure actions is basical-

ly the problem of impure

thoughts
;
the way to keep a man

from robbing a bank is to dis-

tract him from thinking about

robbing a bank. Political, social

and economic injustices are first

psychic evils, that is, in the

mind, then physical evils. The

fact that they become social

proves the intensity of the

thought.

Nothing ever happens in the

world that does not first happen

inside a mind. Hygiene is no

cure for immorality; if the well

springs of thought were kept

clean there would be no need

to care for the evil effects on the

body. When one meditates and

fills his mind an hour a day with

thoughts and resolutions about

loving God and neighbor above

all things, there is a gradual

seepage down to the level of

what moderns are fond of call-

ing the subconscious, until final-

ly these good thoughts come out

as good actions. Everyone has

verified in his own life a thous-

and times the ideo-motor char-

acter of thought. How often,

watching a football game one

sees a beautiful opening around

right end which the player with

the ball does not see. The spec-

tator will twist and turn his own

body more than the runner be-

cause he has an idea of where

an opening is; the idea was so



MEDITATION 83

strong that it influenced his

bodily movements. Thoughts of

fear produce what are called

“goose pimples” and at certain

times make the blood run to the

extremities, as if to indicate

that God intended that in those

circumstances we should either

fight or run. What our desires

are, that our life wiH be. Our

dominant desire is our predomi-

nant destiny. “Where your

treasure-house is, there your

heart is too.” (Matt. 6:21) Our

character is in our thoughts and

our meditations. Since we act

upon our desires it follows that

as the soul becomes flooded with

Divine Promptings, it becomes

less a prey to the suggestions of

the world. Happiness increases,

because since not all external

wants can be satisfied, the elimi-

nation of some of them makes

for less anxiety. A complete

revolution takes place in our be-

haviour. If in our morning medi-

tation we thought of God be-

coming a humble servant of man,

we will not lord it over others

during the day; if we meditated

upon Him redeeming all men, we

will cease being a snob or show-

ing hatred to a certain class or

color or race
;

if we thought

about Our Lord taking our sins

upon Himself in the Garden, we

will seek to take on the burdens

of our neighbor, even though his

faults were not our making, as

the sins the Lord bore were not

of His making. If our medita-

tion dwelt on the Merciful Sav-

iour Who forgave those Who

crucified Him, so we will forgive

those who injure us that we may

be worthy of forgiveness. These

thoughts come to us not from

ourselves, for we are incapable

of them, nor from the world, for

they are unworldly thoughts, but

from God alone. It does no good

to make a resolution not to do

certain evil deeds, unless we have

something to put in their place.

Otherwise we may beget within

ourselves the empty house de-

scribed by the Gospel, in which

after one evil spirit was driven

out, seven others worse than the

first came to dwell there. Evil

preempts when there is nothing

good to take its place. But in

meditation one does not drive

evil out of his life, rather he

crowds it out with love of God

and neighbor. Thus life is built

not on the principle of avoiding

sin which is a tiresome job, but

rather in living constantly with

Divine Love. Meditation in a

word prevents defeat where de-

feat is final—in the mind. In
that silence where God is, all

false desires fall away. If we

meditate before we go to bed,



84 THE LOVE THAT WAITS FOR YOU

tour last thought at night will

he our first thought in the morn-

ing. Gone will be the dark brown

Reeling that faces him who be-

gins a meaningless day, and in

dts place will be the joy of living

ianother day to work in Christ’s

Name, to learn in His Name,

and to love in His Name. A dis-

tinguished psychiatrist J. D.

Hadfield speaking of the infiux

of Divine Power to heal our

weakness says: “I attempted to

cure a nervous patient with sug-

gestions of questions and con-

fidence, but without success, un-

til I had linked these suggestions

on to that faith in the power of

God which is the substance of

the Christian’s confidence and

hope. Then the patient became

strong.”

Thirdly, Sacrifice:

—

New in-

sights into the life of union with

God are possible only as we be-

come increasingly detached from

the evil. Everyone has the pow-

er of meditation though in most

of us it is unused, as the power

of seeing and hearing are inac-

tive when we are asleep. The

reason so few commune with

God is the price is too high

—

namely, the surrender of egotism

and selfishness. We want Him

to give us the temporal instead

of the Eternal. We want to be

imprisoned in our little egg shell.

kept cool and comfortable, but

well below that point of warmth

and love necessary for incuba-

tion into Divine Life. The re-

sult is we remain totally unde-

veloped. Our aim is to please

ourselves without displeasing

God. We avoid deliberately pro-

voking Him, but at the same

time we never deliberately love

Him. We raise our heart and

mind to God not to find out what

He wants, but to tell Him what

we want. We use God.

Meditation is on the level of

our conduct. If our behaviour

is Godless, prayer will seem

stupid, as indeed it is. Bad liv-

ing causes doubts more than

doubts cause bad living. When

anyone says: “I doubt the value

of prayer” it is not the value of

prayer that he doubts, but the

value of praying while he still

has the will to sin. When such

a man gets down on his knees,

he feels very much like one who

is paying a compliment to one

whom he does not love, or flatter-

ing a superior whom he suspects

may possibly know his own in-

sincerity. When Adam sinned,

he hid from God. God always

seems so far away from a sin-

ner, when actually it is not God

who hid from us, but we who

hid from God. Once we decide

to approach God in our con-



MEDITATION 85

scious mind we must be ready in

our unconscious mind, in our

habits, in every nook and cranny

of our body to separate our-

selves from that which is anti-

God. It will do a drunkard lit-

tle good to pray unless he makes

an effort to give up drink. Nor

will it be a sign of love to say

to God: “Dear Lord, to show

you how much I love you, I will

give up Coca Cola for Lent.”

If we pray on the level of con-

duct, it follows that the nobler

the conduct the more worthy the

prayer. To mount to a higher

form of prayer our conduct must

change. If we live only for self

our prayers will be almost ex-

clusively prayers of request and

petition. If we live on the high-

er level of service and love of

neighbor, our prayers for the

most part will be for mercy and

intercession. But if every

thought, word and deed is dedi-

cated to God, then our prayers

become a petitionless affirmation

that God’s will be done in all

things, and this will include

prayers for self and neighbor

but in the framework of God

and not ourselves.

Would you like to improve

your character? Then pour good

thoughts into your mind by med-

itation. Would you like to

smash your hyper-critical atti-

tude? Then meditate on your

own faults and your need of the

Mercy of God and you will be

surprised how much better ev-

eryone seems by comparison?

Would you like to know how to

escape moodiness? Then medi-

tate! As the earth carries its

own atmosphere with it as it

revolves about the sun, so you

will carry the presence of God

with you despite the turbulent

revolutions of the world outside.

Do not say you have no time

to meditate! The less you think

of God the less time you have

for Him! The time you have for

anything depends on how much

you think of it. It is our think-

ing that determines our time:

not the time our thinking. I

have had time for you because

I love you in Christ Jesus, Our

Lord. Love Him and you will

have time' for everything—ex-
cept to burn here or in eternity.

God Love You

!

Dear Lord!

What power is this that bids the

world go hence;

That sweet perfume that steals

through my clay-shuttered

doors

;

That makes my life seem as wine

spilled on thirsty sand:

It be not Thy Voice within



86 THE LOVE THAT WAITS FOR YOU

which thunders in silence, Stirring life within this clod,

Points to Wounded Hands and And thrusting me to Thee, 0

Open Heart, God

!



REPARATION FOR SINS

Friends

:

If you have never done any-

thing wrong in your life, or if

you deny there is any such thing

as personal guilt, or that it is to

be blamed on Oedipus or

Electra, then shut off this broad-

cast immediately! This broad-

cast is not for saints or angels

but for penitent sinners. I will

give the saints two seconds to

shut me off.

Hello, Fellow-Sinners ! This

problem of what to do with our

guilt is serious, for we are not

animals living only in the pres-

ent. Both the past and the

future are involved in this mo-

ment. The vast is with us in

our habits, our consciousness of

guilt, and the debt we owe for

our sins; it is in our blood, our

cells, our brain and even in the

very expression of our faces.

The future, too, is with us in

our anxieties and fears, our

dreads and preoccupations and

in the insecurity of our lot. A

cow lives for the present without

remorse or anxiety, but man is

not only behind himself in the

sense he drags the past with

him, he is also ahead of him-

self because he is worried about

his future. If then we wish to

develop our character three

tasks are incumbent upon us

:

1. We must blot out our own

vast sins by penance.

2. We must protect ourselves

against future sins by a strong,

practical resolution to avoid

them.

3. We will pray and sacrifice

not for ourselves alone,, but for

the offenses of the world against

the Lord of Love.

Consider first the past! Here

we touch on a very important

distinction between forgiveness

and reparation for sins. Some

people who have done wrong

think that they need only for-

get it, because it is past and

done with; others believe falsely

that once a wrong is forgiven,

nothing else need be done. This

is not true. As soon as a soul

comes in contact with Our

Lord its first response after be-

ing forgiven is that of Zacheus:

‘T will repay all.” Hence Our

Lord in instituting the Sacra-

ment of Penance made it clear

that there is a difference be-

tween forgiveness and the mak-

ing up for the past. In the con-

fessional one moment you con-



88 THE LOVE THAT WAITS FOR YOU

fess your sins; the next moment

the priest says to you: “For

your penance . . then he tells

you prayers to say, or good ac-

tions to perform or sacrifices to

make to atone for your sins.

How much sense this makes!

Suppose I steal your watch I

When my conscience pricks me,

I come to you and say: “Will

you forgive me?’* There is no

doubt that you will, but I am

absolutely certain that you will

also say: “Give me back the

watch.” Is not the return of the

watch the best proof of the sin-

cerity of my sorrow? Many a

school boy while playing ball

broke a neighbor’s window ; once

forgiven, he would add: “But

I’ll pay for it.” Even children

know there must be a restoration

of the balance or equilibrium

disturbed by sin. Suppose every

time a child sinned, he was told

to drive a nail into a board, and

every time he was forgiven he

was told to pull out a nail. He

would soon discover that the

board was full of holes which

were not there at the beginning.

So sin leaves its mark. We can-

not go back to innocence and

goodness after sin as if nothing

happened. In turning our backs

upon God, we burned our bridges

behind us, and they now have to

be rebuilt with penance. A bus.

ness man who has contracted

debts which resulted in bank-

ruptcy, cannot start life afresh

until the old debts have been

acquitted or settled.

What reparation for sins does

is to make God’s pardon avail-

able to us. God’s mercy is al-

ways present, but it does not be-

come operative until we prove

that we really want it, and we

prove we want it by amendment

for sin. The father of the prodi-

gal son always had forgiveness

in his heart, but the prodigal

son did not make himself open

to it, until he was prepared not

only to ask to be forgiven but

even to do penance by offering

himself as a servant in the fath-

er’s house. Attachment to evil

makes forgiveness impossible, as

living in a cave makes sunlight

unavailable. Pardon or forgive-

ness is not automatic—we have
to make ourselves pardonable.

If therefore you have done

wrong in the past do penance

for the words of Our Lord are

unmistakable: “You will all

perish as they did, if you do not

repent” (Luke, 13:3).

Associated with this amend-

ment for the past is the resolu-

tion about the future. We must

not merely wish to avoid evil,

but we must will to do so. There



REPARATION FOR SINS 89

is a world of difference between

the desire to be better, and the

determination to be better.

Pilate wished to save Our Lord,

but he did not will to save Him.

Remorse often is the wish to

avoid the anguish after sin pro-

viding it does not mean giving

up what is pleasurable in the

sin. Repentance has no “ifs”

and “buts,’' but implies a root-

ing up of what is evil. We can-

not be like the dying sinful wo-

man who, when asked to re-

nounce the devil, answered

:

“But do we have to make ene-

mies unnecessarily?”

The fact that we have fallen

before into the same sin does not

exclude a firm purpose against

it for the future, but this reso-

lution must be made with a

strong trust in the Mercy of God

Who will not suffer us to be

tempted beyond our strength.

Those who have never been to

confession and never tried to

amend their lives, must not be

too hard on souls who are trying.

Evil people who give in to every

sin and temptation, have no idea

how hard it is to resist sins

which have been committed be-

fore. If one wants to find out

how bad he is, just let him try

being good. One finds out how

strong the current of a river is

not by flowing with the current,

but by fighting against it. Bad

people know nothing about

goodness; they are. always float-

ing downstream with the cur-

rent of badness. They must not

be too critical of Our Lord for

forgiving “seventy times seven”

or with His Mystical Body the

Church, for prolonging that

Mercy to sinners who really are

trying.

Penance for the past and reso-

lutions about the future are

never inseparable from love!

The very hatred we have for sin

is a sign of the deepness of our

love. God would not be good,

unless He hated evil. To love a

fellow creature we must know

him, but in the case of God, it is

the reverse: To know Him inti-

mately we must love Him. And

to love Him means to separate

ourselves from all that is harm-

ful to that Love. This art of

pleasing the Divine can be re-

duced to simple rules:

a. Toward God— meditation
and adoration.

b. Toward self—^penance and
detachment.

c. Toward neighbor—service
and charity.

That brings us to a higher

theme of repentance in which we

do penance not only for our sins



90 THE LOVE THAT WAITS FOR YOU

but the sins of others. Here the

soul is conscious of its unity

with mankind and takes on the

guilt of others as its own. Its

mission in life is not only to

make pardon available to self but

also to others. If you were the

only person in a family who was

well and everyone else was in-

jured, would not you bind up

their wounds? If love in the

face of misery takes on the bur-

dens of others, then shall not

love in the face of sin take on

the guilt of others? This is

what Our Lord did in Gethse-

mane as He took the iniquities

of us all into His Hands, as if

they had wrought them; into

His Blood as if He had experi-

enced them, until the horror of

it all burst into a sweat, in

which drops of blood like beads

in a rosary crimsoned the olive

roots of the Garden.

We see this idea in a lesser

degree in the Blessed Mother

who claimed no immunity, no

noblesse oblige, from the voca-

tion of Redemption, but stood on

the Battlefield of Calvary, as the

first Gold-Star Mother of the

world. She, too, in Her own

limited way would share the

world’s guilt as Her own. We

see it, too, in the contemplative

orders of the Church, in the

Trappists, Carmelites, Poor
Clares, and dozens of others

with gifted souls who enter

into a life of reparation, not be-

cause they want to save their

own souls, but because they want

to save your soul and mine. They

are the spiritual blood-banks

who store up the red energy of

salvation for those anemic souls

who sin and do not atone, for

those who blaspheme and perse-

cute the children of God but do

not repent. How foolish to think

that the only good one can do in

the world is by physical contact,

or to think that these souls are

useless because they gather no

statistics about sex or crime or

because they are not seen doing

good. It is possible that these

souls are holding back the Arm

of God’s Wrath from a rebellious

and blasphemous generation. As

ten just men could have saved

Sodom and Gamorrah, so enough

of these consecrated victims

could save a nation or the world.

Their prayers and sacrifices

overflow to others who made no

contribution to goodness, as the

blessings of electricity come to

many of us who never put even

a screw into a dynamo. This

doctrine of the communicability

of reparation in the Communion

of Saints is one of the most

beautiful and consoling teach-



91REPARATION FOR SINS

ings of our Holy Mother the

Church. Satisfaction then oper^

ates not on a horizontal plane of

one person with another, but

like a triangle; a sacrificial

prayer on earth is lifted up to

Our High Priest, Christ in

Heaven, Who makes intercession

for us; then it comes down to

earth again to enrich the sinful

soul in need. As it is possible

to graft skin from one part of

the body to another to cure a

burn, so it is possible in the

Church to graft prayer; as it is

possible to transfuse blood from

one healthy person to another to

cure him of his weakened condi-

tion, so it is possible to trans-

fuse sacrifice.

Because sacrificial souls love

God, there is a difference in

their attitude toward other peo-

ple. Contrast for example, the

difference between a policeman

and a saint in the face of guilt.

When some cops catch you speed-

ing, they try to intensify your

guilt; to make you feel as small

as the nut in the steering wheel.

A saint, however, sees the guilt,

as it were, as his own, and

immediately begins to make up

for it. Tolerance says: “He is

as good as I am.” Charity says:

“He is better than I” or even “I

am no good.” By this, the saint

means that if the other man

knew God’s love as he did, he

would be more saintly. God-

dedicated souls live in such a di-

mension of love that they feel

constantly in need of Divine

Mercy, and to merit it they over-

flow in mercy and kindness to

others.

The world is in chaos, war-

fears and madness today because

the scales of humanity are

weighed down on the side of evil.

If enough souls with a sense of

spiritual responsibility for the

world would, launch a crusade

of prayer, recitation of the ro-

sary and put on a spirit of sac-

rifice, the scales would begin to

weigh down in favor of Love,

and peace would come to the

world. This world is too mad

to be saved by political and eco-

nomic thinkers, but it is not be-

yond redemption to be saved by

saints. "What a tremendous revo-

lution would take place in this

country, if our big city churches

would begin all night adoration

of Our Blessed Lord in the Holy

Sacrament! There are a million

men in our country and in our

Faith and those outside of it,

who would be willing to break

their sleep one hour a night, just

to intercede to God for Russia

and the sins of the world. The

potential for sacrifice is greater

than we suspect!



92 THE LOVE THAT WAITS FOR YOU

As an example of how repara-

tion works, let me tell you that

some years ago in Paris an or-

dinarily good Catholic girl was

married to an atheist and anti-

clerical doctor by the name of

Felix Leseur. He forgot his mar-

riage promises and tried to de-

stroy her Faith, but he worked

too quickly. Seeing the fallacies

behind one of Renan^s works

which he gave her to read, she

decided to study her Faith; aye

more! she began to sacrifice for

his soul. In 1904, she asked Al-

mighty God to permit her to

suffer enough to purchase the

soul of her husband. There is a

purchase price on every single

soul in the world, but few of us

love these high priced sinners

enough to purchase them as re-

deemers with a small r as Christ

is Redeemer with a capital R!

From 1904 to 1914, she tossed

on a bed of constant pain, which

she bore not only with ineffable

sweetness, but even utilized the

time to correspond with sinners

to bring them back again to God.

In May, 1914, she died, saying

to her husband: “Ten years

ago, I asked Our Lord to suffer

for your soul. On the day I die,

you will have been bought and

paid for. Greater love than this,

no woman hath, that she lay

down her life for her husband.

Shortly after my death, not only

will you become a Catholic, but

also a Dominican priest.”

During my university days in

Europe, I made a retreat in the

Dominican House in Belgium,

where four times each day, and

forty minutes each time, I made

my retreat under, and received

the spiritual direction of Father

Leseur, Dominican Catholic and

priest who told me this story.

This is our ideal! Love God,

wanting nothing apart from

Him, so that His Heart is your

Heart. A lover once knocked on

the door of the beloved. She

said: “Who is there!” “It is I!”

he said. “Go away! I love thee

not!” was her reply.

Years later, but more spirit-

ualized, he returned: “Who is

there?” she asked as he knock-

ed.

“It is another Thou!”

—

“Come in. Beloved! Now I am

Thine for Thou art Mine!”

This is the way we ought to

love God.

GOD LOVE YOU!

Love tells its secrets to the one

loved

;

That is why God revealed Him-

self in the Scriptures.

Love seeks to be one with the

one loved

:



REPARATION OF SINS 93

That is why God became man in

the Incarnation.

Love seeks to suffer for the one

loved

:

That is why Our Lord died on

the Cross.

Love hates whatever wounds the

one loved:

That is why we avoid sinning

against Our Lord.

Love never feels it can do

enough for the one loved

:

That is why we feel the pain of

our imperfections.

So help us Love Divine to be

loving,

For what is there in us that is

loveable, except

Our love of Thee, 0 God

!



TASTE AND SEE THAT THE LORD IS SWEET

Friends

:

Here is a mystery! Why is it

that everyone can understand

how one person can fall in love

with another, but few can under-

stand how a person can fall in

love with God! They can see the

appeal of a human heart, but not

the pull of the Sacred Heart;

they consider it normal to love

the spark, but abnormal to love

the Flame
;
they think it reason-

able to admire the sunbeam, but

a mark of madness to go into

ecstasies about the Sun. The

answer is that those who have

never had any experience of inti-

mate union with Divine Love are

inclined to deny the reality of

the experience. He who is pas-

sion's slave thinks a lover of the

spirit mad. There are some

things which have to be experi-

enced in order to know them

thoroughly, e.g., the joy of world-

travel which has no substitute in

the study of geography. The

thrill of falling head over heels

in love with God belongs in this

category of experience. As there

are two ways of knowing chasti-

ty, by studying about it from a

book and by living purely, so

there are two ways of knowing

God ; by studying about Him and

by living His Truth in our lives.

As Cardinal Newman puts it:

“Not all the possible descriptions

of headlong love will make me

comprehend the delirium of love

if I never had a fit of it
;
nor

will ever so many sermons about

the inward satisfaction of strict

conscientiousness create in my

mind the image of a virtuous ac-

tion and its attendant senti-

ments, if I have been brought

up to lie, thieve and indulge my

appetites.” That is true! If

people knew how much what

they say reveals their character

they would never say that a re-

ligious life must be dreary and

unhappy and morose, for in say-

ing so they betray that they can-

not think of any other affection

except the erotic or carnal. They

call a deeply religious life a pre-

tense, as those whose only inter-

est is music which imitates the

tom-tom of the barbarian re-

gard the love of classical music

as hypocrisy. After all, the

music we love is the music we al-

ready have in our souls. There

is a certain rhythm in our spirit.



TASTE AND SEE THAT THE LORD IS SWEET 95

a blue-print of what we like

and desire, and the reality we

care for is the reality that cor-

responds to our inner loves.

There are some things we learn

only by loving them. There are,

for example, many who love such

classical musicians as Bach, but

who once considered him a bore.

When it was first suggested to

them that they listen, they re-

belled despite pleas for patience.

All the best things of life must

be won and conquered. Pride

probably had something to do

with ridicule, because what one

does not have, or what one re*

fused to make an effort to ac-

quire, is often maligned and de-

spised. But with a little hu-

mility, they expose themselves to

the good music; they make an

intellectual effort to grasp it;

they try and see in it that which

the so-called fanatic sees; fi-

nally with knowledge there

comes love and with love sympa-

thy, joy. The love of the truly

beautiful requires effort. Even

the taste for God is acquired.

Let not then those who have

never read Virgil or Sophocles

say that the interest the man of

culture has in them is a sham.

When one reads the testimony

of a convert who describes his

transition from sin to grace, as

from prison to the light, it must

not be dismissed as an illusion or

due to a disappointed love affair,

or old age or a change of life, or

an Electra complex. The honest

scientific reaction should be that

there is a reality corresponding

to this love, as there is a reality

to the love life of a devoted hus-

band. Souls miss so much by

denying the reality of God in

daily experience. Would that I

could convince them to be scien-

tific and open-minded about it.

Suppose that everyone in the

world was blind except three per-

sons. These three not only see

the sun, but also things under

the sun. This unique claim be-

comes a very interesting problem

to a group of blind psychologists

who investigate their claims of

vision. These psychologists start

with the assumption that since

they are blind, therefore every-

one else is blind. Prior to the

development of their explana-

tion of the fact of vision, their

minds are already made-up.

When the three with vision claim

that they see the sun and roses

and lilies under the sun, the psy-

chologists now have to invent

an explanation to justify their

anti-vision prejudice. They de-

vide themselves into three

groups: the first holds that be-

lief in the objective existence of

the sun is an illusion, a Mazda-



96 THE LOVE THAT WAITS FOR YOU

complex derived from the Per-

sian mythology and in this en-

lightened scientific age no intel-

ligent man should believe in

myths. The second group of

psychologists suggest that their

belief in the sun is due to a pro-

jection of a dream. During wak-

ing hours they wished they could

see. At night this suppressed

idea rose from the unconscious-

ness or id, as a dream about the

light in which the illusion is mis-

taken for reality. This the psy-

chologists call a ‘sun-complex’.

The third group of psychologists

stretch the persons out on three

couches and tell them that they

have a hidden sex libido for their

mothers who secretly believed

in a legend that once upon a time

people had eyes. This stupid

belief escaped the Censor at the

Door of Consciousness, over-

rode totems and taboos and now

comes up as a belief that they

too had eyes and could see. The

poor, silly fools!

The psychologists assume that

because they were groping in the

dark, therefore, everyone must

also be in the dark, just as those

who live in sin, unhappiness and

agony attribute the love of God

to a superstition and a myth. It

has been suggested in this story

that one of the persons who did

see, was so ridiculed by those

who did not, that he finally

plucked out his eyes. This is

what corresponds in theology to

losing one’s Faith because of be-

ing scorned by the world as a

lover of the Divine Savior and

His Church.

Rid yourselves of prejudices!

Be experimentalists! Taste and

see that the Lord is Sweet! At-

tribute grace not to emotional-

ism or sentiment—^though I ad-
mit there is much so-called re-

ligion which is just pietistic

mush. But that is not our con-

cern any more than a stamp-col-

iector is interested in imitations.

Even if the intimate union with

God through grace and the Sac-

raments were an illusion,—^which
it is not—the people who live un-
der it are happier than those who

call it an illusion. But the expe-

rience of God is not an illusion!

No myth or illusion inspires sac-

rifice, purity of morals, humil-

ity, sublimity of knowledge, the

increasing war-fare against ev-

ery thought, word and deed that

would separate the soul from

God, and finally the ability to

guide and direct others with

unfailing accuracy in the way of

peace.

Change your way of living and

God’s grace will flood your

souls ! Empty out pride and

egotism which so coats the



TASTE AND SEE THAT THE LORD IS SWEET 97

tongue of the soul so that it hates

anything that is non-ego! Why

do people go through life con-

tinually defrauding themselves

of Divine Love ? They have never

really lived I They have never

really loved! They love them-

selves, but there is no joy in

throwing one’s arms around his

own ego; it is too squalid and

cramped a place in which to

dwell. What some call love is

only a projection of their own

ego into other persons
;

their

enjoyment is not the Thou of

the other person, but their own

/Ego in the Thou. They marry

not to love but to be loved; they

are in love not with a person but

with a nerve-ending. That is

why as soon as the other person

ceases to give them pleasure,

they leave that person and marry

again and again. Carnal experi-

ence is replaceable, but not per-

sons. If it were a person that

is loved, the person would always

be loved because persons are

unique. No one can replace your

mother ! No one can replace God

!

Taste and see the Lord is

sweet! His Love has three char-

acteristics: (1) It is inexhaus-

tible. Human love can be touch-

ed, tasted and run down to its

source like a little mountain

stream to a tiny spring in the

rocks. Divine Love on the con-

trary is infinite. You start with

the Stream, maybe in Holy Com-

munion or in prayer, and travel-

ing in the opposite direction, you

discover it runs into the Ocean

Pf inexhaustible delights. This

is Real Love ! How silly to think

that what we know about love is

contained in the compass of our

lives ! Love existed before we

began; it will exist after we go;

it exists not in fragments, as in

a Romeo or a Juliet, a Dante or

a Beatrice, for these are but

rays of the Infinite Sun of Di-

vine Love. If you have hit bot-

tom in human love begin to love

God and all humans will become

loveable again.

(2) Love in the Lord is great-

er in realization than in desire.

Thus it differs from worldly love

which is always greater in antici-

pation than in realization. Did

you ever notice how all the love

songs are about “How happy we

will be!” They are always in the

future. But when do you hear

a song about what happened to

these same couples even five

years later?

Divine Love, on the contrary,

does not look enchanting or ec-

static before we have it; the

Cross frightens us; the sacrifice

of selfishness and sin seems like

death; non-sensate love appears

as lovelessness. So we make ex-



98 THE LOVE THAT WAITS FOR YOU

cuses for not embracing God,

saying we doubt, when really we

mean we misbehave. But after

one makes the surrender, one is

possessed of a joy that is inef-

fable, that beggars all descrip-

tion; you act so differently that

your friends think you have lost

your mind, but that love you

would not give upi for anything

in all the world. Faded is the

distance between lover and be-

loved. God is there! We are with

Him without either ceasing to be

self, in what Thompson has so

beautifully called a “passionless

passion and wild tranquility.”

(3) The Love of Our Lord is

not affected by sufferings but

even increases with contact with

it, while human love sometimes

breaks under pain I He who loves

the Tremendous Lover sometimes

dnds that suffering adds fuel to

the Flame; even the tears that

are born in pain become a sign

of the spirit within; tears are

the body’s angels. Sorrow remar-

ries the soul to God. St. Teresa

called each trial that came to

her “a little present from God.”

I could tell you of thousands

of whom I know personally who

have transcended pain and found

the Lord is sweet. For example

the elderly mother with arthritis,

her limbs twisted like old olive

trees in the Garden of Gethsem-

ane, never complaining, always

rejoicing as she says fifty ro-

saries a day for Russia
;
a young

bride writing in her diary

:

“Keep me, 0 Lord, close to Thy

Kingdom that I may sanctify the

flesh and make it the chariot run-

ning its course to the supernal

crown of the spirit”; Bishops in

China pushing wheelbarrows

through their diocese, preaching

in one city and another as the

Communists burn their churches

and schools, but always like the

Apostles whom they succeed, re-

joicing that they can suffer for

their Lord; a young husband

with an unfaithful wife, who in

consecrated and dedicated con-

tinence, eats daily of the Bread

of Life, that the bride may one

day return to both home and

Faith; religious women in con-

vents offering prayers of thanks

to God when told they had an

incurable disease, throwing

themselves on their knees and

offering their suffering in repa-

ration for the sins of the world;

soldiers returning from the bat-

tles of a World War entering the

Trappists to spend their lives in

silence and prayer in the great

battle against the powers of

darkness; a young woman, hero-

ine of war, rescuing soldiers,

feeding the diseased and then

after contracting it, writing to



TASTE AND SEE THAT THE LORD IS SWEET 99

me saying: “All I want really

—

is to love God morel
\
a Jewish

psychiatrist leaving a good prac-

tice to enter one of the strictest

orders in the Church to pray for

his own people in the world; a

brilliant woman fasting for life

from meat and fish, if need be,

in order to bring “fallen-aways”

back to the embrace of the Mas-

ter.

Boundless love alone can ex-

plain these surrenders! Yes, it

is a pleasant thing to be relig-

ious! I grant religion does seem

unpleasant to those who have

never climbed high enough by

renunciation of selfishness to en-

joy its eternal vistas. But a Di-

vine Religion with the Holy Eu-

charist is much more pleasant

to those who experience it, than

the world is pleasant to those

who sin in it. It would be very

hard to convince a bird in flight

to the heavens, that the pig

really enjoys tBe mud. It is pos-

sible that a true lover of God may

have tasted both the mud and

the flight, having been first a

sinner. But he who lives only

for the flesh, pleasure and profits

has no experience whatever of

the thrills of the spirit. Since

he has never tasted, he never can

know. But let him not call all

men blind because he has plucked

out his own eyes.

Some know the anxiety of a

bad conscience
;
let them begin to

know the peace of a good con-

science! If God’s Displeasure is

so terrible that it keeps us awake

at night, think of what joys

there are in His Pleasure! If it

is' misery to be under His Wrath,

then it is ecstasy to be under His

Love! He is the Way! Follow

Him and enchanting will be your

adventures

!

He is the Truth! Know Him

and you will be wise with the

Wisdom hidden from the intelli-

gentsia for Christ is education!

He is the Life! As the soul

is the life of your body, so He

is the Life of your soul ! In that

Mystical Marriage, there shall be

dancing and joy!

Those who tried the world

found that it failed; those who

tried the flesh, found that it

sated
;

those who tried pride,

found that it collapsed f Why not

give God a chance ! Taste and see

that the Lord is Sweet!

God Love You.

“But what do I love, when I

love Thee, 0 God? not beauty,

of bodies, nor the fair harmony

of time, nor the brightness of

the light, so gladsome to our

eyes, nor sweet melodies of var-

ied songs, and not limbs accept-

able to embracements of fleshy



100 THE LOVE THAT WAITS FOR YOU

None of these I love, when I

love my God; and yet I love a

kind of light, and melody, and

fragrance, and meat, and em-

bracement, when I love my God,

the light, melody, fragrance,

meat, embracement of my inner

man: where there shineth unto

my soul, what space cannot con-

tain; and there soundeth, what

time beareth not away
;

and

there smelleth, what breathing

disperseth not, and there tasteth,

what eating diminisheth not, and

there clingeth, what satiety di-

vorceth not. This it is which I

love, when I love my God.”-

St, Augustine.



FOR THOSE WHO HAVE THE FAITH

Friends

:

This broadcast is dedicated

particularly to Catholics; it is

concerned with the spirit they

should have for their separated

brethren throughout the world.

Very simply, it is this: They

who are Christ’s must be in-

tolerant about Christ’s truths,

but they must be charitable, lov-

ing and sacrificial to those who

share it not, and even to those

who hate it. The Christian

vision of the Truth must never

be separated from the Christian

love of the adversary.

To cultivate this spirit of

charity we offer five sugges-

tions: (1) Learn to see that all

religions in the world, all sects,

all ethical systems have a seg-

ment of the circle of Truth.

Buddhism, Confucianism, Zor-

astrianism, for example, express

certain yearnings of the human

race toward the infinite; they

stress at least a note on the key-

board of Divine religion. Be-

cause every religion has a seg-

ment of the circle, one should

' ..t argue that it is in error be-

cause it is incomplete, but rather

I tarting with what is good lead

them to the completion of the

circle. We should not try to

prove that they are wrong, but

rather that wanting Trufh, they

ought to pursue it in its fulness.

When a stomach is hungry, one

need not prove that the hungry

man should avoid poison; one

need but give bread, and the

body will do the rest. When

souls are starving too, it profits

not to dwell on evil, but by kind-

ness and mercy to break to them

the Bread of Truth, and Divine

Grace will do the rest. St. Paul

adopted this approach when ad-

dressing the Athenians. He did

not condemn all the pagan dei-

ties, but complimented the peo-

ple for being religious because

he found on their streets a statue

to the Unknown God; starting

with it, he preached to them the

God Whom they knew not. In

a future day, some wise man of

the Church may use Confucius

as a natural stepping stone to

Christ, as St. Augustine used

Plato, and St. Thomas used

Aristotle. There is some fine

raw material in world religions

that can be used in cooperation

with grace for building in East-



102 THE LOVE THAT WAITS FOR YOo

ern countries the fulness of

Christ Which is His Church. The

sense of solidarity of the Chinese

is a good natural foundation for

the Mystical Body of Christ; the

Indian emphasis on asceticism

will make it easier, in their ful-

ness of^ime, to accept Redemp-

tion through the Cross. As St.

Paul told the Corinthians:

“What we make known is the

wisdom of God, his secret, kept

hidden till now” (1 Cor. 2:7).

Nothing human is foreign to

Christ, Who is the fulfillment of

history. Followers of half-

truths are not in error because

they have only a sect or a sec-

tion, but rather because the sec-

tion is taken in isolation, and

therefore creates disproportions.

It is wrong to condemn anyone

for having a passionate interest

in the fragment they possess; it

is Christ-like however to add to

their possessions, and enrich

their tiny savings by incorporat-

ing them into a higher synthe-

sis of His Divine Life in His

Mystical Body, the Church.

(2) Secondly, it is a great

error on our part who have been

illumined by the Faith, and who

see the fulness of Christ in the

Church, to think that others are

stupid or perverse because they

do not see it our way. We fiatter

ourselves tha^- ^^’^ow Christ

in His Fulness because we are

smart
;

we sometimes assume

that they are the way they are,

because they are dumb. This

amounts almost to a heresy on

our part, particularly if we be-

lieve that by our own human

reason alone, and not by God’s

grace, we came to an understand-

ing of the Truth. We did not

create the sun which enables our

eyes to see, nor did those who

are blind deliberately put out

either their eyes or the light of

the sun. The attribution of ig-

norance to the unbeliever is not

a mark of our own intelligence,

but of our contemptible pride.

If we see what they do not see,

it is because God has given us

the gifts of faith. Humble then

we ought to be, recognizing our

own unworthiness and realizing

that if we were without that

gift, we would possibly be more

ignorant than anyone; and that

certainly there are millions in

the world more deserving than

we are of the glorious faith we

enjoy.

(3) There is incumbent on us

a duty of special benevolence

and kindness toward bigots who

believe every lie they hear about

the Church. When I receive let-

ters from them with their fan-

tastic lies, I answer: “If I be-

lieved the same lies against the



FOR THOSE WHO HAVE THE FAITH 103

Christ that you believe, and if

I had the same anti-religious

training you have had, and had

been equally isolated from op-

portunities to learn the Truth,

with my own peculiar tempera-

ment I would hate the Church a

thousand times more than you

do. You are right in hating the

Church if it were as you mis-

takenly believe it to be. I would

hate it to. But you do not really

hate the Church; you hate only

what you erroneously believe to

be the Church.” Their very

hatred proves they are thinking

about Our Lord and His Mysti-

cal Body. The intensity of their

bigotry is often a concealed

jealousy, a suspicion that it may

be right and they wrong, for all

hatred is love in reverse. Then,

too we must not forget that Our

Lord chose the greatest bigot

to be His Apostle for the Gen-

tiles, knowing that the energy

he spent in hate would be most

effective when turned in the op-

posite direction of love. I have

a suspicion too that when the

time comes to rebuild a Christian

world, that the greatest Apos-

tles of Christ will be recruited

from the land that is now most

dedicated to the anti-Christ.

Thus will God be glorified even

by His enemies.

(4) Everyone need not come

to the Faith the way we study

it rationally in our manuals. Too

often it is assumed that all we

have to do to bring souls to Our

Lord is to master the arguments

for the existence of God and the

proofs of the Divinity of Christ

from prophecy, miracles and con-

sonance of Christ’s doctrine with

the aspirations of the human

heart, then shoot them like bul-

lets against the opposition and

lo, it will fall dead before the

machine-guns of our syllogisms.

Cardinal Newman has rightly

said that syllogisms make but

sorry rhetoric with the multi-

tudes. Many of our manuals are

written from the point of view

of those who have the Faith.

Looking back they outline the

logical steps by which one may

approach it. But taking the

first step to the Faith is not al-

ways a matter of logic; some-

times it is because of detach-

ment from sin. These proofs are

absolutely necessary for instruc-

tion and understanding, but not

for the desire to take instruc-

tions. The proofs are reflex

knowledge, the conversion is im-

mediate knowledge. A person

drinks water a long time before

he knows it is H^O. Souls can

come to Christ and His Church

through a thousand doors. If

there was ever a philosopher



104 THE LOVE THAT WAITS FOR YOU

whom one would think naturally

should never have come to a be-

lief in the Divinity of Christ

and the Church it was Henri

Bergson. Here was a thinker

who repudiated the intellect, who

scorned its first principles, who

made God a God of becoming,

and yet at the end of his life,

he asks that a priest be called

before he dies. A soul can come
to God not only through a hat-

red of reason as was the case

with Bergson, but even through

a series of disgusts as the case

of Leon Bloy. It is not difficult

to understand why this should

be, for the cause of conversion is

the grace of God, at first actual,

then sanctifying. If the intel-

lectual arguments alone brought

the soul to the sheepfold, then

anyone who hears the arguments

should be convinced. But when

A and B hear them equally well,

and A accepts and B does not,

there must be other factors in-

volved, namely, the cooperation

of the will with the grace of

God. There are myriad ways in

which God can call. There is only

one fold and one Shepherd, but

the sheep can come from the val-

leys of despair, the heights of

knowledge, the caves of desper-

ation and even from the thorns

and brambles of sin. Peter and

Andrew can come by way of the

nets, Matthew can come from

the counting table, Paul can

come on his way to persecute

and Magdalen can begin her con-

version at a dinner party.

(5) Our charity will increase

if we start with this assumption

:

There are only two classes of

souls in the world; those who

have found the Faith and those

who are looking for it. It is

amazing how different the world

and souls look, when one starts

with the first principle that as

the eye needs light, and the

stomach food, so does the soul

need God. There is not a single

person in the world, regardless

of the passion with which he

seeks out sin, who has not in

the depths of his soul a craving

for the infinite. As St. Thomas

says : “The whole is loved before

the part, and the part is loved

only because of the whole.” The

tumult of human love is in some

way a pursuit of the Divine.

As Pascal put it : “There are two

kinds of reasonable people, those

who love God with their whole

hearts because they have found

Him, and those who search for

God with their whole hearts, be-

cause they have not found Him.”

When the Apostle goes out into

the vineyard of souls knowing

everyone is looking for God, he

is hound to have a kindlier ap-



FOR THOSE WHO HAVE THE FAITH 106

proach than if he assumes that

no one is interested, or that some

are rebellious. It is true that

as a man can be hungry and live

on the wrong kind of food, so a

man can be yearning for the in-

finite and yet mistake the nature

of the infinite. It is the business

of the Apostle to straighten out

this point, and to declare to him

the Unknown God even while the

sinner is searching for idols.

The believer will never feel

hopeless about any soul regard-

less of its present state, whether

it be sinfulness or animosity.

The man who boasts he is in the

service of anti-Christ must at

least breathe the name of Christ.

As the creative power of God is

shown by drawing the world

from nothingness, so His Re-

demptive Power is shown in

drawing souls from sin. The

disciple who despairs of the con-

version of any soul is trusting

only in human powers and not

in God’s grace. To approach a

sick man with the idea that he

will never get out of his bed, will

probably do much to keep him

there longer, as to approach the

sinner with a sense of hopeless-

ness and despair is to drive him

deeper into despair. The very

fact that the sower in the Gospel

sowed his seed among thorns and

the rocks, indicate that at least

he placed some hope in a harvest

there. These poor souls who are

frustrated and melancholic, liv-

ing in second and third mar-

riages, or seeking escape from

life in alcohol and sleeping tab-

lets, are more anxious to receive

grace than we suspect, and those

who approach them with that

assumption make greater prog-

ress in bringing them to God

than those who do not. There

are of course some perverse souls

with an evil will which we must

leave to the Mercy of God. We

can do nothing with them and

of them Our Lord said: “Do not

cast your pearls before swine, or

the swine may trample them un-

der foot, and then turn on you

and tear you to pieces’* (Matt.

7:6). It is an absolute rule that

we ought never to argue or dis-

cuss religion with those who

know the Truth and reject it,

but rather to prove the Truth

to those who are ignorant that

with good will they may follow

it. But perverse souls are easily

recognizable and they are few in

comparison to the rest who are

seeking, groping, searching,

catching at the straw, that hap-

pily they may find. Most spir-

itually blind persons want to see,

and so do hearts who are rest-

less with time and fiesh clamor



106 THE LOVE THAT WAITS FOR YOU

for the peace of the Sacred Heart

of God.

Too often the Apostle bemoans

that he cannot bring a soul to

Our Lord because he is ignorant.

It does not take wisdom to con-

vert a soul to God: It takes love

—love of God and love of neigh-
bor. Wisdom is necessary for

instruction, but it is not neces-

sary for inspiration. Eloquence

is not only unnecessary but could

even be a handicap. To convert

a man to the Communist party,

one needs to be a proselyter, i.e.,

he must work from the outside

of the mind by propaganda; to

convert a man to God, one needs

to be an Apostle, i.e., he must

work inside the man by the

power of Truth. When one man

tries to win another to a certain

ideology or party he never has

the grace of God working with

him. But whenever an Apostle

tries to bring a man to Christ,

God is illumining that mind

while the Apostle is working.

The proselytizer converts to a

party or an idea; the Apostle

converts to a Person—^the liv-
ing Christ. If the believer is

on fire with God, he will shoot

sparks; if he brings no one to

Our Lord and His Church, it is

because he does not love enough.

What are we to do? (We must

begin by realizing that the world

is the way it is because we are

the way we are
;
the remaking of

the world must begin with the

remaking of me; that we are

living Christ’s way simply be-

cause we hate the Communists

who are enemies of Christ’s way

;

it is our duty to condemn Com-

munism and it is also our duty

to love the Communists, to pray

for them, to sacrifice for them,

until we bring them to the feet

of the Lord Himself.) The larg-

est share of the burden weighs

on us who boast that our Bread

is the Bread of Life and Our

Wine is the Wine that germi-

nates Virgins. If we had half

the zeal for spreading the love

of Christ’s Mystical Body as

they have in destroying it, the

world would long ago have had

peace. How many of us are

worthy of the proud name we

bear
;
of our glorious heritage of

nineteen centuries; of our being

privileged watchers of Jesus in

His Tabernacle?

Be worthy of the gift of

Faith ! Save a soul and save your

own! Never before in 500 years

have souls been nearer to finding

God than they are in this hour!

Emptied of vanity, they know

they must either go upward to

Our Savior, or down to despair

and insanity. Modern souls with-

out faith are not dumb souls;



FOR THOSE WHO HAVE THE FAITH 107

they are numb! Bring to their

misery the Mercy of God, and

they will have peace! But know

ye that Our Lord has no other

tongue with which to tell of His

Love in the environment in

which you live, than your own.

DO NOT FAIL HIM!

God Love You!

“While Earth wears wounds, still

must Christ’s Wounds remain.

Whom Love made Life, and of

Whom Life made Pain,

And of Whom Pain made Death.

No breath.

Without Him, sorrow draws; no

feet

Wax weary, and no hands hard

labour bear,

But He doth wear

The travail and the heat:

Also, for all things perishing,

He saith,

‘My grief. My pain. My death.’

0 Earth, seek deep, and gather

up thy soul,

And come from high and low,

and near and far.

And make Christ whole!”

(Laurence Housman)



EASTER

Friends

:

As a soldier may return from

war wearing the ribbons of vic-

tory, so Jesus rises from the

dead wearing the scars of bat-

tle against sin

!

Everywhere in the Easter

scenes we meet a Great Soldier

with His Scars! Mary Magdalen

who had anointed His Feet for

His burial just a few days be-

fore, and then once again knelt

at His Feet on Calvary's Hill,

now on Easter morn recognizes

Him to be, not the Gardener but

the Risen Savior, as clinging to

His Feet she sees there the livid

red memories of riven steel.

As the ten Apostles and

their companions gathered

around the evening lamp, in con-

versation with the travelers of

Emmaus, suddenly, silently,

without shadow, sound, without

the lifting of a bolt, or the stir-

ring of the latch, Jesus appears

in the midst of them, saying:

“Peace be upon you
;
it is myself,

do not be afraid.” Cowering in

terror. He reassures them, say-

ing: “Look at my hands and my

feet, to be assured that it is my-

self ; touch me, and look.” And as

He spoke thus, he showed them

His Hands and His Feet (Luke,

24:39, 40). Hands that had lifted

up blind eyes to the sight of

God's sunshine
;

Feet that

climbed the mountain's stairs to

a midnight holy of Holies to pray

—but now Hands and Feet that
show like luminous stars!

Later on Thomas, the indi-

vidualist, who was not with

the other Apostles when the

Savior appeared—^missing spir-
itual opportunities may cause

doubt—^when he was told by the
disciples: “We have seen the

Lord,” answers: “Until I have

seen the mark of the nails on his

hands, until I have put my finger

into the mark of the nails, and

put my hand into his side, you

will never make me believe”

(John, 20-25).

There are two kinds of un-

belief : Those who say something

is not true, because they wish

it were not true; and those who

say something is not true, be-

cause they wish that it was.

This latter kind is curable. After

eight days of the gloom that

comes from doubt, the Savior ap-

pears to the Doubter and says:



EASTER 109

"‘Let me have thy finger; see,

here are my hands. Let me have

thy hand; put it into my side.

Cease thy doubting and be-

lieve” (John, 20-27). Thomas

casts himself at His Feet, say-

ing: “My Lord and My God”

(John, 20-28).

0 Captain of the wars!

Why wear ye these scars?

First, to prove the law of

Christian life that no one shall

be crowned unless he has strug-

gled; that no crowns of merit

rest suspended on those who do

not fight; that unless there is

a Good Friday in our lives there

will never be an Easter Sunday;

that no one ever rises to a high-

er life without death to a lower

one; that God hates peace in

those who are destined for war.

Secondly, to prove His Love.

True love seeks not its own

good, but the good of the other.

As human love relieves the phys-

ical pains of others, so Divine

Love relieves the moral evils of

others. True love is proven not

by words but by offering some-

thing to the one loved, and the

greatest offering one can give

is not what one has, but one's

very life. Every scar tells the

story : “Greater love than this no

man hath.”

Thirdly, to solicit our love;

He rose not with wounds for

those would betoken a weakness

after battle, but with scars,

glorious medals of victory on

Hands and Feet and Side. As a

little child may say to a wounded

or scarred soldier: “How did

that happen?,” so Our Lord

shows us His scars, that by our

childish questioning. He might

tell us: “I did this all for you!”

There are some who would

have an unscarred Christ; they

would have the Christ on the

Mount of Beatitudes because

they love beautiful sayings, but

not the Christ on the Mount of

Calvary because they deny they

have ever sinned. They would

have the Son of Man, but not the

Son of God; the cowardly Christ

Who shuns sacrifice; Who would

have a victory without a battle,

a glory without a struggle, a

heaven without a hell; a broad-

minded Christ Who is indiffer-

ent to virtue and vice. Who

knows no good sublime enough

to die to espouse; and no evil

wicked enough to condemn; the

Tolerant Christ Who never made

scourges to drive charlatans out

of the Temple, Who never bade

us cut off hands and feet and

pluck out eyes rather than sin,

Who never mentions hell or the

devil or divorce.

Take your tawdry, cheap

Christ Whom you call a moral



110 THE LOVE THAT WAITS FOR YOU

teacher and ethical reformer, a

social planner; Whom you put

on the same plane as Buddha,

Confucius, Laotze and Whom

you call a good man. He is not

just a good man, for good men

do not lie. If He is not what

He claimed to be, the Son of

the Living God, then He is the

greatest liar, charlatan and de-

ceiver the world has ever known

!

If He is not the Christ, the Son

of the Living God, then He is

anti-Christ, but He is not just a

good man. A good man does not

drive others to despair, but this

is what He does, if the noblest

life that ever the world has

known can promise virtue no

other reward than to hang on

a gibbet to make a Roman holi-

day. If your weak, tolerant

Christ be right, then wrong must

be right
;
then what matter if we

be saints or devils, if Christ on a

tree or Judas on a halter must

both taste eternal death!

Take your human Christ Who

cannot save the Truth He

preached, but drowns with Him

for Whom He risked His life.

Take your soft Christ, you i>ol-

luters of Divinity, Who make

Him just a man! Ye sculptors,

writers, dramatists and poets,

ye so-called men of God! Take

your weak Christ Who could

bless the seed that died to live

again, but was not strong

enough Who called Himself the

Seed of Life once dead to rise

again! Look to the flowers and

grass and herbs that wake from

winter’s death! Will you deny

that He Who made the blossoms

break for April’s sake, cannot

Himself awake and move the

stone from out of the tomb?

1) We need the Risen Jesus of

the Scars for our times!

The only language we speak

today is “blood, sweat and

tears.” A God without scars

cannot understand our times : In

this midnight hour of hopeless

longing where even rivers run

blood, and all the just of earth

are a broken brood, when men

are broken in heart, alone, and

impotent, and where all men

stand unmasked—to us no soft
Christ can speak ! Who can speak

to those behind an Iron Curtain

except a God on Whom it was

once pulled down! Who can

solace the Mindszentys, the Or-

das, the Stepinacs, except Him

Who alone has suffered under

Pontius Pilate ! Who can give

courage to Poles, Lithuanians,

Hungarians and the other dwel-

lers in the catacombs of Eastern

Europe, except Him who was

once in the underground to give

to this earth its greatest wound

—AN EMPTY TOMB!



EASTER 111

Hold up your hands, ye peo-

ple of Siberia; ye whose sides

have been dug with a sickle and

ye whose hands have been beaten

with a hammer! Who can give

you hope but Him Who can

match your wounds with His

Scars? Ye 194,000,000 good peo-

ple of Russia, who are crucified

by a minority of 6,000,000,

where shall you find courage ex-

cept in Him Whose life reveals

that though the devil has his

hour, it is God Who wins the

day!

2) Only a Jesus of the Scars

can speak to those who sorrow!

Take your soft Christ; He is

alien to our tears and broken

hearts! What answer is there

for the wounded, the sick and the

dying
;

the unpitied, unheeded

and alone; the veterans of wars,

the children starved for lack of

bread, for all who in their agony

shout: “Does God know what it

is to suffer? Did He ever go

without bread for forty days?

Was He ever betrayed? Was He

ever abandoned? Was His Body

ever racked with pain and what

did He do?”

Jesus of the Scars knows what

pain is. And if He Who is God

took pain upon Himself it must

be that somehow or other it fits

into God’s plans, therefore He

could promise your sorrow shall

be turned into joy.-

Jesus of the Scars assured us

that evil will never have an ulti-

mate victory. The worst thing

that evil can do is not to bomb

cities, but to kill Goodness itself.

But being defeated in its might-

iest moment when evil used its

strongest arms by His Resurrec-

tion from the dead, we may be

sure that it will never be victor-

ious again. Well, indeed, may

the nail-torn Christ say : “I have

overcome the world.”

Jesus of the Scars knows what

death is for He is the only one

Who ever came to this world to

die. Everyone else comes to live;

death was a stumbling block to

Socrates
;

it interrupted the

teaching of Buddha. But to

Christ, it was the goal of His

Life, the gold that He was seek-

ing. Breaking those bonds of

the grave, by His Resurrection,

He has taught us to say: “O

death, where is thy victory? 0

grave, where is thy sting?” No

longer can men say there are

no tears in the eyes of the Eter-

nal, no pain in the heart of

God. Take then your Christ

with lily-white Hands, with un-

crimsoned robes and unpierced

brows, and Eyes undimmed by

sorrow! Take Him from our



112 THE LOVE THAT WAITS FOR YOU

midst! He is too soft for these

hard days!

Scarred men come for healing

only to scarred Hands! Only a

Risen Jesus with scars can un-

derstand our hearts. This is not

an age of wars, but an age of

scars! We all have scars! Every-

body ! Scars on bodies—the
wounds of war; scars on souls

—the wounds of godlessness.
Scars of hate, fear, anxiety, mel-

anchol*y, bitterness ! Either scars

fighting against Thee or scars

fighting with Thee! Scars born

of the oifensive against Love;

Scars born of the defense of

Love

!

Come Jesus of the Scars, I am

not strong, until Thy pierced

Hand clasps my own; I am not

brave till I see the pledge of

victory on Thy Heart; and I am

not free, till Thou dost bind me

to Thy Scars! Too long have we

been hard on Thomas ! He is now

our spokesman—greater than all
the rest ! Since the world has

scars, death surrounds and evil

is strong, we too say: “Until

I have seen the mark of the nails

on his hands, until I have put

my finger into the mark of the

nails, and put my hand into his

side, you will never make me be-

lieve” (John, 20-25).

“If we have never sought, we

seek Thee now;

Thine eyes burn through the

dark, our only stars;

We must have sight of thorn-

pricks on Thy brow.

We must have Thee, 0 Jesus of

the Scars.

“The other gods were strong;

but Thou wast weak

;

They rode, but Thou didst stum-

ble to a throne;

But t© our wounds only God's

wounds can speak.

And not a god has wounds, but

Thou alone.”

(Edward Shillito No. 737

(James Dalton Morrison

(Masterpieces of Religious

Verse



THE PURPOSE OF THE CATHOLIC HOUR

(Extract from the add'ress of the late Patrick Cardinal Hayes at the in-

augural program of the Catholic Hour in the studio of the National

Broadcasting Company, New York City, March 2, 1930.)

Our congratulations and our gratitude are extended to the National

Council of Catholic Men and its officials, and to all who, by their financial

support, have made it possible to use this offer of the National Broad-

casting Company, The heavy expense of managing and financing a

weekly program, its musical numbers, its speakers, the subsequent an-

swering of inquiries, must be met. ...

This radio hour is for all the people of the United States. To our

fellow-citizens, in this word of dedication, we wish to express a cordial

gre^fing a^^d, indeed, congratulations. For this radio hour is one of

service to America, which certainly will listen in interestedly, and even

sympathetically, I am sure, to the voice of the ancient Church with its

historic background of all the centuries of the Christian era, and with

its own notable contribution to the discovery, exploration, foundation

and growth of our glorious country. . . .

Thus to voice before a vast public the Catholic Church is no light

task. Our prayers will be with those who have that task in hand. We
feel certain that it will have both the good will and the good wishes of

the great majority of our countrymen. Surely, there is no true lover

of our Country who does not eagerly hope for a less worldly, a less

material, and a more spiritual standard among our people.

With good will, with kindness and with Christ-like sympathy for

all, this work is inaugurated. So may it continue. So may it be ful-

filled. This word of dedication voices, therefore, the hope that this radio

hour may serve to make known, to explain with the charity of Christ,

our faith, which we love even as we love Christ Himself. May it serve

to make better understood that faith as it really is—a light revealing
the pathway to heaven: a strength, and a power divine through Christ;

pardoning our sins, elevating, consecrating our common every-day duties

and joys, bringing not only justice but gladness and peace to our search-

ing and questionine- hearts.



127 CATHOLIC HOUR STATIONS
In 42 Stores, the District of Columbia, ond Howoii

Alabama—

Arizono

, Mobile -WALA
Montgomery WSFA*

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.1450 kc

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KMI ssn kr
KFI 640 kc
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KPO 6ft0 kc

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- .KOA 850 kc

WTIC* 1090 kc

.WRC 980 kc

WJAX 930 kc
WIOD 610 kr
WOR7 .... 740 kc
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Tnmpn WFLA 970-620 kc

Georgia w«;r 750 kc
Augusta
Savannah

WTNT
WSAV

1230 kc
1.340 kc

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Kentucky Louisville. WAVE* 970 kc

Louisiana Alevnndria KY«;i 1400 kc
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Maine Augusta WRDO 1400 kr
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Marylond . .. Baltimore WTRO 14S0 kr
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Massachusetts WR7 1030 kr
Springfield WR7A 10.30 kc

Michigan Detroit- WWJ 950 ke
Flint

Saginaw...

M innesota Du! uth-Superior...
Hibbing

Mankato

...WTCB

...WSAMA

....WEBC

. .WMFG
..KYSM

_1320 kc
_1300 kc
-1230 kc
-1500 kc
-1340 kc



127 CATHOLIC HOUR STATIONS
In 42 States, the District of Columbia, and Hawaii

KCHI 790 kc
KRRM I4sn Irr
KCIR 1370 kc
KTXI K lAfX) ler
XXI I 1940 ler

Nebraska XODY 1740 ler
Wnw SOO Ifc

Nevada KOH* A.SO ter

New Hampshire WFFA 1740 Iro
New Mexico XOR lO.RO If#-
New York WRFN 930

wnrc AAO kr
WGY mn kr

North Carolina WISF* 17.S0 kr
wsnc 1740 km
WPTF AfiO ler
WSJS AOO Ifr

XFYR .S.SO kr
WDAY 070 kr
WTAM noo kr
wi nx 1740 kr
WSPD* 1:^40 kr
WHIZ 1740 kr

WXY* 9.S0 kr
Kvnn 1170 kr

XMFn 1440 kr
Portland KCW* A70 kr

Pennsylvania WSAN 1470 kr
Altoona WFRC 1.S40 kr
Frie . ... . WFRC 17.10 kr
Johnstown WIAC 1400 kr
1 pwktnwn WMRF _ 1490 kc
Philnrlplphin . .KYW 1 060 kc
Pittsburgh KDKA 1070 kr
Rpnrling .. WRAW 1.140 kr
Wilkp<;-Rnrrp .... WRRF 1140 kr
Willinmcport WRAX 1400 kr

Rhnrlft IsInnrI Providence... -WJAR 920 kc

South Carolina (“hnrlpstnn WTMA 17.S0 kr
Columbia ,..WIS* 560 kc
r:^rppnvillp WFRC* 1.110 kr

South Dakota .... Sioux Falls KSQO-KELO ..1140-1230 kc

Memphis WMC* 790 kr
No'^hville WSM* 6.50 kr

Amorillo KGNC* 1440 kr
FI Paso KTSM* 11R0 kr
Rrt Worth WPAR* 820 kc
Mm . XPRC* 050 kr
San Antonio . . WOAI 1700 kr
Weslaco .. XRCV* 1700 kr

1 Itnh Solt 1 nifp City XYDL* . 1320 ke

VirQinin Hnrrisonh'i'"g WSVA . _ 550 ke
Martinsville WMVA 14.50 kr
Norfolk WTAR* 790 kr
PjrhmnnrI —

.

.WMBG 11R0 kr

SenttI* KOMO* .. 950 kcwasningTon
^pnl^nnA - KHO* .590 kr

WWIS Foij Claire WEAU - 790 kc
1 o Crossp WKBH 1410 kr

WMAM* 570 kr

Hawaii Honolulu
KGU 760 kc

Delayed Broadcast

(Revised as of March 6, 1949)

AM and FM



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