Human respect
“Whosoever killeth you, will think that he doeth a service to God.”—John 16:2
In today’s Gospel, the Savior, exhorting his disciples to be faithful to him under the persecutions that lay ahead of them, said: “Yea, the hour cometh, that whosoever killeth you, will think that he doeth a service to God.” So it was that the enemies of the faith believed they were rendering a service to God by putting Christians to death. Many Christians today do the very same thing: they kill their own souls, losing the grace of God for the sake of human respect, to please their worldly friends.
Oh, how many wretched souls this great enemy of our salvation—human respect—has sent to hell! I wish to speak to you of this today, faithful souls, so that, if you want to serve God and save your souls, you may guard against it as much as you can. In the first point, I will show how important it is not to be swayed by human respect; in the second, I will point out the means of overcoming this vice.
First Point.—On the importance of not being swayed by human respect.
1. “Woe to the world because of scandals” (Matt. 18:7). Jesus Christ has told us that, through the scandals given by the wicked, many souls go down to hell. But how is it possible to live in the midst of the world and avoid taking scandal? It is not possible. To escape it entirely, St. Paul says, we would have to leave this world altogether: “Otherwise you must needs go out of this world” (1 Cor. 5:10).
But it is well within our power to avoid familiar company with scandalous sinners. Hence the Apostle adds: “But now I have written to you not to keep company . . . with such an one, not as much as to eat” (1 Cor. 5:11). We must beware of forming close friendships with such sinners; for if we bind ourselves to them in particular affection, we will then feel a reluctance to oppose their bad habits and bad counsels. And so, through human respect and the fear of contradicting them, we will imitate their example and lose the friendship of God.
2. These lovers of the world not only glory in their own iniquities—“They rejoice in most wicked things” (Prov. 2:14)—but, what is worse, they want companions, and they ridicule all who try to live as true Christians and therefore keep clear of the dangers of offending God. This is a sin that greatly displeases God, and one he forbids in a particular way: “Despise not a man that turneth away from sin, nor reproach him therewith” (Ecclus. 8:6). Do not despise those who wish to keep away from sin, and do not try, by your reproaches and disorders, to draw them to do the opposite. For God says that those who hold good men up to ridicule have chastisements and hammers prepared to torment them in this life and the next: “Judgments are prepared for scorners, and striking hammers for the bodies of fools” (Prov. 19:29). They mock the servants of God, and God shall mock them for all eternity in hell: “But the Lord shall laugh them to scorn. And they shall fall after this without honor, and be a reproach among the dead forever” (Wis. 4:18). They try to disgrace the saints before the world, and God shall make them die in disgrace, and then send them to dwell among the damned in everlasting ignominy.
3. And truly it is too monstrous a wickedness, this of those who not only offend God themselves but want to make others offend him as well. Often enough they succeed in this execrable design; for there are many cowardly, weak souls who, to escape being mocked and made a laughingstock before others, give up the good and throw themselves into a wicked life. St. Augustine wept over this after his conversion to God, confessing that when he kept company with these ministers of Lucifer, he was ashamed not to appear as wicked and as shameless as they were: Pudebat me esse pudentem—“I was ashamed to be modest,” says the saint.
How many, to avoid hearing the taunts “There goes the saint—look at the saint! Give me a scrap of your habit for a relic. You had better go off to some desert. Why don’t you go and become a monk?”—how many, I say, to avoid hearing such jeers from their wicked friends, set about imitating them! How many, too, when they receive some affront, resolve to take revenge—not so much out of the passion of anger as out of human respect, so as not to be thought men of little spirit! How many, after some scandalous remark has slipped from their lips, fail to retract it as they are bound to do, for fear of losing the esteem of others! How many, for fear of losing the favor of some friend, sell their souls to the devil—as Pilate did, who, for fear of losing the favor of Caesar, condemned Jesus Christ to death!
4. Be attentive, my brethren. If we want to save our souls, we must overcome human respect and bear that little confusion brought on us by the jeers of these enemies of the cross of Jesus Christ. “For there is a shame that bringeth sin, and there is a shame that bringeth glory and grace” (Ecclus. 4:25). If we have not the patience to suffer this confusion, it will lead us into the pit of sin; but if we suffer it for God’s sake, it will win for us the divine favor here and great glory in heaven. St. Gregory writes: “As bashfulness is laudable in evil, so it is reprehensible in good” (Hom. 10 in Ezech.).
5. But, you will say, I mind my own affairs; I want to save my soul; why then should I be persecuted? There is no help for it: it is impossible for one who serves God not to be persecuted. “The wicked loathe them that are in the right way” (Prov. 29:27). Those who lead a bad life cannot bear the sight of others who live well, because such a life is a continual reproach to their own wicked ways; and so they say: “Let us lie in wait for the just; because he is not for our turn, and he is contrary to our doings, and upbraideth us with transgressions of the law” (Wis. 2:12).
The proud man, who seeks revenge for the slightest insult he receives, would have everyone else avenge the offenses done to them. The miser, who makes his gains by injustice, would have everyone do the same. The drunkard would have everyone get drunk as he does. The unchaste man, who boasts of his filthiness and cannot utter a word that does not reek of obscenity, would have everyone act and speak as he acts and speaks; and whoever does not, he calls a base, boorish, brutish, intractable fellow, without honor and without breeding. “They are of the world; therefore of the world they speak” (1 John 4:5). Those who are of the world can speak no other language than the world’s. Poor blind men! Sin has blinded them, and that is why they talk so: “These things they thought, and were deceived; for their own malice blinded them” (Wis. 2:21).
6. But I say again, there is no help for it. As St. Paul says, those who want to live in this world in union with Jesus Christ must be persecuted by the world: “And all that will live godly in Christ, shall suffer persecution” (2 Tim. 3:12). All the saints have been persecuted. You say: but I do no harm to anyone; why will they not leave me in peace? And the saints—the holy martyrs especially—what harm did they do? They were full of charity; they loved all and labored to do good to all; and see how the world treated them: it afflicted them, tearing their flesh with iron hooks, burning them with red-hot plates, and at last making them end their lives in torment.
And Jesus Christ, the saint of saints—what harm did he do? He consoled all; he healed all. “Virtue went out from him, and healed all” (Luke 6:19). And how did the world treat him? It persecuted him until it made him die of pain on the infamous gibbet of the cross.
7. This happens because the maxims of the world are wholly opposed to those of Jesus Christ. What the world esteems, Jesus Christ counts as folly. “For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God” (1 Cor. 3:19). And on the other hand, the world calls folly what Jesus Christ esteems—namely, crosses, sickness, contempt, and ignominies: “For the Word of the cross, to them indeed that perish, is foolishness” (1 Cor. 1:18).
How, says St. Cyprian, can a man hold himself to be a Christian when he is afraid of being held a Christian? Christianum se putat si Christianum esse veretur—“He imagines himself a Christian when he is afraid to be one” (Sermon 5 on the Lapsed). If we are Christians, let us show ourselves Christians in name and in deed; for if we are ashamed of Jesus Christ, he warns us that he will justly be ashamed of us, and on the day of universal judgment will not be able to keep us at his right hand: “For he that shall be ashamed of me and my words, of him the Son of Man shall be ashamed when he shall come in his majesty” (Luke 9:26). On that day he will say: You were ashamed of me on earth; now I am ashamed to see you with me in Paradise. Begone, accursed soul; go into hell to find your companions, who were ashamed of me.
But mark well the words quoted above: “He that shall be ashamed of me and my words.” St. Augustine says that some are ashamed to deny Christ, yet are not ashamed to deny the maxims of Christ: Erubescunt negare Christum, et non erubescunt negare verba Christi—“They blush to deny Christ, and they do not blush to deny the words of Christ” (Sermon 48). But you may tell me that, if you say a certain thing cannot be done in good conscience, since it is against the Gospel, your friends will laugh at you and call you a pious fraud. Then, replies St. John Chrysostom, you are not willing to be mocked by a fellow servant, but you are content to be hated by your God? Non vis a conservo derideri, sed odio haberi a Deo tuo?—“You do not wish to be mocked by a fellow servant, but to be hated by your God?” (Hom. 91 in Act. 19).
8. The Apostle, who gloried in being a follower of Jesus Christ, said: “The world is crucified to me, and I to the world” (Gal. 6:14). As I am a man crucified to the world—an object of its scoffs and ill-treatment—so the world is to me an object of contempt and abomination. We must grasp this truth: either we put the world under our feet, or the world will put our souls under its feet. But what, after all, is the world and all its goods? “All that is in the world is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life” (1 John 2:16). To what are all the goods of this earth reduced? To mire, which is wealth; to smoke, which is honors; and to filthiness, which is the pleasures of the flesh. And what will all these goods profit us, if we lose our souls? “What doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his soul?” (Matt. 16:26).
9. Whoever loves God and wants to save his soul must despise the world and all human respect; and in this everyone must do himself violence. St. Mary Magdalene had to do herself great violence in order to overcome human respect, and the murmurings and jeers of the world, when, at a banquet, in the presence of so many people, she went and cast herself at the feet of Jesus Christ, washing them with her tears and drying them with her hair. But thus she became a saint, and merited that Jesus Christ should pardon her and, still more, should praise her great love: “Many sins are forgiven her because she hath loved much” (Luke 7:47).
One day St. Francis Borgia was carrying a pot of broth under his cloak to certain prisoners, when he met his son on the road, riding by in fine style with a company of noblemen. The saint felt a certain blush at letting it be seen what he carried hidden there; but, to conquer that human respect, what did he do? He took out the pot, set it on his head, and so made a mockery of the world. Jesus Christ, our Head and Master, as he hung upon the cross, was mocked by the soldiers: “If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross” (Matt. 27:40). He was mocked by the priests, who said: “He saved others; himself he cannot save” (Matt. 27:42). But he held firm and would not come down from the cross; he was content to end his life upon it, and so he conquered the world.
10. St. Jerome writes: “I give thanks to my God that I am worthy to be hated by the world” (Epis. ad Asellam). The saint gave thanks to God for having made him worthy of the world’s hatred; for Jesus Christ called his disciples blessed when they should be hated by men: “Blessed shall you be when men shall hate you” (Luke 6:22). My Christians, let us take comfort: if the men of the world curse and revile us, God at the same time praises and blesses us. “They will curse, and thou wilt bless” (Ps. 109:28).
Is it not enough for us to be praised by God—praised by the Queen of heaven, by all the angels, by all the saints, and by all good men? Let the worldly say what they will; let us go on giving pleasure to God, who will reward us in the next life all the more, the greater the violence we have done ourselves in despising the contradictions of men. Each of us should imagine that there is no one in the world but himself and God. When the wicked mock us, let us commend to God these poor blind men who are miserably ruining themselves; and let us, for our part, thank the Lord, who gives us the light he denies to these wretches. Let us go on along our own road. To gain the whole, we must conquer the whole.
Second Point.—On the means of overcoming human respect.
11. To overcome human respect, it is necessary to fix in our hearts the holy resolution of preferring the grace of God to all the goods and favors of this world, and to say with St. Paul: “Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, . . . nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God” (Rom. 8:38, 39). Jesus Christ exhorts us not to fear those who can take away the life of the body, but to fear only him who can condemn both soul and body to hell. “And fear you not them that kill the body; but rather fear him that can destroy both soul and body into hell” (Matt. 10:28).
Either we want to follow God, or the world; but if we want to follow God, we must leave the world. “How long do you halt between two sides?” said Elias to the people. “If the Lord be God, follow him” (3 Kings 18:21). We cannot serve the one and the other. Whoever wants to please men cannot please God, said the Apostle: “If I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ” (Gal. 1:10).
12. The true servants of Jesus Christ rejoice to see themselves despised and ill-treated for the love of Jesus Christ. The holy apostles “went from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were accounted worthy to suffer reproach for the name of Jesus” (Acts 5:41). Moses could have escaped the wrath of Pharaoh by letting the common report stand that he was the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. But Moses denied that he was her son, and chose rather to be afflicted with the rest of the Hebrews, esteeming, as St. Paul says, the reproach of Christ a greater good than all the riches of the world: “Choosing rather to be afflicted with the people of God; . . . esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasure of the Egyptians” (Heb. 11:25, 26).
13. Wicked friends come to you and say: What is this extravagance of yours? Why don’t you do as everyone else does? Answer them: But not everyone does so; there are others who lead a holy life. They are few? Then it is these few I want to follow, for the Gospel says: “Many are called, but few are chosen” (Matt. 20:16). “If you wish to be saved with the few,” says St. John Climacus, “live with the few.”
But, they will go on, do you not see that everyone murmurs against you and speaks ill of your way of living? Answer: It is enough for me that God does not speak ill of it. Tell me, which is better—to obey God or to obey men? So St. Peter and St. John answered the Jewish priests: “If it be just in the sight of God to hear you rather than God, judge ye” (Acts 4:19). And if they ask, How can you bear so great an injury as you have received? Do you not see that you can no longer show your face? And can you put up with it?—answer: I am a Christian, and it is enough for me to show well before God.
This is how you must answer these satellites of Satan; you must despise all their maxims and reproaches. And when it is necessary to rebuke those who make no account of God, you must take heart and correct them publicly, as the Apostle writes: “Them that sin, reprove before all” (1 Tim. 5:20). And when the honor of God is at stake, the rank of the man who offends God must not frighten us; let us tell him openly: But this is a sin; it cannot be done—as the Baptist did, who said to King Herod, who was living with his brother’s wife: “It is not lawful for thee to have her” (Matt. 14:4).
It is true that men will reckon us fools and hold us up to derision; but on the day of judgment they will confess that they were the fools, while we shall have the glory of being numbered among the saints and among the children of God. They will say: “These are they whom we had sometime in derision. . . . We fools esteemed their life madness, and their end without honor. Behold how they are numbered among the children of God, and their lot is among the saints” (Wis. 5:3, 4, 5).
Points for Reflection
1. “Whoever loves God and wants to save his soul must despise the world and all human respect; and in this everyone must do himself violence” (§9)
2. “To overcome human respect, it is necessary to fix in our hearts the holy resolution of preferring the grace of God to all the goods and favors of this world” (§11)
3. “Which is better—to obey God or to obey men? . . . It is enough for me that God does not speak ill of it” (§13)