SERMONS OF ST. JOHN VIANNEY PART 21

This is a series of the sermons of St. John Marie Vianney. Click the link below for part 20.

http://smcdefense.blogspot.com/2022/09/sermons-of-st-john-vianney-part-20.html

ALL THAT YOU SAY OVER AND ABOVE THESE IS OF EVIL

My dear brethren, this is what swearing is: it is calling upon God to witness what we say or promise; and perjury is an oath which is false-that is to say, it is perjury to swear to what is not true.

The name of God is so holy, so great, and so adorable that the angels and the saints, St. John tells us, say unceasingly in Heaven: 'Holy, holy, holy, is the great God of hosts; may His holy name be blessed for ever and ever. When the Blessed Virgin went to visit her cousin Elizabeth and the saintly woman said to her, 'How happy you are to have been chosen to be the mother of God! the Blessed Virgin replied to her: 'He that is mighty hath done great things to me, and holy is His name.

We ought, you see, my dear brethren, to have a great respect for the name of God and pronounce it only with tremendous veneration and never in vain. St. Thomas tells us that it is a serious sin to pronounce the name of God in vain, that it is not a sin like other sins. In other sins the light nature of the matter diminishes the seriousness of and the malice in them, and quite often what could be a mortal sin is only a venial one. For instance, larceny is a mortal sin, but if it is larceny of something very small, like a couple of pennies, then it will be a venial sin only. Anger and gluttony are mortal sins, but slight anger or a little gluttony are only venial sins. In regard to swearing, however, it is not the same thing at all; here the lighter the matter, the greater the profanity. The reason for this is that the lighter the matter, the greater is the irreverence, as if a person were to ask the king to serve as a witness to some trifle, which would be to make a fool of him and to belittle him. Almighty God tells us that anyone who swears by His name will be sternly punished. We read in Holy Scripture that in the time of Moses there were two men, of whom one swore by the holy name of God.

He was seized and brought before Moses, who asked God what should be done with him. The Lord told Moses to bring the man into a field and to command all those who had been witnesses of this blasphemy to put their hands upon his head and to stone him to death in order to do away with the blasphemer in the very midst of all his own people.

The Holy Scripture tells us again that whoever is accustomed to swearing, his house will be filled with iniquities and the curse will never leave the house until it has been destroyed. Our Lord Jesus Christ tells us in the Gospel not to swear by Heaven nor by earth because neither the one nor the other belongs to us. When you want to confirm something say: 'That is, or 'that is not. 'Yes, or 'no. 'I did it, or 'I did not do it.

Everything you say over and above that comes from the Devil. Besides, anyone who is in the habit of swearing is a fiery, undisciplined sort of person, very much wrapped up in his own feelings and always ready to swear as well as to a lie as to the truth.

But, you may say to me, if I do not swear, no one will believe me. You are wrong. People never believe someone who swears because swearing presupposes someone who has no religion, and a person without religion is not worthy of being believed. There are many people who do not know how to sell the smallest article without swearing, as if their oath guaranteed the quality of their merchandise. If people see a merchant who swears oaths while he is selling, they immediately think that he is a person of bad faith and that they must be on their guard against being cheated. His oaths provoke only disgust and no one believes him. On the contrary, a person who does not swear adds good faith to what he is telling us.

Reference:

https://www.ecatholic2000.com/cts/untitled-627.shtml