Saint for the Day

• August 2—St. Stephen, Pope and Martyr
    St. Stephen was by birth a Roman, and, being promoted to holy orders, was made archdeacon under the holy Popes St. Cornelius and St. Lucius. The latter? having suffered martyrdom, St. Stephen was chosen to succeed him, and was elected Pope on the 3d of May, 253. The controversy concerning the rebaptization of heretics gave St. Stephen much trouble. It is the teaching of the Catholic Church, that Baptism given in the name of the three persons of the Blessed Trinity is valid, though it be conferred by a heretic. St. Stephen suffered himself patiently to be traduced as a favorer of heresy in approving heretical baptism, not doubting but those great men who by mistaken zeal were led astray would, when the heat of the dispute had subsided, calmly open their eyes to the truth. Thus by his zeal he preserved the integrity of faith, and by his toleration and forbearance saved many souls. The persecutions becoming violent, he assembled the faithful together in the underground tombs of the martyrs, to celebrate Mass and to exhort them to remain true to Christ. On the 2d of August, 257, while seated in his pontifical chair, he was beheaded by the satellites of the emperor; and the chair is still shown, stained with his blood.

  Taken from the “Pictorial Lives of the Saints: with Reflections for Every Day in the Year”

Sunday Sermon

• Tenth Sunday after Pentecost

  

  Every one that exalteth himself shall be humbled;
  and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.
  —St. Luke xviii. 14.

  It is a blessed and a happy moment, a sort of turning-point in life, my brethren, for any one of us when he wakes up to the conviction that he is nothing extraordinary after all. That is, if there is such a moment; for sometimes this conviction dawns on one gradually.

  Almost every one begins life with the other idea. Not that he has it himself at the start, but his friends have it for him. Almost every baby is considered, as you know, to be the finest and most beautiful one that ever was seen. Perhaps he does not quite come up afterward to the expectations of his fond parents; but at least he is remarkable in some way. He is a very clever boy, or a very good boy, or, at any rate, he could be if he wanted to; he has got it in him; he is much finer in some respects, perhaps in a great many, than the common run. He is going to turn out a great man; he is much more likely to be President of the United States than any other boy of his age.

  And by the time he has got to man’s estate he has a good deal of the same opinion himself. He does not like to have it even hinted that he is at all below par in anything; or if it is plain, even to himself, that he is, then it is a thing of no consequence, or he could excel in it if he chose to. The sorest points are of course those in which his choosing would make no difference. The less said about these the better.

  Well, you know all this is what we call pride. Almighty God has mercifully arranged it so that it is generally knocked out of us to some extent as we travel on through the world; but still a good deal of it remains.

  It is a thing that gives us a great deal of trouble of mind, and which generally keeps us back a great deal from really excelling in anything. It is a thing, therefore, which it is good to get rid of as soon as we can; and of course, therefore, you all want to know how to do this. I think the Gospel story of to-day throws some light on this point.

  The way to do it is the way of the publican, and the way not to do it is that of the Pharisee. And the way of the publican is that of common sense, too.

  What is it? It is lo look at and consider our defects, and not our strong points. The publican might have talked like the Pharisee, too. He might have said: “I am a much better fellow than that old Pharisee. I am a good, hearty, generous soul. I treat my friends to the best I have got; and if I do cheat sometimes a little in business I make up for it in charity; and I don’t make a show of the good I do and put on a pretence of religion like those canting hypocrites.”

  And so he might have gone on to the end of the chapter. But he didn’t. No; he just went off in a corner all by himself and said: “O God! be merciful to me a sinner.” He did not think about his virtues, but about his sins; and when he asked the Lord to be merciful to him he meant that he wanted to amend his life, and was going to do it with the help of God, and imitate the Pharisee, whom he really thought better than himself; for you see he did not think of the sins of the Pharisee, but of his virtues.

  I say that his way was of common sense. It is the way we all follow when at work on anything except ourselves. We look at the defects in our work, and not its excellences; and if we have very good sense it seems to us pretty much all defects.

  Humility, then, after all, is only common sense. And I think you ought to see pretty well one reason at least why, as our Lord says, he that exalteth himself shall be humbled, and he that humbleth himself exalted. The one who exalts himself, who stops to look at his virtues, is all the time running down, and losing even the little virtue that he admires; while he that really humbles himself is constantly getting better. So humility is necessary for progress. It is so in the things of this world even, and much more so in our spiritual affairs.

  

  Five Minute Sermons for Low Masses on All Sundays of the Year 
  Volume 1
  Imprimatur 1879