An edifying life proves the preacher sincere

St. Spiridion – AD 348 …The bishops of Cyprus being on a certain occasion assembled together, Triphillius, Bishop of Ledri was engaged to preach a sermon; and mentioning that passage, “Take up thy bedf and walk”, he made use of a word to express the sick man’s bed, which he though more elegant and beautiful than in the original text. Spiridion, full of resentment at this false nicety, and attempt to add ghraces to what was more adorned with simplicity, arose and asked whether the preacher know better the right term than the evangelist? Our Saint defended the cause of St Athanasius In the council of Sardica in 347 and shortly after passed to eternal bliss.

Sacred learning is necessary in a minister of the Church, but sanctity is not less necessary. Nothing is so eloquent or powerfully persuasive as example. A learned man may convince, but to convert souls is chiefly the privilege of those that are pious. There have been few ages in which polite literature has been cultivated with greater ardour than the present wherein we live. How many great orators, how many elegant writers have made their appearance in it! If these were all saints, what a reformation of manner should we see among the people!

It is sanctity that possesses the art of softening the heart and subduing all the powers of the soul. An edifying life proves the preacher sincere, and is alone a sermon which obstinacy itself will find it hard to hold out against; it stops the mouth of the enemies of truth and virtue. The life, vigour, and justice of a discourse are the fruit of wit, genius and study, but unction in words is produced only by the heart. A man must be animated with the spirit of God to speak powerfully on divine things; the conversion of hearts if the work of God. Butlers lives of the saints first published in 1759, a work of thirty years.Images show the relic of St Spiridion the right hand.

Destructive and negative writing and preaching ruins and sweeps away

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Cardinal Manning wrote “The Apostles were to be “witnesses” unto Him. Witnesses give evidence - they do not argue. St Paul said “Our preaching is not in the persuasive words of mere wisdom, but in the demonstration of the Spirit and in power”.

“A Catholic priest comes from Jesus as a herald. He can do what others cannot do – assert and affirm, and leave the Truth to do the work by its own evidence. The surest way to keep error out of men’s minds is to fill them with the Truth. Assertion and affirmation construct and build up, filling the mind with Truth or at least some positive and intelligent statement. Clearness is evidence. Truth looks out upon the human reason. The voice of the Church is positive, dogmatic, affirmative, touching the hearts of men and lifting their souls to Heaven.

Destructive and negative writing and preaching ruins and sweeps away, it leaves a space, a void, a bleakness of soul.”

Another sermon by Fr. Archer

16th Sunday after Pentecost on Good Example
It came to pass that when Jesus went into one of the homes of the Chief of the Pharisees, on the Sabbath day to eat bread, that they watched him. Luke 6 14 V1.

As Our divine Master Christ, Jesus was ever careful to enforce by His own example the lesson which He taught. Delineated in His conduct, the distinguishing features of His true disciples, and exhibited in his own person, a perfect image of all the virtues which are to compose and finish the character of a Christian. There is not any one action of His life so minute and inconsiderable but, if we observe it with attention, and with hearts desirous of improvement, we may draw from it some useful instruction.

In the gospel of this day, He is represented entering into the house of a leading man among the Pharisees to take his meal and we read that those who were present took particular notice of His conduct. Although they watched Him with a very malevolent design, and with no other view than to find Him doing some action which they might construe into a violation of the Sabbath, yet they must have no doubt observed, they must have admired that air of ….. modesty and humility, which appeared in His countenance and in His whole comportment. They beheld the temperance which presided over His frugal repast, they caught the words of grace which fell from His lips, they heard the instruction, the heavenly conversation by which he informed the minds and inflamed the hearts of his disciples. In a word Our divine Lord set before them the example of so many virtues, on this apparently trifling occasion, that had they not beheld them through a false medium with eyes obscured by prejudice and passion, they must have become enamoured of the beauty of virtue and been efficaciously excited to now model their own lives and conduct after so excellent an original….

PUBLIC APOLOGY TO FATHER PAUL MORGAN

I unreservedly apologise for the personal comments previously made on this blog, in a post entitled reticence set aside. These have been removed. They were ill judged and utterly inappropriate, and it was wrong of me to state them in this way.
Dorothy Banks