The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1910-02-26
Archbishop GIennon Advises People
TO Sit Down and Think.


Won wish a sermon for your readers,
catholics and non-Catholics alike?"
said Archbishop Glennon on Ash
Wednesday, when a Post Dispatch in
reviewer requested a sermon for the
peoplc of St Louis on the first day of
lent. chen come with me-
He led the way into the wide hallway
of his Lindell avenue residence. On
either side are hung portraits and the
works of old masters. He stopped be-
fore a painting by Oscar Brazda. an
Austrian. 1t shows a scene in a crypt
beneath a church in Vienna. The figure
of Christ lies on a bier in a niche. Sane
tuary lamps shed a crimson glow in the
gloom of the crypt. Two children, half
frightened, wholly awed, are praying
beside the bier An old woman is sit
ting with her head in her hands on the
floor Of the prie dieu or lneeling bench
The picture represents Il ceremony"
said the archbishop, that obtains in
MANY Catholic churches on Good Fri
day afternoon. Our Lord has been
taken down from the Cross and pre-
uarpd for burial. You see the children
awed praying timidly. But the old
woman. having tired Eneeling at prayer
sits down while thinking. Her Lord
her and she feels that she is also near
ing the end Of her LIES journey. And
SO before the end comes she sits down
hv the wayside to think Just to think"
With this preface to his sermon the
archbishop turned away from the paint
ing and dictated the following to the
citizens of st. Louis:
I think the picture is painted for Lent,
and its lesson is a Lenten lesson. A
lesson for Lent in that it brings to
mind with the dead Christ the lesson of
death and consequent defeat That in
exorable law marks with ashes the
lives of all men The lesson is for those
who while they wait for the end to
come should give time to thinking And
the figure of the dead Christ makes its
appeal not alone to the old. the feeble,
those who are lettering to the end, but
il should have a lesson for all of US, be-
cause We being on the way of life, all
of us are on the way to death, and the
difference of the distance is only rela-
tive
The business man at his desk today
could spend tlaJ quarter of an hour
most profitably if in the mad rush and
the complicated figuring hat marks the
pads around him, he would drop the
pencil that he holds and spend that time
just thinking His wife at home, if she
would stop the fuss and furry, the
warnings and bitterness of her daily
lfe-with many it is a daily strife
quietly take her heart and mind from
these things, even if just for moment,
and dedicate them to just thinking,
would profit equally with him.
Even for those who have no office.
who have no home. they can create for
1-l.Iz- n
inEs fitted to give them if only for a
short time the opportunity to think.
You say it is easier TO advise, easier to
preach than to practice. Men work and
worry. but il seems that most of them
prefer to work and worry than to sit
down and think.
Hence for many thinking is a lost art
and even of those who are quite con-
ceited Of their mental powers the result
Of their thought is inappreciable. And
Yet I believe the world of today needs
the best its thinkers can give it and the
men today need to learn the lesson of
thinking rightly and thereby thinking
well
And this means, let me say it,
thinking in the terms of realism, rather
than by the assumptions of sentiment
facing the truth though it will kill you.
Taking the ashes which realism gives
you rather than the flowers that fancy
offers or sentiment Graves for. The
flowers, though beautiful. viii wither,
the ashes, though dead, will purify.
First then. amongst the realities
fer the man who would think during the
lenten seasons death. Through Lent
there is a train of ashes, across the
Leaten season the shadow of the Cross,
Death. yes. and sacrifice. They know
not now to rejoice who never knew how
% weep. 1t is by STOPPING through sac
nilce we reach to conquer, through
Christ. And it is in initiating Him in
Ills sorrowful journey that we become
most Christian. most Christlike.
Death and sacrifice are subjects for
Len'en thought, and with them and as
Their sequel the truth and Joy Of the
resurrection which follows. For as our
lhoH2hts should go. as Christians, there
is lie and death and then the life
aSaln. There is the Cross shadow and
me sacrifice of Him who died thereon,
pm beyond and in the near background,
Is The joy Of the Resurrection and the
uldmun over death and hell.
We might give a moment of our time
curing the Lenten season and after
ward go the THOUGHTS and the truths
mat must come, and should not be re-
FUSED. that viii not down, the life rid
t.e, that must be met by each OF US,
ana not To- solve which is to die.