Unhappy life of sinners, and on the happy life of those who love God
“And that which fell among the thorns are they who have heard, and, going their way, are choked with the cares and riches of this life, and yield no fruit.”—Luke 8:14
In the parable of this day’s gospel we are told that part of the seed which the sower went out to sow fell among thorns. The Savior has declared that the seed is the divine word, and the thorns the attachment that men have to earthly riches and pleasures—thorns that prevent the word of God from bearing fruit, not only in the life to come, but even in the present life. Oh, the misery of poor sinners! By their sins they not only condemn themselves to eternal torments in the next world, but to an unhappy life in this one. This is what I intend to show you in the following discourse.
First Point.—The unhappy life of sinners.
Second Point.—The happy life of those who love God.
First Point.—Unhappy life of sinners.
1. The devil deceives men, making them imagine that, by satisfying their sensual appetites, they will lead a contented life and find peace. But there is no peace for those who offend God. “There is no peace to the wicked, saith the Lord” (Isa. 48:22). God declares that all his enemies have led an unhappy life, and have not even known the way of peace. “Destruction and unhappiness in their ways: and the way of peace they have not known” (Ps. 13:3).
2. The beasts that have been created for this earth find peace in sensual gratifications. Give a dog a bone, and he is perfectly content; give an ox a bundle of hay, and he has found his peace and desires nothing more. But man, who has been created for God—to love God and to be united with him—can be made content by God alone, and not by the world, though the world were to enrich him with all its goods.
To what may all worldly goods be reduced? To pleasures of sense, to riches, and to honors. “All that is in the world,” writes St. John, “is the concupiscence of the flesh”—that is, sensual delights—“and the concupiscence of the eyes”—riches—“and the pride of life”—that is, earthly honors (1 John 2:16). St. Bernard says that a man may be filled with all these goods, but can never be satisfied or made content by them. Inflari potest, satiari non potest—“He can be inflated, but he cannot be satisfied.” And how can earth and wind and dung ever satisfy a man?
Writing on those words of St. Peter—“Behold, we have left all things”—the same saint says that he saw in the world various kinds of fools, all suffering a great hunger. Some filled themselves with earth—a figure of the avaricious; others with wind—a figure of those ambitious of honors and praise; others, gathered round a furnace, swallowed the sparks that flew from it—a figure of the passionate and vindictive; others, lastly, drank the fetid waters of a stagnant pool—a figure of the unchaste. O fools! says the saint to them, do you not perceive that these things with which you fill yourselves do not take away your hunger, but rather increase it? Haec potius famem provocant, quam extinguunt—“These rather provoke hunger than extinguish it.” A good example of this was Alexander the Great, who, after conquering half the world by his victories, wept because he did not yet see himself master of the whole earth.
3. Many hope to find peace in heaping up riches; but how can earthly goods ever satisfy? Major pecunia, says St. Augustine, avaritiae fauces non claudit, sed extendit—“Greater wealth does not close, but rather extends, the jaws of avarice.” A great quantity of money does not close the jaws of avarice, but widens them; that is, greed does not appease hunger, but inflames it.
“Thou wast debased even to hell; thou hast been wearied in the multitude of thy ways; yet thou saidst not, I will rest” (Isa. 57:9–10). Poor worldlings! They toil and strain to acquire more money and more goods, but never find repose: the more they accumulate, the more disquieted and afflicted they remain. “The rich have wanted, and have suffered hunger; but they that seek the Lord shall not be deprived of any good” (Ps. 33:11). The rich of this world are the most miserable of all men, because the more they have, the more they desire; and because they never attain all that they desire, they are far poorer than the honest men who seek God alone.
These are the truly rich, because they live content with their condition and find in God every good. “They that seek the Lord shall not be deprived of any good.” To the saints, because they possess God, nothing is wanting; to the worldly rich, who are without God, all things are wanting, because they lack peace. Justly, then, was the rich man in the gospel of St. Luke called a fool, who, having gathered a fine harvest from his fields, said to his soul: “Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years: take rest, eat, drink, make good cheer” (Luke 12:19).
But this man was called a fool. “Thou fool, this night do they require thy soul of thee; and whose shall those things be which thou hast provided?” (v. 20). And why was he called a fool? Because he imagined that with these goods—by eating and drinking—he should be content and find peace. “Take rest,” he said, “eat, drink.” Numquid, says St. Basil of Seleucia, animam porcinam habes—“Do you have the soul of a pig?” Do you have the soul of some pig, that you expect to content it with eating and drinking?
4. But do those who covet earthly honors, if they obtain them, perhaps find contentment? All the honors of this world are but smoke and wind (“Ephraim feedeth on the wind”—Hos. 12:1); and how can smoke and wind ever satisfy? David says: “The pride of them ascendeth continually” (Ps. 73:23). The ambitious are not appeased by obtaining certain honors; rather their ambition and pride grow, and with them grow also their disquietude, their envy, and their fears.
5. And those who live mired in the vice of impurity—on what do they feed, if not on dung, as the prophet Jeremiah says? Qui voluptuose vescebantur, amplexati sunt stercora—“They who fed lustfully have embraced dung” (Lam. 4:5). How can dung satisfy the soul or give it peace? Ah, what peace, what peace can sinners enjoy while they remain far from God? The wretches may have those goods, those honors, and those delights, but they will never have peace. No; the word of God cannot fail, and he has declared that there is no peace for his enemies. “There is no peace to the wicked, saith the Lord” (Isa. 48:22).
Poor sinners! They always carry their executioner about with them, as St. Chrysostom says—that is, the guilty conscience that torments them. Peccator conscientiam quasi carnificem circumgestat—“The sinner carries his conscience about like an executioner” (Sermon 10 on Lazarus). And St. Isidore wrote that there is no pain more cruel than that of a guilty conscience; and so he added that one who lives well is never sad. Nulla poena gravior poena conscientiae: vis nunquam esse tristis? bene vive—“No pain is heavier than the pain of conscience: do you wish never to be sad? Live well” (St. Isidore, Soliloquies, Bk. 2).
6. The Holy Ghost describes the deplorable state of these unhappy men, saying that they are like a sea in tempest that has no rest. “The wicked are like the raging sea, which cannot rest” (Isa. 57:20). One wave comes and another goes, but they are all waves of bitterness and rancor; for every contrary thing disturbs and throws them into tempest. If a man found himself at an entertainment of dancing and music, but were there with his head turned downward and his feet suspended by a cord, could he be content at that entertainment?
Such is the state of one who lives out of the grace of God: his soul is turned upside down, inverted; instead of being united with God and detached from creatures, it is united with creatures and detached from God. But creatures, says St. Vincent Ferrer, remain outside, and do not enter to content our heart, which God alone can content. Non intrant illuc ubi est sitis—“They do not enter there where the thirst is.” It happens to the sinner as to a man who is burning with thirst and stands in the midst of a fountain: because the waters bathe him round about, but do not enter within to satisfy his thirst, he remains in the midst of those waters more thirsty than before.
7. Explaining the unhappy life he led while he was in sin, King David wrote: “My tears have been my bread, day and night, whilst it is said to me daily: Where is thy God?” (Ps. 41:4). To relieve himself he would go to his villas, his gardens, his concerts, and other royal delights; but those creatures said to him: David, do you look to us to be relieved? You are mistaken. “Where is thy God?” Go and find your God, whom you have lost; for he alone can restore your peace. And so David confessed that in the midst of a king’s riches he found no repose, and wept night and day.
Let us now hear his son Solomon, who confessed that he denied his senses nothing they desired. “Whatsoever my eyes desired, I refused them not” (Eccles. 2:10). And yet, with all this, he exclaimed: “Vanity of vanities:… behold all is vanity and affliction of spirit” (Eccles. 1:2, 14). Mark: he says not only that all the things of this earth are vanity, but that they are, still more, an affliction of spirit.
And this is well proved by experience, since sin brings with it the fear of divine vengeance. The man who has a powerful enemy never sleeps in peace; and can the man who has God for an enemy be at peace? “Fear to them that work evil” (Prov. 10:29). Whoever commits a mortal sin feels himself at once assailed by a great dread, and every leaf that stirs terrifies him. “The sound of dread is always in his ears” (Job 15:21). He seems always to be seeking to flee, though no one pursues him. “The wicked man fleeth when no man pursueth” (Prov. 28:1).
Men will not pursue him, but his own sin pursues him. So it was with Cain, who, after killing his brother Abel, said in his terror: “Every one, therefore, that findeth me shall kill me” (Gen. 4:14). And although the Lord assured him that no one would harm him—“The Lord said to him: No; it shall not be so” (v. 15)—nevertheless Cain, pursued by his own sin, went ever as a fugitive over the earth, from one place to another, as the Scripture attests: “He dwelt a fugitive on the earth” (v. 16).
8. Moreover, sin brings with it remorse of conscience—that cruel worm that gnaws forever and never dies. “Their worm shall not die” (Isa. 66:24). The sinner goes to the entertainment, to the comedy, to the banquet; but in that very moment his conscience reproaches him and says: Wretched man, you have lost God; if you die now, where are you going? The remorse of conscience, even in the present life, is so great a torment that some, to free themselves from it, have put themselves to death—as did Judas, who in despair hanged himself from a tree. So too a certain man killed a child; and afterward he felt such remorse that he could not rest. To free himself from it, he went and shut himself up in a monastery; but finding no peace even there, he went of his own accord to the judge, confessed his crime, and had himself condemned to death.
9. God complains of this injustice that sinners do him, in forsaking him, who is the fountain of all consolation, to throw themselves into certain fetid and broken cisterns that cannot supply a single drop of peace. “For my people have done two evils; they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and have digged to themselves cisterns—broken cisterns that can hold no water” (Jer. 2:13). God says: You would not serve me, your God, in peace? Wretched creature, you shall serve your enemy in hunger, and thirst, and nakedness, and want of every kind. “Because thou didst not serve the Lord thy God with joy and gladness,… thou shalt serve thy enemy in hunger, and thirst, and nakedness, and in want of all things” (Deut. 28:47–48).
And sinners already experience this. What does the vindictive man not suffer after he has avenged himself by the death of his enemy? He goes wandering, fleeing from the relatives of the slain and from the ministers of justice—poor, afflicted, and abandoned by all. What does the unchaste man not suffer to reach his depraved desire? What does the avaricious man not suffer to acquire the goods of others? Ah, if they suffered for God what they suffer for sin, they would gain great merits for paradise and would lead a contented life; but by remaining in sin they lead an unhappy life in this world, only to lead afterward a still more unhappy life for eternity in the next.
And this is the lament of the damned in hell; in that prison of torments they say: “We wearied ourselves in the way of iniquity and destruction, and have walked through hard ways” (Wis. 5:7). Wretched us, they exclaim—we have walked through hard ways: living on earth we walked a life sown with thorns. We wearied ourselves in the way of iniquity: we toiled, we sweated blood, leading an unhappy life full of gall and poison. And why? Only to come afterward to lead a still more unhappy life for eternity in this pit of fire.
Second Point.—The happy life of those who love God.
10. “Justice and peace have kissed” (Ps. 84:11). In every soul in which justice dwells, peace also dwells. And so David says: “Delight in the Lord, and he will give thee the requests of thy heart” (Ps. 36:4). To understand this text well, we must consider that the worldly man tries to satisfy the appetites of his heart with the goods of this world; but because these goods cannot content him, his heart continually makes fresh demands, and however much he obtains of such goods, he is never content. Hence the prophet exhorts him: “Delight in the Lord, and he will give thee the requests of thy heart.” Leave creatures, seek your delight in God, and God will fully content all the demands of your heart.
11. This is exactly what happened to St. Augustine, who, as long as he delighted in creatures, never found peace; but when at last he detached himself from them and placed all his love in God, then he said: “All things are hard, O Lord, and you alone are repose.” As if to say: Ah, Lord, now I know my folly. I sought to find my happiness in earthly pleasures; but now I know that they are nothing but vanity and pains, and that you alone are the peace and joy of our hearts.
12. The Apostle says that the peace which the Lord gives to those who love him surpasses all the sensual delights that can be had on this earth. “The peace of God, which surpasseth all understanding” (Phil. 4:7). Ask a St. Francis of Assisi, who, in saying “My God and my all,” enjoyed here on earth an anticipated paradise. Ask a St. Francis Xavier, who, laboring in the Indies for Jesus Christ, was so filled by the Lord with divine sweetness that he came to say: “Enough, Lord, enough.”
Where, I ask, was there ever found anyone among worldlings who, being rich in the goods of this world, has said: Enough, O world, enough; no more riches, no more honors, no more applause, no more pleasures? No; these men go on forever seeking more honors, more riches, more delights; but the more they have of them, the more hungry and disquieted they remain.
13. In short, we must be brought round to this truth: that God alone gives content. Worldlings refuse to be persuaded of it, fearing that, if they give themselves to God, they will lead a life too bitter and discontented. But I say to them with the prophet: “Taste, and see that the Lord is sweet” (Ps. 33:9). Wretched men, why will you despise and call unhappy a life you have never yet tried? “Taste and see.”
Begin to make a trial of it; hear Mass every day; make your meditation and your visit to the most holy Sacrament; go to communion at least once a week; flee evil conversations; walk always with God; and you shall see that, by such a life, God will make you enjoy that sweetness and peace which until now the world, with all the delights it has given you, has not known how to give.
Points for Reflection
1. “Leave creatures, seek your delight in God, and God will fully content all the demands of your heart” (§10)
2. “Taste, and see that the Lord is sweet. Begin to make a trial of it; hear Mass every day; make your meditation and your visit to the most holy Sacrament; go to communion at least once a week” (§13)
3. “God alone gives content. By such a life, God will make you enjoy that sweetness and peace which until now the world, with all the delights it has given you, has not known how to give” (§13)