SERMON XLIX. TWENTIETH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST.
ON THE PREDOMINANT PASSION.
"For he was at the point of death. Lord, come down before that my son die." JOHN iv. 47, 49.
OUR passions are not of themselves bad nor hurtful, when regulated according to the dictates of reason and prudence, they do us no injury, but are, on the contrary, profitable to the soul; but, when disorderly, they are productive of irreparable mischief to those who obey them; for, when any passion takes possession of the heart, it obscures the truth, and makes the soul incapable of distinguishing between good and evil. Ecclesiasticus implored the Lord to deliver him from a mind under the sway of passion. "Give me not over to a shameless and foolish mind." (Eccl. xxiii. 6.) Let us, then, be careful not to allow any bad passion to rule over us. In this day’s gospel it is related that a certain ruler, whose son was at the point of death (incipiebat enim mori), knowing that Jesus Christ had come into Galilee, went in search of him, and entreated him to come and cure his son. "Come down before that my son die." The same may be said of him who begins to submit to the tyranny of any passion. ” He is at the point of death ” of the soul, which should be dreaded far more than the death of the body. Hence, if he wishes to preserve spiritual life, he ought to ask the Lord to deliver him as soon as possible from that passion Lord, come down before my soul die; if he do not, he shall be miserably lost. I intend Today to show the great danger of damnation to which all who submit to the domination of any bad passions are exposed.
1. ” Only this," said Solomon, ” I found, that God made man right, and he hath entangled himself with an infinity of questions." (Eccl. vii. 30.) ” God created man right" that is, in the state of justice; but, by giving ear to the serpent, man exposed himself to temptations,
