lic sinner who stood humbly at the door of the temple, and, striking his breast, with contrite heart acknowledged his guilt: “O God! be merciful to me a sinner.”[1] On the other hand, the Pharisee boasted of his fasting, alms-giving, and other works, and thought he was a saint; but, according to the testimony of Our Lord, it was not he, but the publican who went home justified. And this is the meaning of the divine words of the Apocalypse: “I would thou wert cold, or hot: but because thou art lukewarm,” half fish, half flesh, belonging half to Me and half to the devil, “…I will begin to vomit thee out of My mouth.”[2] One cannot gain heaven with those cold-hearted wishes and empty desires.
Others keep the commandments, but not constantly. Shown by a simile. And if there is a great number of men who, through the desire of going to heaven, resolve to employ the proper means without excepting any of them, yet even amongst those the greater number have a very weak will and resolution, so that they are easily overcome by the least difficulty, and all their intentions come to nothing. The prophet Osee compares those people to birds, when he says of Ephraim: “As for Ephraim, their glory hath flown away like a bird.”[3] Have you ever seen a heap of corn in an open barn during harvest time? How gladly the birds come and fly around it, and how eagerly they feed on it! But go and merely clap your hands together, or pick up a stone from the ground, nay, simply put a straw man at the door with a few rags about him, so that the wind can blow him about, and the birds fly away at once. Silly things! why do you leave the good food? Has any one beaten you? No. There was only a noise made with the hand, or the shadow of a man, or the rustling of a rag of cloth. But why should we wonder at this, my dear brethren? They are only birds that have not reason. Let us rather be surprised at ourselves; for we often seem to fly up in desires and longings to heaven that stands open before us, but like the birds we fly off at the least shadow of difficulty, and forget all our good resolutions. “Their glory hath flown away like a bird.”
There have been men of that kind before now. Pilate was a bird of that kind. How anxious he was to save Christ from death! He was well aware of the innocence of Our Lord, and, in spite of the shouts and clamors of the ferocious
