Maintaing a Roadside Shrine, Quebec, 1942
I. As long as we live we can never be certain of retaining God's grace and persevering to the end. We always remain in a state of half light in this world, not only as to God and divine truths, which we do not fully comprehend, but also as to ourselves and our justice. "There are just men and wise men, and their works are in the hand of God; and yet no man knoweth whether he be worthy of love or hatred; but all things are kept uncertain for the time to come" (Eccle. ix. 1, 2). If we are in obscurity as to our present state, still less can we have any certainty as to what the future will bring forth, except by special revelation such as was vouchsafed to the thief on the cross. No one dare say: "My heart is clean, I am pure from sin" (Prov. xx. 9). David recognized that a man may be in grievous sin without knowing it: "Who can understand sins? From my secret ones cleanse me, O Lord, and from those of others spare Thy servant" (Ps. xviii. 13, 14). The Holy Ghost goes so far as to say: "Be not without fear about sin forgiven (Eccli. v. 5). Our own assurance is worth nothing, for the Apostle says: "I am not conscious to myself of anything, yet I am not hereby justified. . . . Therefore judge not before the time, until the Lord come who will both bring to light the things of darkness, and make manifest the counsels of the hearts"
(1 Cor. iv. 4, 5). You can never venture to presume on your safety. Serve God in confidence and hope, but also with fear and trembling.
II. It is an anxious thing for us to reflect that at any moment we may lose the grace of God, and fall into the ranks of His enemies and even perhaps of the reprobate. Sampson fell, and David, and St. Peter; Judas also, and he never repented. St. Paul speaks of those who had been enlightened and yet subsequently made shipwreck of the faith: another of His converts he publicly delivered over to the dominion of Satan. We have indeed received spiritual life and countless favours from the Lord, "but we have this treasure in earthen vessels" (2 Cor. iv. 7). If we fail, all our past virtues will not merit for us restoration to grace. "The justice of the just shall not deliver him in what day soever he shall sin" (Ez. xxxiii. 12). "If the just man turn himself away from his justice and do iniquity according to all the abominations which the wicked man useth to work, shall he live? All his justices which he hath done shall not be remembered; in the prevarication by which he hath prevaricated, and in his sin which he hath committed, in them he shall die" (Ez. xviii. 24). The higher you have risen, the more does Satan strive to compass your ruin, the more complete it will be if it comes; the more care therefore you need to exercise. It was to the Apostles that Jesus said: "Watch ye and pray that ye enter not into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing but the flesh is weak" (Matt, xxvi. 41).
III. Perseverance is the final gift of God. It is needed to crown the work; and all else goes for nothing if we do not secure this great grace. The gift of perseverance involves a multitude of actual graces, aids to well-doing, protection against temptations, the arrangement of a long series of accidents, the approach of death at a suitable moment when we are in the state of grace. Who but God can dispose so many things successfully? We cannot secure this by any foresight; we cannot merit all these graces for ourselves. We need to watch always, to endeavour to be always ready for the coming of the bridegroom, to avoid occasions of sin, to repent at once if unhappily we fall, to be steadfast above all in praying for a happy death, and to secure the intercession of the Holy Virgin, and the Saints, and the living friends of God; and then we may entertain a humble hope of salvation: "For if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son; much more, being reconciled, shall we be saved by His life" (Rom. v. 10).
Read from the Original Book.
