Popular Sermons on the Catechism-The End of Man

"What doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his own soul' (Matt. xvi. 26.)

It is our purpose from this day forward, with the help of the Holy Spirit, to undertake a series of discourses which shall be devoted to the explanation of the catechism.

Do not say: "We do not need an explanation of the catechism. That is for school children." It is true that as school children you have had the catechism in your hands, and have learned it by heart, and have had it explained to you. But can you honestly say you have ever learned it. thoroughly, or that you fully understood the explanation given, and that in the course of years you have forgotten nothing! No one, I think, can say this with truth; but if anyone could say so we should reply that there is nothing more useful than to have these explanations brought again clearly and forcibly before our minds, and as we grow older to be helped to see their deeper and wider meaning.

I

Let me, therefore, begin with one of the very first questions: Why did God make you? This is a most natural as well as a most important question. Children when they see anything new and strange to them ask at once: What is it for? What are you going to do with it? Why do you want it? What is a knife for? To cut with. What is a pencil for? To write with. What is a spoon for? To eat with. Is it not, therefore, very natural to ask: Why am I in the world? What have I got to do here? What purpose do I serve?

One would imagine that thoughts such as these must occur to every man as soon as he is old enough to reflect at all. The question is not only natural, but also pre-eminently important. So long as I do not understand the use of a thing I really know next to nothing about it. Show a flute to a deaf and dumb man-he has no knowledge of sound, and the flute remains a riddle to him, because he can not understand the use to which it is put.

A man who does not know for what purpose he has been brought into this world is an enigma to himself. If he does not know what his end is he can not possibly fulfill it. A man who neither knows nor fulfills his end is fundamentally a failure. A man who can not give a clear and decisive answer to the question, "Why am I in this world' "- even should he have counted the stars. and probed all the secrets of nature - knows absolutely nothing.

Let us, then, look for an answer to this primary and most important question: What is our end in life? We may help ourselves to get at the true answer if we determine, first, what it is not. Have we power to choose it? There are many things in which choice is free: our dwelling-place, our business, our undertakings, our journeys. But can we choose in the same way what our last end is to be? Whether it shall be high or low, of the earth, earthy or soaring above the stars? No, that we can not do. And why not? Because in this matter we are not our own masters. If we would go to the root of the matter; it is simply because we are creatures.

'The potter out of wet and plastic clay molds a vase. When it is finished to whom does it belong? Who is to decide its fate - whether it shall be destroyed or preserved, whether it shall be put to noble or base uses, whether the potter shall keep it for himself, or shall sell it, or give it away?

All this the potter himself must decide. The vase is his own work, and belongs to him. Well, now, are we ourselves the authors of our own being? On the contrary, our body and soul are the work of the almighty hand of God. We are His creatures and entirely dependent upon Him. It is therefore not for us to decide what our end in life is to be, but for Him who is our master. And He has decided it. He says of mankind: "I have created him for My glory; I have formed him, and made. him" (Is. xliii. 7). We must, therefore, give glory to God with our understanding, by endeavoring to apprehend Him and His perfections. All the powers of our soul and body must glorify Him by striving to do His holy will, that is, by keeping His commandments; we must also work for Him by making His glory' our highest aim and our greatest happiness. We are in this world to know God, to love Him, and to serve Him. This is the end which God Himself has appointed for us.

Moreover, the final end of man can not be found on earth, for, if it were, then it would consist in some one or other of the good things of this world. Now what is it that this world has to offer us? Treasures, riches, possessions - the lust of the eyes. Comfort, pleasure, amusement-the lust of the flesh. Honors, distinctions, a great.name - the pride of life. Let us pile all these things together - although as a rule the pursuit of one of them will be found to exclude the others - but even taking them all together, could they form our true and final end? I say no, they could not, and I hope to prove this conclusively. The real end of man must be such, that not only a few, but the greater number of mankind may be able to reach it. Very well, then; suppose the competition to begin. Suppose every one to give himself up to the pursuit of wealth, of money, and money's equivalents.

What is the result? A few millionaires; but from the beginning to the end of the world the majority of men will have to scramble every day for the crust of bread which keeps the wolf from the door. Suppose them all to run after pleasure and enjoyment. A few may secure it, but what of the sick, the suffering, and the dying? They can not possibly attain their end if it consists in the joys of this earth. Suppose every one to join in the race for worldly honors. How many are successful enough to be recognized and acknowledged by the world, to have a monument raised to them, to live in history? Only a few, a very few.

Take a palpable illustration of this. How many thousands or even hundreds of thousands have lived during the last two or three hundred years in my own native town, and have been buried perhaps in the same cemetery? What do we know about them? Did they amass great earthly treasure? No. Were they even able to live lives of pleasure? Quite the contrary. Did any of them make a great name? We should be hard put to it to recall a single one from amongst them were their names not carved upon their tombstones or their mortuary cards posted at the church door. Clearly, then, if the end of man consists in earthly happiness, in the treasures, joys, and honors of the world, we must admit that our forefathers-most of them, at all events - did not attain that end, that they lived in vain. But if we open an old newspaper and read that "so and so died on such and such a day, of such and such a year, fortified with all the sacraments of the Church," then we must allow that all the same he did attain that end. For through death he has reached the goal he hoped for, which was to dwell, beyond earth and time, with God for all eternity. This is an end which can be attained by all, provided they are men of good will.

But let it be conceded for a moment that man's end is here on this earth. Then we can only say that it is an end which can never content us, nor satisfy the heart. Think of Solomon, the wise king! How great were his possessions! His ships brought him gold from distant lands, and he tells us that he allowed himself every gratification that his heart desired. His name was famous at home and abroad. It lives now and will live for all time. And what has he to say about all this earthly happiness? That all is vanity and vexation of spirit.

History recalls that Alexander the Great, who while still a young man had conquered half the world, on coming to the shores of the sea wept like a child. Why? Because the sea set a boundary to his ambition and because all he had already acquired was not enough to satisfy him. No, this world is not big enough to be the final end of an immortal soul. It would be an unworthy end, and one which would leave us no better off than the beasts. It is only those who assert that man's life ends with death who can propose earthly happiness as his goal.

The Holy Scriptures put into the mouths of certain men words like these: "Come therefore and let us enjoy the good things that are present, and let us speedily use the creatures as in youth. Let us fill ourselves with costly wine and ointments, and let not the flower of the time pass by us. Let us crown ourselves with roses before they be withered; let no meadow escape our riot. Let none of us go without his part in luxury; let us everywhere leave tokens of joy, for this is our portion and this our lot," i.e., our goal or end.

But who are they who speak so? Those who assert that the body returns to dust, that the soul dissolves into thin air, that life melts away like a. mist, a cloud, a shadow. It is clear that those who place men's goal here below must also deny the existence of an eternal God and an immortal soul.

But just as it is true that God exists and that the soul is immortal, so also it is true that our last end lies beyond this world and in God. We are here on earth to know God, to love Him, and to serve Him, and by these means to reach heaven. To know God is the beginning of the way. His love and service are the steps by which we plod along the path which leads to the end. To be united to God, to live with God, by God, in God, that is the end itself.

In this way God is glorified and the creature made happy. When we consider it in this light, this world is not the end, but the battle-field where the victory is won, the scene of our labors where the reward is earned, the road along which we struggle until we come to the goal.


II

We have been created to know, to love and serve God in this world that we may be happy with Him for ever in the next. The terms of this answer recall the principal headings into which the catechism is divided.

The first thing required to attain our end is to know God. By reason and reflection we can come to recognize the existence of a God, just as we can see the stars with the naked eye. But if we want to know the Lord our God, His perfections and His works more fully and completely, then just as an astronomer makes use of the telescope to study the firmament more closely, so must we accept some extrinsic aid, which is supplied by God's revelation about Himself. For this reason the first part of the catechism treats of faith.

In order to attain our end we must love and serve God. We do this in so far as we keep His commandments. The second part of the catechism, therefore, deals with the Commandments.

But it is beyond our poor strength, always and under all circumstances to have perfect faith, and to keep the Commandments. To do this we need the help of God's grace, which we obtain chiefly by prayer and the holy sacraments. The third part of the catechism treats therefore of the means of grace.

Faith, the Commandments, and the Means of Grace- the Sacraments, are the headings of three principal divisions of the catechism, with all of which we must be well acquainted if we are to work out our salvation. The catechism, then, contains the points, which are of the highest importance to us, which we can never know and understand too well, and the meaning of which should be as dear to us as our eternal welfare. "What doth it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul?" What shall it profit us, indeed, to know all the stars of heaven, all the concerns of men, all the secrets of nature, if we do not understand that which will lead us to our end?

Let us conclude with a prayer that God may give to me the grace to instruct you rightly, and to you so to receive these instructions that they may help you to eternal salvation.
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Adapted from Popular Sermons on the Catechism by Fr. A. Hubert Bamberg, Edited by Fr. Herbert Thurston, S.J. (1914)