The Fruits of Penitential Sorrow

At a season like that of Lent, when the Church gravely counsels her children, for the good of their own souls, to make a sustained effort at deepest repentance, and more effectual self-discipline; when She suggests or prescribes definite means towards this end, such as fasting and abstinence, and more frequent devotion, in such measure as each of us can bear them, She is not ignorant of the danger of formalism, into which some minds might be betrayed, by these very exercisesnot of course by the right use of them, for which we have the example of our Blessed Lord and His Apostles, and holy men of all agesnot, I say then, by the right use of these means, but by their perversionby looking to them as ends instead of meansthat is, by resting in them, instead of looking through and beyond them, up to God for the gift of a higher and more spiritual life.

Our Lord Himself has cautioned as forcibly on this very point. On the one hand, He did not say, Fast not at all, as the spurious religion of the world in the present day would have itdecrying by cant names and coarse ridicule, everything which is deep, and serious, and practical. To say, Do not use moral means towards a moral end, because some misuse it, would be something like saying, Do not eat, because some are gluttonousdo not drink, because some are drunkards. He did not say that. But on the other hand, He did not forget the danger of ostentatious formalism, of which those times as well as ours had its plentiful examplesso He said, "When ye fast, be not as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance; for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward. But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face, that thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret, and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly." There is not perhaps so much danger in our own times of falling into the literal fault of the hypocrites of those days, simply because the externals of religion amongst ourselves are singularly distasteful to the popular mind. The easiest and apparently surest way, of attracting public favor just now, is to bid defiance to all ordinary forms, or established usages whateverbut still the human heart is the same as it always was; and men may yet, under various disguises, be guilty of formalism; e.g., one perhaps may be punctilious in attendance at Church on the Lord's Day, and yet will not scruple to revel in every kind of self-indulgence throughout the week; another may exchange the grosser sins of the flesh only for the more subtle sins of the spiritmay restrain his appetite for material food, yet only thereby feed his pride; may frequent religious assemblies only to stir up strife, or indulge in censoriousness; may give alms to parade his name in a subscription list, or be zealous in promoting charitable objects, without having a spark of charity in his character. And these faults may arise, not, observe, from any defectiveness in Churches, in fasting, in religious services, in charitable associations, as means towards their several ends, but simply from the deceitfulness of the human heart itself. To use an instrument adapted for a certain purpose, is, primâ facie, the likeliest way to effect that purpose, whatever it may be; but still by misapplying the instrument, the purpose may be defeatedand this is true in moral and spiritual things, as well as in all others.

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