Show ST MARYS CATHEDRAl 4 A Catholic VIew of the Meaniiig of Christmas 4 Ksl BISHOP SCAN LAN SPEAKS I + CLAIM MADE BYTH FOUND It OF CBBISTIAIETY 4 Jesus Address Himself to the Human Hu-man Reason as Wen as to the Xu manS and the Ruman Will I Good wm to Men the Xeyn MugniflcentMusical Programme 4 There was a very large attendance at St 1farys cathedral at the Christmas Christ-mas servIces yesterday The church was beautifully decorated and as In an the churches musIc was a feature Miss Nora Gleason the director had arranged an exceptionally fine and appropriate I ap-propriate programme rhayers mass I was sung by the full choir with accompaniment ac-companiment by Master Roy Wllliams the young violinist A special feature of the mass was the Veni Crater rendered by Mrs J Hal Moore The Benedlctus was rendered by Mrs Moore Messrs Stolzenberger and Crawford and the Adeste FldeUs by Miss Kinsella and J P Murphy Other soloists were Miss Sinclair jfr G H West and Mr E F Stolzenberger Miss Grace Davi sang an Agnes Del by Millard The music was very fine The discourse dis-course was by Bishop Scanlan who said in part 11y dear brethren The Christian world commemorates today the birth of Jesus Christ the founder of Christianity Christi-anity There was nothing remarkable about his birth except that owIng to the extreme poverty of his parents it occurred in the mIdst of the most pitIful piti-ful and distressing circumstances relieved re-lieved only by the sweet I sounds of celestial ce-lestial voices singing Glory to God in the highest and peace on earth to men of good will These incidents of hIs birth attracted for a time some local attention but were soon forgotten We hear but little more about this child of poverty until he was 12 years of age when we find him in the magnificent temple of Jerusalem disputing with the aged priests and learned doctors of the law whom he confounded and silenced by his profound lmowledgeand sublime wisdom This remarkable incIdent too was soon forgotten and very probably he would have attracted no further public notice were it not that at thd age of 30 he publicly announced that I he was the only begotten and eternal I son of God with whom he was one In essence power and glorythat in fact he was the very creator of the heavens of the earth and of all things for it is thus St John the beloved disciple In the opening part of his gospel defines his claIm Jesus Christ mace the greatest and boldest claim that any being could possibly pos-sibly male but he took good care to establish and maintain his right to it by giving the greatest possible proofs These proofs bearing the seal ot the almighty al-mighty force reason into a dilemma it J11USt either accept Jesus Christ as God or reject him as such and must stand the consequences of taking either horn If human reason rejects Jesus Christ as God then hIs claim to be God must be false How then can reason account ac-count to itsNf for the Almighty possessed pos-sessed by hIm and which he exercIsed for the express purpose of proving hIs claim Then the God of truth must have loaned his power to confirm a falsehood and to impose it fOr all time on mankIndhis children The best and noblest of whom have been thereby there-by not only induced but positively commanded to practice idolatryto give to a mere creature an imposter the worship the honor and glory that inalienably beloDI to God himself Is such the idea that reason gives us of God Or will it dare to hold that such a deceItful and deceIving God can have any real existence If Jesus Chrit is not God then he was a mere mana creatureand the AlmIghty Creator noh only permItted but empowered and authorized him to deceive the best and most IntellIgent at our race ever since and to bind them in the fetters of a false religion that has caused still caUses and wIll continue con-tinue to the end of time to cause the destruction or thousands of our fellow beings in the lying cause of his assumed as-sumed divinity If Jesus Christ is not God then we should recover tile liberty of our natural na-tural inclinations which he thrartl of our dreams of worldly pleasures and happiness which he has forbiddenof the fascinating worship of the powers t C > j and beauties of nature which he has overt rQwn If l1 is not God then we shouli no 1bngerhid the cr11s of the poor and the afflIcted whose cause he so strongly advocated We should degrade de-grade woman reestablish slavery reconstruct re-construct the sermon on the mount and reverse the eight beatitudes If Ie suS Christ Is not God then boasted eu ightnment and civIlIzation is a mere bubble and the whole civilized 1 world has been fr nineteen centurIes and still is revolving on an axIs of fnlse I hood delusion and superstition In a I word jf Jesus Ohrist whQ 89 manifestly mani-festly wIelded the power of God is not God as he so persIstently claimed even to his dying breath en the cross then the proposition there is no God can be proved to reason as rIgidly as any problem In mathematics The great Napoleon said When on his dying bed r know men apd Jesus Christ Is not man If Jesus Christ is not God then there Is no Godln heaven Rationalists Rational-ists and all who expressly and positively positive-ly deny 110 divinity of Jesus Christ see and recognie its force and hence these arCvll theists for It Is only as such they can with any degree of con slstertc or logIc combat the godship of Christ They know just as well as Catholfc theologians and philosophers that a denialof the divine character of Jesus Christ logically means a denial of God and therefore a denial of reason Itself for If there is no God there is no reason at least no reason that is wOrth anything fDo you believe in the supernatural in God say a poted modern ratIonaIiist then you must kneel before the crucified On the other hand if Jesus ChrIst Is God then what he said must ba true He is then the way the truth and the life for all men Then he must be heard believed and obeyed His commandments com-mandments the Worlds laws his precepts pre-cepts the oliligato rule of human life and his judmentsinfalU and inevitable inevit-able If he is GotI tl1n we must all one day stand bQfore him asour judge to give an account of the use we made of the talents gifts and graces We received re-ceived from himof our inteHect in ascertaining and accepting his doctrines doc-trines of our will in regard to the ob s rvtlnce of his laws and of our worldl goods In regard to the charity which heso strongly inculcated If he is God and if we have not served adored and loved him as he has commanded we shall hear from hinton hint-on that last and terrIble day when no refuge is left us the crushing and de spairInspiring words I know you not depart from me into eternal punishment pun-ishment But Jesus Christ addressed himself not only to human reason but also to the human will and the h11man heart with all its grand affections and noble instincts and in thisthe practical side of his missIon he dIsplayed no less power and divinitythan in calming the tempest and calling back the dead from theIr graves His missIon as a God man on earth as he repeatedly declared was to establish the kingdom of his eternal father that is a kingdom of truth of justice of love of peace llld happinessa kIngdom In which a will I of his would be carried out as It is in heaven May thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven was to be the con I stant prayer and aim of his followers What a heaven he would make of this wicked distracted and unhappy un-happy world Who but a god could have conceived such a vast and beneficent ileA and what Is still more would have labored suffered and died as he did in order to realize it Who but God our heavenly father I could have such a good will and manifest mani-fest such boundless love for us his wIcked faithless and disobedIent children dren The key note of this his grand project pro-ject came from the lips of gad and echoed throubh the hills of Iudea 01 the memorable night of his birth Gory be to God in the highest and peace on earth to men of good will Yes there I isa good to men This i is all that is needed for mans ear hly I and eteqlal peace dnd happiness ThIs is all that Jesus Chris required to realize his grand purposeto establish his kingdom and to trlsfon this land of miser and exile into a veritable paradise of joy and happiness What a simple means after all for the accomplishment ac-complishment of such a grand worlt a means within the easy reach of all Each has only to contribute the little mite of a good will and why not contribute con-tribute It Does not each human being be-ing naturally seek happiness but there is no happiness without peace and no peace without a good wjwhat good comes or can come to us through a bad wit How when or where are we benefited by having a bad wIll Who in the history has ever got from a bad will even tQ his enemies anything any-thing except disturbance of mind and vexation of spirit I I was on account of this kick of goodwill I good-will on the part Qf the Jews that Jesus Christ wept over their unfortunate unfortun-ate ana doomed city LIsten to his tender and pathetic words on that oe easlon Jerusalem Jerusalem how often have i wished to gather thy chi dren together as a hen doth her chickens undOr her wings but thou wouldst not What a familiar and yet fitting Illustration of his love forman for-man and of the peace happiness and sincerity that hould core to man under the sway and protecting power of hIs love What more appropriate picture of love than that of a hen calling call-ing together her clicltens and opening broad her wIngs to receive them and thus to shelter and protect them from storm and danger and vhat better type of contentment anr happiness than that presented by a flock of little chickens thus sheltered protected and loved by their moth r Thou wDuldt not That was the whole trouble between Jesus Christ and the Jews They had not a good Wli They were unwilling to receive th blessings that he was so willing to bestow upon them and this was the only obstacle then and ever since to the realization of his beneficent PUt posethe establishment on earth of his I I i f 1 1l f I fathers kingdom of universal peace and love Now as Gods will is the standard and I measure of all goodness so a good will means one in conformity to Gods will Hence a good will to men means that we have for each other and for all men that will which God Jesus ChrIst i had for them Need I detain you by telling you what the spirit or will of Jesus Christ was towards men In the first place i was a spirit of obedIence obedience to parents obedience to the edicts and laws of the state to the judges who condemned him and to his eternal father The key note Of his passion and in fact of his whole life was In his own words Not my will I but thine be done He was obedient as St Paul says even to the death of the cross I children only imitated Jesus Christ arJ showed his spirit of obedience obedi-ence and good will towards their P ents what peaceful happy homes there should be throughout the land I ci zeus manifested the same spirit of obedience to the laws of the state and I all obeyed as he did the dictates of conscience of truth of justice and charity what a peaceful and contented world we should have Contrat this spirit of obedIence thIs good wIll for law and order 01 the part of Jesus ChrIst wIth tne popular outcry out-cry of the ageUberty and independence independ-ence without any restricting quaUfica tona liberty and independence that belong only to God and which even his own divine while on earth did not I claIm Liberty and independence false misleading terms and extremely dangerous sounds in the ears of the youths of the land In what are we Independent In-dependent Must we not obey them are we not dependent on the laws of society of morality and of the state Must we not conform our lives to these laws Can we live and be happy for a single day independently of our fellowmen fellow-men Are we not in nine cases out often of-ten miserable slaves of public opInion and of some degrading anjma1 passion I I therefore we would cultivate the spirit of Jesus Christ in our souls we should hear less of our rights our privileges our claims and our independence indepen-dence and more of our responsibilities our duties our needs and above all of our obedience Again the spirit of Jesus Christ was a spirit of poverty He the son of God and owner of all yet possessed noting i 0 i He the lord of all had less of this worlds goods and comforts than the birds of the air or the wild animals of the forest They respectively had their not whereon to lay hIs head But why this mislng of poverty hangIng like the pal of death over his birth He must have some purpose or meaning incoming In-coming into this world in this strange and unseeming mariner He unravel unseemng maner led the mystery when in his sermon on the mount he said Blessed are the poor In spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven Here it is againa goodwill good-will to men only expressed in other terspoverty of spirIt here taught us expressly by Jesus Christ and its importance im-portance and necessity emphasized by his own wilful actual poverty But must the rich then give up their rIches Not at all All that Jesus ChrIst requires re-quires is to give up our spirit our greed and inordinate love for themto loosen and detach our hearts and af fectlons from them and to cease to fectons worship and adore them But some one may ask what has a love of rIches and worldly goods to do with a good will to men Can we not have such a will and at the same time set our hearts on riches and money making Jesus Christ again answers you cannot serve two mastersGod and mammon I we set our hearts on riches then we I are Id01ators then our wills are not good because not in conformity with the will of God which commands us to give our hearts to hIm and not to I creatures If we have set OQr hearts on riches rind money malng what i we not do Yea what crime ul we not commit in order to atain oupur pose Is It not morally certaIn teat if we are animated by a spirit of geed we will harass oppress and rob the poor ana those who are dependent upon us whenever an opportunity of doing so presents Itself Does not our own experience confirm the teaching of all I history that an insatjable thirst 01 riches worldly goods and pleasures is the fruitful source of almost all the Irregularities disorders evils miseries and unhappiness of human life Oh what what a benefactor of our race was Jesus Christ What a protector pro-tector of the poor the weak and the dependent and what an enemy of the oppressor and the tyrant What peace and happiness he would bring to alto the rich by banishing through his I spirit of roverty from their hearts the I vexations and peacedestroying spirit of greed to the poor and helpless by commanding the rich under pain of eternal reprobation and punishment to show and exercise towards them a good will that is to treat them justly kindly generously and charitably in fact to love them a themselves I we all had this spirit of Jesus Christ this good will to men how we would contribute to solve some of the great questions that are agitating and threatening the peace of the world today to-day and hasten the realization of the grand purpOse of Jdsus Christ The establishment on this earth of the kingdom of his eternal fathera kingdom king-dom of truth justice of peace and happiness |