Sermon VI, The Vain Labor of the Avaricious: second part only (paras 700-736)

This truth seems to me so evident, that it will not take long to prove it. The richest and most foolish miser knows well that he will not be able to take a single penny with him into the next world; he must acknowledge with St. Paul: "For we brought nothing into this world; and certainly we can carry nothing out." What happened to St. Paul in his conversion, namely, that as he was on his way to persecute the Christians, a brilliant light from Heaven suddenly shone round about him, and he was struck with blindness, "and when his eyes were opened, he saw nothing," the same, according to the Holy Scriptures, will happen to all rich men after their death: "They have slept their sleep, and all the men of riches have found nothing in their hands." To keep to my original simile, my dear brethren, what happens in a hunt? The huntsmen go out with their dogs; some are on foot, others on horseback; they all look around for game most eagerly, and if they see a hare jumping out of a bush, what a noise they make! They run here and there, and set the dogs after the hare with loud cries; but when the dogs have caught it, they take it from them at once. The same thing happens to the worldly-minded and avaricious. Some chance of gain or profit offers itself to their notice, they rush at it at once, and work with all their might to make the most of it; but when they have got what they want, very often death comes, and cries out to them to leave it. What a sad thing for the dying man that is! Where is my money? he asks. You must leave it, answers death. Where are my hidden treasures? You must leave them. Where are my lands and vineyards, and my costly furniture? You must leave them. Away with you at once, poor and naked, into eternity! Everything you have you must leave to others, whether you wish it or not; to others, who will perhaps squander it away most recklessly. What time, trouble, and labor you have devoted to amassing wealth! Now you must leave it to those who will not even thank you for it, nor say an Our Father for your soul, because you gave them nothing during your life. If we can believe what is written on the subject, it appears that in India there are ants of enormous size, that live in caves, and collect together all the gold and other metals they can find; but they never can derive any profit from their treasures, because the people of the country come and take them all away; so that they lose in an hour what they spent many months in putting together. The same thing happens to the rich man on his death-bed: he has toiled and labored during life to heap up gold and silver, and add treasure to treasure; but to what end? Hardly is his toil finished, and the wealth he desired accumulated, when death comes, and forces him to leave all he has to be divided amongst others, who very often get rid in a short time of that which it took him many years' labor to amass.

It is true that pious servants of God, as well as misers, must leave their riches behind them at the hour of death, and that they can bring nothing with them into eternity; but as there is a great difference in the manner of using and possessing riches, so also there is a great difference in the manner of leaving those riches. The pious Christian, who has never set his heart on them, puts them off as he would a garment, which he lays aside in the evening without the least regret. The avaricious man, on the other hand, looks upon riches as a part of himself, as if they were hair, or feathers, so that he finds it as hard to part with them as a fowl does to be plucked alive. St. John Chrysostom, explaining the words of our Lord, in which He compares riches to thorns, says that we can have thorns in the hand in two ways: if we hold them in the open hand, they will not hurt us, but if we close the hand on them, they sink into the flesh, and we cannot free ourselves from them without pain and loss of blood. So it is with riches: the pious hold them in the open hand; they employ them in the service and to the glory of God; they share them with Jesus Christ in the persons of the poor and needy; and they are resigned to the will of God, if it should please Him to lessen their wealth or to take it away altogether. They say, with holy Job: "The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away. . . . blessed be the name of the Lord." They feel no pain when those thorns are taken out of their hands, because when the time comes for them to go into eternity, they leave, so to speak, only to turn the hand over, and the thorns fall off, without pain, or sorrow. "Not so the wicked, not so;" not so the avaricious, who, during their lives, held fast to those thorns with closed hands; many a pang and torment they will feel when the thorns are taken out of their hands by force. "O death, how bitter is the recollection of thee to a man that hath peace in his possessions!" Ah, Christians, is it possible that we should plague and torment ourselves about those perishable goods, which are only worthless flies in time, pricking thorns in the hour of death, and nothing at all in eternity? And yet nearly every one is most eager in pursuit of them. If people employed for God and Heaven the fourth, nay, even the tenth part of the labor and trouble they give themselves to amass worldly wealth, then would they become great Saints in Heaven. St. Francis Xavier could not see without pain so many merchants leaving Portugal and other countries of Europe, and crossing the wide and dangerous ocean, to make money in the distant Indies; while he found so few who were willing to accompany him to the same countries to save souls. Zealous servants of God, reason, indeed, have you to complain, when you see and experience how much is done and suffered daily for the sake of money, and how little is done in a whole year for God and Heaven! Shout from the pulpit until you are hoarse, exhort the people to come to church on Sundays and holydays, to hear the word of God and do something for their souls, and you will see that many Christians can find a hundred excuses: some will say that the church is too far away, others that the weather is too severe, others again have something to do at home; nay, you will find some who do not hesitate to stand in their shops and wait upon customers on those days consecrated to the service of God. Preach to them of fasting, alms-giving, mortification of the senses, Christian meekness and humility, to which the law of Christ binds every one, and they will find a hundred excuses to dispense themselves: fasting is bad for their health, alms-giving they cannot afford. they are too delicate to practise mortification, the dignity of their position does not allow them to humble themselves. So that it is too difficult and almost impossible to do anything for God and one's soul. Gold! Oh, what a far greater power thou hast over the hearts of men, than even the Almighty God Himself, with His kingdom of Heaven and its eternal joys, which He has promised to His faithful servants! No mortification is too great, no labor too heavy, no humiliation too degrading, no way too rough, no weather too severe, no time too precious, nothing so troublesome as to frighten away one who has a hope of gaining thee! Dost thou ask one to expose himself to a thousand dangers, either on the stormy sea, or on land amongst robbers and murderers? Oh, thou wilt find enough who are only too willing to do so! The most violent desires and inclinations are easily restrained, when there is question of money. It is often to no purpose that preachers endeavor to persuade people to do away with scandalous abuses, or to be reconciled to their enemies; to no purpose do they hold up for imitation the example of the meek and humble Jesus, who prayed on the cross for His enemies and murderers, who has threatened not to forgive us, unless we forgive others, and who has pronounced eternal woe against those by whom scandal comes; useless, I say, it is to allude to our Lord's examples. But if a few bags of gold were brought and placed in the hands of the audience, there would be plenty of them who would at once lay aside their enmity and grasp each other's hands in token of friendship! If there was a fine imposed for indulging in this or that abuse, how quickly we should see an improvement! Thus, what cannot be done by reason, or honesty, or conscience, or by the example and Gospel of Christ, or for the sake of saving one's soul and going to Heaven, or of avoiding the eternal torments of hell; what cannot be done by the Almighty God and His law, is accomplished by avarice and the inordinate desire of temporal goods. To this avarice, says Tertullian, are sacrificed all the cares and thoughts of a restless mind. But that is not enough. To it are sacrificed all a man's cleverness and prudence. Not yet enough! To it is given all the sweat of one's brow. Still more! a much greater victim is slaughtered in its honor, the soul's salvation.

O foolish world, thus to seek what thou knowest will be taken from thee in a short time! Hear my dear brethren, how much more prudently King Ezechias acted. It was announced to him in the name of God: "Behold the days shall come, that all that is in thy house, and that thy fathers have laid up in store unto this day, shall be carried into Babylon: nothing shall be left, saith the Lord." Now, I ask, was everything that Ezechias might accumulate after this threat, to be saved from plunder? For, certainly Jerusalem was not taken at once, nor for some years after. No, we must answer, even that will not be saved, according to the Prophet's words: "Nothing shall be left." But if that is the case, and if everything that the fathers of Ezechias had laid up, "unto this day," was also to be taken away, why does not the Prophet add that whatever the king himself might accumulate, after the warning, would meet the same fate? The answer is easy. The Chaldeans took away everything they found in the royal palace, so that as the Prophet said, nothing was left; but they found only the treasures that had been brought together up to the day of the warning, because when Ezechias heard that the Chaldeans were to take all he had, he was not so foolish as to waste his time laying up more treasure; for, he thought, would it not be a senseless thing for me to trouble myself and distress my subjects with taxation in order to fill my treasury, when I know that in a short time the Chaldeans will be masters of it? Therefore, from that day forward he put aside every idea of increasing his wealth. How unwisely then, do not we Christians act, although the day is appointed for us too; behold the day and the hour will come when death will take away all thou hast in thy house; how unwise to strain every power of soul and body to heap up riches, while we forget altogether the interests of the soul! If we were only eager in the pursuit of eternal riches, of incorruptible goods, of God Himself, we should be infallibly certain of gaining what we seek. Is it not foolish to plague ourselves so much in the pursuit of that which cannot content us when we have it, and meanwhile to neglect the only good that is able to satisfy us fully? Poor ye are, oh rich, if you have lost your God. "Woe to you that are rich," says Christ, if your hearts are fixed on riches and temporal goods. Rich are ye, oh poor, if in your poverty you have gained God alone. "Behold," said St. Peter to our Lord in the name of all the Apostles and the contented poor, "behold we have left all things," we desire nothing but Thee alone, "and have followed Thee." "What therefore shall we have?" "You shall receive an hundred-fold, and shall possess life everlasting." Therefore my first, greatest, and only care shall be to say with the pious hermit, "I am hunting for my God and I will not cease until I have fast hold of Him." If I have Him alone, I shall be rich enough for time and eternity. Amen.