Catholic during the Great Apostasy

Time is short – this is one of those truths that no one can deny, not even those who do not know what to do with themselves all day and how to kill the hours of the day, whose boredom on the face of which everyone can read;(…) and this boredom like a terrible dream pursues them everywhere. Even those to whom every day becomes an eternity, however, complain that life is short.

When we read in Scripture that human life is compared to smoke that flies away; to a shadow that disappears; to a dream that flees, we find in these comparisons a truth that is highly striking. The arrow that, released from the chord, cuts through the air; the thunder that tears through the cloud; those heavenly bodies that fly through the immeasurable skies with incomprehensible speed, are but a faint image of the speed with which our lives disappear.

What is life compared to eternity? It is less, like this one, to the eye invisible pollen, compared to the lives of our ancestors! What with them was still the springtime of life, with us is a broken old age; they were just beginning life at that time, when our bones are already rotten in their graves! How many today reach 80, 90 years of age? Wherever we glance, youth is full and crowded, and between them, how rare the frost of old age will turn out to be a head! Ask those: where has your life gone? – I do not know, it has disappeared into the abysses unfathomable, as the stone into the sea thrown, flies to the bottom of the sea.

This truth is clearly shown in people in the world in love. You are in office, o! as you work day and night, in the hope that your labor and honesty will receive the reward – and you have just already, already stood at the end of your wishes, – but death will rush in, overtake the government decree and will not relent, – and you will carry it with you to the grave; but no, – death will wait, so that you will be comforted a little more by this well-deserved reward! Only instead of consolation, perhaps in spirit you will smile and say: will this honor return my youth and my health?

You couldn’t wait for that moment when you would stand at the altar with your fiancé, you counted every minute; and the day came, and the hour came. Recall how many tears you have shed since then; you are still alive, but maybe you’ve carried your happiness to the grave long ago, and maybe you’re complaining and wishing you could turn back time so that the moment you longed for back then wouldn’t come.

Thou didst decide in thy youth: I must be a rich lord, and thou didst throw thyself with all thy wit into this, thou didst begin perhaps unjust trials, thou didst use wicked wiles, thou didst take advantage of simple-minded people, and thou didst succeed – and people marveled – and thou didst begin to buy real estate, and palaces to build – and you furnished your house with a great reat.

And now what ? what wealth by dishonest means acquired ? Behold, the poor beggar has fallen asleep soundly under the open sky, on a hard stone, and you, on a comfortable bed, are haunted from sleep by the phantoms of conscience. Beautiful steeds in a gilded carriage carry this emaciated body through the streets, in which gout has set in, breaking bones and still whispering in your ear: this is for the debauchery of your youth.

And so it is that people run, work, from trouble to trouble, from play to play, from suffering to suffering they pass, and time flows as that rapid river that never retreats back to its source.

And the ungodly man, and the righteous man – the end of them is the same. . And you say: my time is my property. – Yours? O! just about time you cannot say that. What time is it that is yours? Is the past? where is it? what can you do with it? Is it the future? And who has assured you of it? The present? but where to look for it ?

Looking cold-bloodedly at human endeavors, it takes pity; these hopes so certain of this future, over which nothing is more uncertain! A child will be born! My God, and what happiness above that can be greater! Ah! why don’t you thank God that He has made you father and mother? why don’t you beg Him to give you light and reason, to fulfill these heavy parental duties, so that you and your child can go to heaven together? Why are you appropriating this child as your property, which, however, is the property of God, given only to you for protection? For did you, Father, give this child an immortal soul? Did you, Mother, shed your blood on the cross for this child?

And yet you consider this poor child only as a plaything, which is to serve to excite your love and vanity. – My child – no! it is not yours, it is God’s child! – My child must be intelligent, he must be famous, beautiful, rich, I will give him the most splendid upbringing, I will send him on journeys, I will try to get him a great position. – The poor child, meanwhile, lies peacefully in its cradle under the wing of its Guardian Angel, and neither feels nor knows about these upper thoughts, which God may, pitying it, turn to ruin in an instant.

O! mother, give peace to these vain thoughts; love, guard, cherish, pray for your child, try to give him an upbringing appropriate to his condition, but do not forget that God has more right to him, that his first duties are to God, so that his sins may not one day burn your conscience, so that God, seeing you an unworthy mother, may not take away your child, so that God in anger may not leave you this child as a source of your bloody tears; enjoy every moment, and commend the future to God, for the future belongs to God alone.

It is true, the future belongs to God. This thought, this truth teaches us how we should use every moment that is lent to us. Why waste this time on mere games, speculations, interests, and let these expensive but perhaps already very scarce lent moments escape without any benefit to the soul, if, meanwhile, with useful work for the good of our soul, for the good of the whole country, for the good of the people, living for the good of the people, I could give this moment to God and in one day secure a whole happy eternity!

Why don’t I take a miser as an example? what he does with regard to money, – let’s do for time; let’s not waste a dollar, – let’s not waste a minute; he increases his wealth every day, – let’s multiply our merits every day! But alas! it is all misery that we waste this time and to others we contribute to the loss of this treasure.

Ask people, what are they doing? Everyone will say that he is employed, busy, that he does not know where his head is, and indeed, superficially thinking, it seems that there is not and instant of peace in the world.

Yes the whole world full of people busy (…). True! all employed, but is that what they should be employed? They do what they could, what they should leave, and forget what they should fulfill. To fulfill their obligations, there is never enough time; but to break them, the time is always right!

Sunday comes, they ring the bells so that even the deaf can hear, the people are drawn to worship and adore their Lord, and you live only a few steps away from the church!-I don’t have time, and he sits comfortably in his bathrobe and puffs smoke from his pipe and thinks … about what? supposedly about nothing – and since the morning, when thousands of souls praise God, he curses and blasphemes, sitting at the green table, because he puts his hope in cards, but not in God; it’s his catechism, it’s Scripture.

– But a man has to tear himself apart! True, but this rupture lasts all night; but this rupture makes so many unhappy, becomes the cause of bloody tears of the poor wife and children. Tell this person: let him go to study.Ah! I have no time, because I have not yet prepared for the ball, for the evening, and it’s this priest who preaches terribly long! – Long? Strange thing! it’s one hour spent in church long, and at the ball the whole night short as there an hour a minute, and here a minute an hour; and yet it’s always the same hour, neither longer nor shorter – sixty minutes. – But it is necessary to sit or stand. – I don’t know, but it seems to me that it’s more work to jump all night, like an hour to sit.-But when it’s so far to the church! – They say you have no closer to the theater.

We employ ourselves, unfortunately, most often with what does not belong to us. Here is this man: a wealthy, wealthy master, he has under him so many servants, so many subjects – but does he strive for them? True, he harms no one and forbids harming anyone, but what of that, when abuses are happening from his inferiors crying out for revenge. He knows nothing about it; but he should know. He has important and manifold interests, he won’t think about it – and plays along. He must know what is going on all over the world, in China and India, but he doesn’t know what is going on in his own home, and often he only finds out from strangers – and he will die, and leave his estate in disorder and disrepair, and open the field to immense harm, lawsuits, family splits and depravation.

Another, without any science but conceit, wants to enlighten the world, although dark in the head. He knows that Voltaire, Rousseau existed; on his lips Fichte, Schelling, Kant, Trentowski, liberalism, communism; but just ask him, what does it all mean, what is the content of all this science? Apparently he would be in great trouble to answer that. And yet with such conceit, with such certainty he perorates about everything.

(…)

Another, so healthy and strong, in the very flower of youth, will spend half his life in idleness, in lethargic idleness; all the use he makes of life is to die at any moment! This young man is just beginning to live; he hasn’t done anything yet, and he’s already resting. Instead of busying himself with his books and studies, so that one day he can take a stand in society, be useful to himself and his fellows, be a comfort to his parents and his country, so that he doesn’t eat bread for nothing, doesn’t get tangled up and bother others, what is he spending his days on? Why does he strain his thoughts? Just come to his headquarters: instead of holy water – perfume; instead of the cross – cupids, brushes, brushes, pomades. Is this the toilet of a fashionable, elegant woman? – No, it’s the abode of a man. In an effeminate body an effeminate soul.

My God, is this what You gave us time for? This time that we should spend pondering Your holy law, enjoying Your graces, knowing Your mercy – this time we sell to the enemy of salvation and call it life!

Let us remember – today, tomorrow death will come! Hell terrible, eternity long, God’s judgments implacable. In a few years, in a few days, in a few hours perhaps, everything here on earth will end for us; as much of a memento and trace will be left of us as of that bird that flies through the air. But our soul will live, eternally united with God, or eternally distant from God. Hell and heaven today in our hand. Let us choose! Maybe tomorrow will be late! Amen.

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KAZANIA ks. Karola Antoniewicza. T. IV Kazania przygodne.  NAKŁADEM WYDAWNICTWA TOW . JEZUSOWEGO. KRAKÓW. 1906.