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JMJ@JMJsite.com Phone: 928-
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JMJ
U.I.O.G.D.
Ave Maria!
Jesus, Mary, Joseph, we love You, save souls
O God come to our assistance. Jesus, Mary, Joseph please make haste to help us!
+ + + Jesus, Mary, Joseph + + +
VOL. I = THE BAD CHRISTIAN
THIRD SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY
Those Who Hear the Word of God with Hard Hearts
“But only say the word, and my servant shall be healed.” Matt. 8: 8.
The centurion’s faith in Jesus Christ was great, for he looked upon him as the Almighty
God, and, instead of asking him to come down to his house, as others did in similar
circumstances, he simply made known to our Lord what he wanted: “Lord, my servant
lieth at home sick of the palsy, and is grievously tormented.” And when Jesus said,
“I will come and heal him,” the centurion answered: No, Lord, it is not necessary
to go to that trouble; “but only say the word and my servant shall be healed.” There
is no doubt that, as the centurion said, nothing is impossible to the Word of God;
yet there are Christians nowadays whose hearts are so hardened that not even the
Almighty God, who has left man his liberty with regard to good and evil, can penetrate
them with that two-
There are some hearts so hard and flinty, that no matter how undesirable the truths they hear in sermons are, they cannot be moved to repent of their sins, to change their unchristian habits, and to amend their wicked lives.
St. Paul calls the Word of God a sharp sword: “Take unto you the helmet of salvation,
and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God” (Ephes. 6: 17), and a sword
which penetrates both soul and body. And again he says: “The Word of God is living
and effectual, and more piercing than any two-
But all this is of no good to those hard-
The human heart, at first, while it is still innocent, is, so to speak, a soft dough, which can be easily shaped and moulded into any form by the divine inspirations, by the teaching and instruction given by parents, and by the exhortations of preachers and confessors to virtue and piety. That is the proper time, too, for parents to fulfill the important duty and obligation which God has imposed on them, and which they voluntarily have taken upon themselves, under pain of eternal damnation, of keeping their children from all dangers and occasions of sin, and, after the example of the elder Tobias, training them from their very childhood to fear God, to love him, and to serve him alone: “And from his infancy he taught him to fear God, and to abstain from all sin” (Tob. 1: 10).
If one who is still innocent learns to know evil through the carelessness or bad
example of his parents, or through the influence of wicked companions, and falls
into grievous sin, then, alas! The crust begins to form itself around the dough;
the first tenderness of conscience, the modesty and the softness of the heart disappear.
Still the heart may yet be moved without difficulty, and be brought on a better way.
A single thought on the part of the uneasy, gnawing conscience, that cries out, as
it generally does in one’s earlier years: Unhappy man, what have you done? Where
are you going to? You have lost your soul, offended God, forfeited heaven, and lost
all! A single word on the part of his confessor, to show him the deformity and the
grievous malice of sin, and the severe punishment that awaits it; a single sermon
that speaks to him of God and of divine truths, may be a sharp knife that cuts into
his heart and moves it to sorrow and repentance. But if he afterwards gets into other
temptations and occasions of sin, so that he falls frequently, then the crust gets
harder and harder; the former horror and dread of mortal sin disappear gradually,
until at length the sin becomes habitual, the voice of conscience is hushed, and
the sinner feels quite at ease in his miserable state. The good inspirations of God
and of his angel guardian find no hearing any longer, the exhortations and threats
of parents, confessors and preachers cannot frighten him; the great truths of the
certainty and uncertainty of death, of the strict judgments of God, of the eternal
joys of heaven, of the undying fires of hell, cannot reach his heart or soften it,
because he has heard them often before. Not that the knife has lost its sharpness
and power, for the Word of God is always a two-
2. There is another class of hearers of the Word of God who are not altogether hard, who hear the Word of God with eagerness and satisfaction, and who are even impressed by it, so that they are moved to do good and to avoid evil; but not every truth that is preached to them has that effect; in some things they are so hard and flinty that nothing can touch their hearts. There are certain vices, certain abuses to which they are addicted, and which, as they have persuaded themselves, are of no great harm, they do not intend to amend. With regard to those vices and abuses the Gospel truths are powerless; before the sermon has well commenced they have already hardened their hearts and fully determined to take no notice of anything that is said against their pet failings; and when they hear anything of the kind they at once distract their minds from the sermon by thinking of something else; or else they listen to it, but laugh at it in their hearts. You may say what you like, they think, you will not persuade me in this matter; I will believe you in other things, but as far as this is concerned you may preach till tomorrow without making any impression on me, for I have fully made up my mind not to change.
Therefore, they listen with pleasure to a sermon in praise of certain practices of devotion and virtue, which they are accustomed to perform, or against certain vices they are not much given to, such as cursing, swearing, blasphemy, detraction, drunkenness, injustice, adultery and the like. Oh, excellent! They say when they hear those vices sharply spoken of; that sermon is very practical; it is a pity so and so is not here; those are really fundamental truths that the preacher is explaining. But if their own bad and vicious habits are attacked; for instance, the deplorable carelessness of many parents who train up their sons and daughters to vanity and idleness, extravagance and indecency in dress, the dangerous company and evening parties in which both sexes meet, not only to squander away in an unchristian and wicked manner, in dancing, gambling and folly, the precious time that was given them for the sole purpose of saving their souls, but who, too, sacrifice their hearts to the perverse world, the corrupt flesh, and, as a matter of course, to the devil, too; if the preacher ventures to say that all outward works of piety, such as prayer, hearing Mass, visiting the churches, confession and Communion are of no good as long as one disobeys the precepts of God or of the Church, even in one particular, or as long as one is not ready always to follow the divine will when it is made known to him, and so on; oh, then it is a different matter altogether! The preacher might have held his tongue about that, they think; he is only making decent people ashamed, and disturbing consciences unnecessarily, and filling them with scruples; he is too coarse and blunt; he does not know how respectable people must live in the world; he cannot draw the line between them and the common herd.
The only fruit they reap from the Word of God is anger, displeasure and bitterness
against the preacher, a still greater hardness of heart, and a firmer determination
not to amend their lives in spite of what they have heard. They resemble the high-
Many of these people are not satisfied with being themselves so hard-
But does it then follow that those people must absent themselves from sermons altogether,
and think: oh, what is the use of my going to a sermon? It will not do me the least
good! Not by any means. On the contrary, they should hear sermons constantly, because
it may be that the reason of their obduracy with regard to certain vices is the fact
that they seldom, and with frequent interruptions, and only when their humor takes
them, hear the Word of God. There is not much good in people of that kind hearing
the Word of God now and then; one or two sermons will not make any impression on
them; nothing but emphatic and oft-
A holy man being once asked what was the best way to convert a hard-
Was not the heart of Augustine as hard as a stone, and so habituated to pride and sensual indulgence that, as he himself publicly acknowledges, he had so much difficulty in the beginning of his conversion that it seemed to him an utter impossibility to abstain from vice? Yet by hearing frequently the Word of God in the sermons of St. Ambrose, that flinty heart became softened and impressed, so that it glowed with the love of God in a most remarkable manner; in consequence of which St. Augustine is often represented as holding a burning heart in his hand.
If any of you here present is a hard-
Praised be Jesus, Mary and Joseph, now and forever!
All of us are sinners, although some have a more hardened heart. Father Hunolt is correct in telling us we all need to hear good Sermons very frequently. That is one reason I am making the effort to have these Sermons available to those who are willing to read them. However, I also remind you all the Short Sermons of Father Hunolt and the Sermons of St. John Mary Vianney are NOW AVAILABLE on cassette tapes. Order from:
Patrick Henry
7645 S. Chuckwagon Road
Safford, AZ 85546
928-
May the Holy Family, Jesus, Mary and Joseph grant you every Grace you need.