The School of Love & Other Essays, April 30

COURAGE

[continued from yesterday]

...When we look at the dealings of Jesus Christ with men, it is easy to see how He singles out this third class for His most emphatic condemnation.

For the merely blind He prays: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do;" and that even though their blindness is chiefly from themselves.

For the weak He holds out a helping hand; even Judas, the finally impenitent traitor, He treats with pity to the end; for even Judas owned that he "had sinned."

But for these other cowards, these cowards who hid their nature under the garb of brazenness, who sinned, and "braved" it, and taught it to others, for these He has only indignation and doom.

"He who receiveth one tiny child in my name, receiveth Me. But he who shall scandalise one of these tiny children who believe in Me, it were better for him that a mill-stone were tied about his neck and that he were cast into the depths of the sea. Woe to the world because of scandals! It must needs be that scandal should come. But woe to that man by whom the scandal cometh."

For the rest of men, Jesus Christ tells us, He prays; for such as these He does not pray; for He leaves them to their self-inflicted sentence....

[continued tomorrow]
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From The School of Love and Other Essays
by The Most Reverend Alban Goodier, S.J.
Burns, Oates, & Washburn, Ltd. 1918