SERMONS OF ST JOHN VIANNEY PART 8

This is a series of the sermons of St. John Marie Vianney. Click the link below for part 7.

http://smcdefense.blogspot.com/2022/04/sermons-of-st-john-vianney-part-7.html

THEY ARE FOR THE WORLD

More of them yawn and stretch and turn the pages of their prayer book as if they were examining it in order to see whether the printer had made any mistakes. There are others, and you can see them sleeping as soundly as if they were in a comfortable bed. The first thought that comes to them when they awake is not that they have been profaning so holy a place but: 'Oh, Lord, this will never be over. . . . I'm not coming back any more. And finally there are those to whom the word of God (which has converted so many sinners) is actually nauseating. They are obliged to go out, they say, to get a breath of air or else they would die. You will see them, distressed and miserable, during the services. But no sooner is the service over (and often even before the priest has actually left the altar) than they will be pressing around the door from which the first of the congregation are streaming out, and you will notice that all the joy which they had lost during the service has come back again. They are so tired that often they have not the 'strength to come back to the evening service. If you were to ask them why they were not coming to this, they would tell you: 'Ah, we would have to be all the day in the church. We have other things to do.

For such people there is no question of instruction, nor of the Rosary, nor of evening prayers. They look upon all these things as of no consequence. If you asked them what had been said during the instruction, they would say: 'He did too much shouting. . . . He bored us to death. . . . I can't remember anything else about it. . . . If it hadn't been so long, it might have been easier to remember some of it. . . . That is just what keeps the world away from religious services- they are too long.

It is quite right to say 'the world because these people belong to the camp of 'the worldly, although they do not know it. But now we shall try to make them understand things a little better (at least if they want to). But, being deaf and blind (as they are), it is very difficult to make them understand the words of life or to comprehend their own unhappy fate.

To begin with, they never make the Sign of the Cross before a meal or say Grace afterwards, nor do they recite the Angelus. If, as a result of some old habit or training, they still observe these practices and you should happen to see the manner in which they carry them out, you would feel sick: the women will simultaneously be getting on with their work or calling to their children or members of the household; the men will be turning a hat or a cap around in their hands as if searching for holes. They think as much about God as if they really believed that He did not exist at all and that they were doing all this for a joke. They have no scruples about buying or selling on the holy day of Sunday, even though they know, or at least they should know, that dealing on a reasonably big scale on a Sunday, when there is no necessity for it, is a mortal sin. Such people regard all such facts as trifles. They will go into a parish on a holy day to hire labourers, and if you told them they were doing wrong, they would reply: 'We must go when we can find them there. They have no problem, either, about paying their taxes on a Sunday because during the week they might have to go a little further and take a few moments longer to complete the job. 'Ah, you will say to me, 'we wouldn't think much of all that. You would not think much of all that, my dear people, and I am not at all surprised, because you are worldly. You would like to be followers of God and at the same time to satisfy the standards of the world. Do you realize, my children, who these people are? They are the people who have not entirely lost the faith and to whom there still remains some attachment to the service of God, the people who do not want to give up all religious practices, for indeed, they themselves find fault with those who do not go often to the services, but they have not enough courage to break with the world and to turn to God's side. They do not wish to be damned, but neither do they wish to inconvenience themselves too much. They hope that they will be saved without having to do too much violence to themselves. They have the idea that God, being so good, did not create them for perdition and that He will pardon them in spite of everything; that the time will come when they will turn over to God; that they will correct their faults and abandon all their bad habits. If, in moments of reflection, they pass their petty lives before their eyes, they will lament for their faults, and sometimes they will even weep for them . . . .

Reference:

https://www.ecatholic2000.com/cts/untitled-625.shtml