But more than all he himself is every day speaking in our hearts, inviting, urging, begging us to turn from mortal sin; or, if we have indeed done that, to rise higher, and serve him more perfectly. If we had listened to all these calls, if we had availed ourselves of all these helps, we should now be far advanced on the way of the saints; we should, like St. Stephen at his martyrdom, see heaven opened before us and our salvation morally secure.
But we have not done that. We have been doing just what the Apostle warns us against; we have been receiving these graces in vain. We have received them, and it has been worse with us than if we had not; for we have received them, many of them at least, only to throw them away and trample them underfoot.
What would you think, my brethren, of a man who, being anxious to reach a distant country, which was his true home, and where were those whom he loved, and, having no means to do so of himself, should throw away with contempt the sums which from time to time might in charity be offered him to enable him to accomplish his desires, should throw them absolutely away, not even using them to supply his daily wants or to secure some passing pleasure? You would say that he was a madman or a fool; that he had not the gift of reason, which raises man above the brute.
And yet this is what we have been doing; and even more than this. For there have been some, perhaps many, graces which God has given us which would even alone, if rightly used, have answered for all our needs. They would not have been mere contributions to our passage-money for heaven, but would have put us aboard the vessel, and made our reaching port little more than a question of time. But these, like the rest, are gone without being used; they are strewn on the road behind us, and we cannot turn back to pick them up.
Such a great grace is the one which, in spite of our unworthiness, ingratitude, and folly, is now once more offered to us by our Father in heaven, who does not follow the rules by which an earthly benefactor would be guided. This season of Lent on which we are entering is one of the great helps, the great opportunities which he gives us to reach that country where he awaits our coming. One who spends even one Lent as it should be spent will be at its close well established in the way of solid virtue and peace, the way which leads certainly to the kingdom to which we all hope to go.