I. HUMAN RESPECT is a COWARDLY AND DISGRACEFUL SLAVERY
Man naturally loves liberty and detests slavery as a shameful yoke. It is natural that the employee should obey his employer ; the soldier, his officer ; the sailor, his captain; the child, his parents; the pupil, his teacher; for in these cases the yoke is honorable. It was also honorable for Regulus, the Roman general, to return to Carthage, there to endure painful captivity and death, for his country's sake. (But there is no slavery more base and dis graceful than that of a man who regulates his religion, his conduct according to another man's caprice ; who inwardly approves what is right, but has not the courage to do it; who condemns in his heart what is evil, and yet does it, because others also do it; who clearly sees his duty, but dares not perform it, lest he thereby displease his boon companions or does not meet the approval of those whose favor he seeks.
Where can so despicable a slave be found? Not among Mohammedans or Jews, but among Catholics! Some of these are perhaps now listening to me. "We may, indeed," says St. Augustine, "conform to the world in certain matters, in certain things and customs that do not interfere with duty; but in the matters that concern our duties towards God, His holy Church, our soul, our salvation, our eternity, he conforms to the world and its spirit condemned by Jesus Christ, who allows himself to be enslaved by its laws and maxims, which are in direct opposition to the Gospel, shows himself, not a freeman, but a mean cowardly slave." This is true more especially as to those who, through the merits and sufferings and death of Jesus Christ, have been baptized and made children of God, and "admitted into the liberty of the glory of the children of God"(Rom. 8. 21).
Man's liberty is an inalienable right and privilege which God Himself, the sovereign Lord of the universe, respects and will never infringe. He, indeed, wishes and commands us to serve Him, but does not compel us to do so, for He wishes us to do so freely. He wishes us to go to heaven, but freely. Our freedom is but a participation of his own, for we are His image. He who is influenced and led by human respect, debases and disgraces in himself the image of God's freedom by shamefully subjecting himself to the views and caprice of his fellow-men. And who are those persons whose disapproval you so greatly dread? Like yourself, they are as a mere nothing, formed of dust, a leaf tossed about by the wind, liable to vanish like a shadow, to wither like grass; they shall, sooner or later, die and become the food of worms ! More over, consider the lack of moral worth of the persons you strive to please and to gain their approval, and so greatly dread to displease. In themselves they have no moral worth, but are vain and contemptible, undeserving of esteem and confidence; their views and advice in important worldly matters you consider to be without value! But when there is question of your holy religion and its obligations, of your eternal salvation, you dread their disapproving looks, their rude and senseless raillery! To stand well in the estimation of such mean and contemptible men you betray your conscience, you offend God, to whom you owe all that you are and have, you scandalize your neighbor, you forfeit your salvation! Why should you strive so hard to please such individuals? What have they ever done for you? Have they, like Jesus Christ our Saviour, ever shed their blood and died for you? Will those persons you so greatly exert yourself to please, whose censure you dread so much, keep you from being condemned to hell or rescue you therefrom, after your condemnation ? And when you thus yield to their views and strive to please them in all things, do you thereby gain their love, their esteem? By no means; no matter what they may say to you, they, in their hearts despise you as a mean, base and abject man, devoid of principle and courage! Everybody, even the wicked themselves, cannot refrain from loving and esteeming virtue in those who have the courage, the manliness to act in accordance with the dictates of their conscience, and they despise, spurn and mistrust, in their inmost hearts, all those who yield to human respect!
It is related of the emperor Constantius Chlorus, the father of Constantine the Great, that he one day called together the members of his court and the officers of his army who were Christians, and commanded them, under pain of being dismissed from his service and severely punished, to
offer sacrifice to the pagan deities. Some of them apostatized ; the others remained firm in their faith. Constantius rewarded these latter, but dismissed the former from his service, saying that he could place no trust in those who, for a worldly consideration, were untrue to God. In fact, experience shows that he who is faithless to God, to his religious duties is undeserving of confidence, for he is always the mean slave of as many masters, or tyrants, as there are persons whose criticism and raillery he dreads, or whose approval he seeks. "He who endeavors to shake off God s sweet yoke," says St. John Chrysostom, "puts on other yokes which are both degrading
We should imitate St. Paul's greatness of soul. He cared not for human opinions or esteem, for he said : "To me it is a very small thing to be judged by you or by man's day" (i Cor. 4. 3). He was not ashamed to do his duty before men : "I am not ashamed of the Gospel" (Rom. i. 1 6). In like manner, we should not be ashamed of going to Mass, of observing the abstinence on the days prescribed, of going to confession, of sending our children to a good Catholic school, of decorating our home with holy pictures, of staying away from dangerous amusements, in a word, of leading the life of a good Catholic. Why should we dread the criticism, the raillery of men whose views are opposed to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, who are unworthy of our esteem, of our confidence? Why should we be ashamed of leading a good Christian life, of performing our duty, and be afraid of being laughed at by individuals whose conduct is a disgrace to true manhood? Let us not do as they "who said to God : Depart from us, and looked upon the Almighty as if He were powerless " (Job 22. 17). Let us heed the admonition of our divine Saviour : "Fear ye not them that can kill the body and are not able to kill the soul ; but rather fear Him, that can destroy both soul and body into hell" (Mat. 10. 28).
Of what advantage is it for you to enjoy the favor of worldlings? Is it not better to seek the esteem of the virtuous? Of the saints and angels? Of God Himself? " It is of little consequence," says St. Augustine, "if men do not praise me, provided God does ; if men blame me, provided God does not. Think what you like of Augustine, provided my conscience does not accuse me before God." "Since God is to be my judge," says St. Jerome, "I fear not the judgment of men." If you wish to be a slave, be God's slave; keep His commandments, shun sin; be the slave of Jesus Christ, who loved and delivered Himself to the most cruel and shameful death to save you and procure you endless happiness. "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus" (Phil. 2. 5), "who, takingthe form of a servant, . . . humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death (for us), unto the death of the cross " (Phil. 2. 7, 8). Let us be firmly persuaded that we cannot please and serve both the world and God." If I pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ" (Gal. I. 10).
II. HUMAN RESPECT is an IGNOBLE APOSTACY
It is the sacred duty of every true Christian to give to God absolute preference over every creature and, for God's sake, to be ready to sacrifice at once every temporal interest, every human friendship, when these clash with his duty towards his Creator. The Catholic who is swayed by human respect, deliberates between God and a certain individual ; he places in the scales God and this individual, and he prefers the individual to God Himself ! Like the Jews, he cries out : "Not Jesus, but Barabbas !" He prefers his temporal interests, his pleasures, the gratification- of his base passions, his boon companions to his Creator, to the Lord of heaven and earth, to his greatest Benefactor, to his best Friend, to his most loving Father! He calls himself a Christian, a Catholic, pretends to believe in and serve God, and dreads only a wretched man's displeasure or raillery; he pretends to worship God, and yet he dreads a wicked, unprincipled, contemptible man more than God Himself! He is less afraid of committing sin, of losing his soul, of being cast into hell for all eternity, than of forfeiting some worldly interest, or of being ridiculed by those whose opinions and sayings he should despise! Is not such a criminal preference a practical apostacy in one who calls himself a Christian, a Catholic?
We can understand the motive that induces a soldier to desert to the enemy, that urges a son, a daughter to forsake the paternal mansion. But that a Catholic should betray His God, his Church, his soul to the world on account of the censure of an ignoble man or set of men, is practically nothing less than an infamous apostacy ! God is your greatest Benefactor. What more could He do for you that He has not done, either in the order of nature, or in the order of grace? God created you in preference to numberless other men He could have created, had He so wished. He gave you your life, your body, its five senses and their use, and an immortal soul with its faculties. He has given you health and strength, as well as countless other benefits. He watches over you with truly paternal care, preserves you from many dangers, and makes all creatures, both animate and inanimate, your servants. "And if these things be little, I will add far greater things unto thee "
(2 Kings 12. 8). In the order of Grace He has done far greater things for you. For your sake "God did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up" to insults, torments, and death (Rom. 8. 32). For you God the Son" emptied Himself," assuming our human nature, "taking the form of a slave." For you He was born in humility, poverty and suffering; for you He led a life of obscurity, toil and hardship; -and, finally, after a laborious ministry beset with constant opposition and persecution, He died a most infamous death on the cross, after under going in His body the most excruciating torments, enduring inconceivable sorrow in His soul, and forfeiting His honor by being reckoned as an impostor and numbered among the vilest criminals. For your benefit Jesus instituted His Church and her sacraments, those inexhaustible fountains of grace and salvation, which apply His merits to the souls of men, purify and beautify them, and render them worthy of eternal glory.
"And if these things be little, I shall add far greater things unto thee." Not content with doing all this for you, God called you to the true faith by baptism; through His loving dispensation, you were educated by your good parents in the knowledge and practice of your faith, and removed from evil influences; you have been many a time cleansed from your sins in the sacrament of penance in the blood of the Immaculate Lamb, and made partakers of the Bread of Angels in the Holy Eucharist. Truly God "hath not done in like manner to every nation" (Ps. 147. 9). Verily it is easier to count the grains of sand on the sea-shore and the drops of water in the ocean, than the benefits He has lavished on you. He has, moreover, designed to confer on you still greater favors in heaven, where He has reserved for those who love and serve Him faithfully a perfect and endless reward, saying to you as to Abraham : "I am thy reward exceedingly great" (Gen. 15. i). What more could God do for you? But what does he say, who yields to human respect? "O God, I know all this; but I rather give Thee up; I give up the honorable and inappreciable privilege of being Thy child. I prefer to belong to the world. I rather please such and such companions than to obey Thee." He then cries out : "Not this one, but Barabbas ! "Be astonished at this, ye heavens ! My people have done two evils. They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living water, and have dug to themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water. . . . Pass over to the isles of Cathin, and see; and send into Cedar, and consider diligently, and see if there hath been anything like this"
( Jer. 2. 12, 13, 10). You now, as it were, put Jesus Christ to shame, by turning your back on Him ; but soon you shall hear from His lips these terrible words : "You have been ashamed of Me and of My words, and I will be ashamed of you, and I will disown you, when I come in my Majesty as your Judge" (Luke 9. 26).
On the other hand, how admirable was the conduct of Tobias ! "When all went to the golden calves which Jeroboam, king of Israel, had made, Tobias alone fled the company of all and went to Jerusalem" (Tob. I. 5, 6). How admirable also was the conduct of the Israelites in Egypt. Anxious to escape the danger of falling there into idolatry through human respect, they said : "Let us go (into the desert) and sacrifice to our God"(Exod. 5. 8). How edifying the conduct of the early Christians in overcoming human respect! Rather than yield to human respect, they shunned all unnecessary intercourse with pagans and heretics, and were ready to undergo confiscation,imprisonment, torments and death, rather than yield to human respect! And those who had had the misfortune to apostatize, in order to escape the loss of their goods and fearful torments and a cruel death, or who, only when overcome by torments, had apostatized, were all subjected to long and rigorous penances before being re-admitted into the Church and to holy Communion ! And you, with out being exposed to torments or to any real danger or serious disadvantage, are so weak as to apostatize practically, in order to please men who are undeserving of esteem and confidence, men who are the agents of Satan!
III. HUMAN RESPECT, A MOST DISASTROUS PERSECUTION OF THE CHURCH.
The terrible persecutions waged against the Church during the first three centuries of her existence made many millions of martyrs ; but their blood was the seed of Christians, for their number increased with the number of martyrs, whose bodies alone suffered. The Church had, and has still, reason to rejoice over the great number of her martyrs ; she honors these heroic defenders of the faith by celebrating their feasts, their praises ; by erecting churches and altars in their honor, venerating their relics and proposing their examples and virtues to our imitation. But human respect, on the contrary, is the worst of her persecutors and robs the Church of numberless children and precipitates them into the endless torments of the infernal abyss.
Human respect attacks the souls of men, corrupts their morals, weakens and even destroys the faith of its victims, drags them into hell, and thus renders vain the blood and death of Jesus Christ and the ministrations of His Church. Human respect causes the very children of the Church to wage a relentless war on her ! Although the Church does not undergo a bloody persecution thereby, she has every reason to utter these complaints : "Behold in peace is my bitterness most bitter" (Is. 38. 17). "Who will give water to my head and a fountain of tears to my eyes? And I will weep day and night for the (spiritually) slain of the daughter of my people" (Jer. 9. i). Human respect is the accursed murderer of the souls of so many Catholics ! Hence St. Augustine indignantly exclaims : "Woe to thee, O stream of human custom (respect), how long wilt thou toss about the children of Eve in the great and dangerous sea ?"
St. Peter became a victim of human respect, for not withstanding his ardent love of Jesus and his firm resolution to die with Him, he nevertheless, swayed by human respect and the fear of the company he was in, shamefully denied Him. Pontius Pilate several times emphatically acknowledged the innocence of Jesus, and even did so whilst condemning Him to die on the cross; but he had not the courage to displease the Jewish rabble and despise the danger of incurring Cesar s displeasure. Incalculable is the immense multitude of the victims of human respect on account of the weakening and loss of the faith, the neglect of keeping the commandments of God and of the Church, the loss of innocence through bad company, profane and dangerous amusements, conniving at dishonest practices, etc. The loss of faith results not from arguments alleged against it, but from human respect and yielding to one's passions. "What So and So will say" often causes the shipwreck of the best resolutions!
Human respect is the idol worshiped by many Catholics. It is a dishonorable, contemptible and disgraceful yoke and slavery which the world imposes on its votaries. He who yields to it, is ashamed of Jesus Christ and practically denies Him. Of him Jesus Christ says : "He that shall be ashamed of Me and of My words, of him the Son of man shall be ashamed, when He shall come in His majesty to judge mankind (Luke 9. 26). Unless such a one sincerely repents and changes his life, he will surely forfeit his salvation. On the other hand, he who never yields to human respect, "he who is not ashamed of Jesus Christ," says Tertullian, "is certain of salvation." In fact, our divine Saviour says so Himself : "Every one that shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father, who is in heaven" (Mat. 10. 32).
Source: Sermon Matter by Rev. FERREOL GIRARDEY, C.SS.R., Imprimatur 1915