The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1916-02-26
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LETTER OF THE MOST REVEREND ARCHBISHOP

! for men ana things to be put into
words? The holy names are enslayed
to the task. Is angry passion to hold
i sway? It's rising crests are topped
by wild yaporings of the holy names.
No other names known to men are so
shamefully treated, so ANONYMOUSLY
thrown out upon human ears, as those
Of the Creator and of the Redeemer.
What is the matter with men, that
this dreadful evil of blasphemy
should have countenance from them
And i'll our times the evil grows holder
from year to year, from day to day.
why have the Gentiles ragged, and
the people devised vain things :.
against the Lord, and against his
| Christi" That men dishonor the
/ Creator and the Saviour, by indiffer-
ence and oblivion, break asunder
their laws and prefer the sin of Of
Tense to the justice of obedience, is
a saddening, direful condition of souls.
But why cast towards the throne of
divine majesty opprobrium and insult?
| Why drag the holy names into the
mire of debasing triviality and I'M
ruly passion? The horrid violations
of the second commandment of the
Decalogue, to which the world around
us so frequently, so shamefully
abandons itself, is, I repeat, mys-
terry of human perserveness. May
we not be tempted to see it in a
species of Economical obsession? The
spirit of evil seizes upon mortal
tongues, to impel them into his own
habitual occupation-that of insult
against the eternal majesty of the
Most High.
For Iurther opprobr1um to the holy
name of God, men invoke it as an
abettor of their enmities towards their
fellow-men. How frequently We
must listen to hateful maledictions
against the neighbor, to audacious
appeals to the Almighty God that He
the avenger of the real Or fancied
injuries, that He doom immortal souls
to the punishment of He'll.
Cursing with some men is the occur
renee of every hour. 1t is deemed
the proper seasoning of virile Ian
guage, when not the necessary form of
savage explosions of hatred and pas
sion.
Holy scripture tells the penalty fall
ing upon him who curses his neigh
Dor: the curse he utters falls back
upon himself, is put into execution
upon himself, and not upon the neigh
Dor, over whom it was cast. Here is
the awful retribution spoken by the
Lord Himself: and he loved ours
ing and it shall come unto him: and
he would not have blessing, and it
shall be far from him. And he put
on cursing like garment: and it
went in like water into his entrails
and like oil in his bones. May it be
unto him a garment which covereth
him, and like girdle with which
he is girdled continually" Unexpect-
ed miseries fall upon ourselves and
our families: it is illness, it is poverty,
| it is disappointment of hopes. Should
we not ask ourselves whether. those
miseries are not the penalty of our
curses, the return upon themselves of
| the evils we have invoked upon our
Ineighbor? God rules the world; and
His hand rises and falls where we
had vainly imagined we were the sole
arbiters of our fortunes.
There is that other hideous profana-
ton of the holy name, peculiarly
grieyous in it's sinfulness, to which
| shall make but a brief alIusion-
the full development of it's intrinsic
malice requiring more heightened dis
course than is here allowable. 1t is
the proclamation known as perjury
the appeal to the Almighty God to
believe His supreme truthfulness, by
| the request that He be the warrantor
| of falsehood. No greater injury
could be flung into the face of the
Almighty God, than that of perjury.
And especially hideous is it, when it
wraps itself within the solemn folds
of administrative justice, in civil or
ecclesiastical courts, there before
exalted authority to order God to be
the liar? Merely to make mention of
perjury is to arm the Christian
against it.
And what has the Creator, what
has the Saviour done to us that we
should blaspheme the holy names?
| The agnostic himself who recognizes
no living personal God, the unbeliever
himself who refuses to discover in
Jesus the personality of the Eternal
Word, should shrink from offering in
suit to the holy names. The names
speak beauty, holiness, love and
mercy: they rehearse innumerable
favors to the human race derived from
| the power attributed to him. Even
| were realities absent, the ideals are
there, the symbols are there, and
those call for veneration. Even if
| the power attributed to them were
absent, the Wondrous results follow
ing upon faith in that power, clamor
| for admiration and respect. And,
then for the sake of the millions of
| fellow-men who hold fast to the liv-
| ing and enduring realities symbolized
by those names, honor is due to them.
When God and the Saviour are in
suited, the whole structure of relig-
ion built upon faith is their reign is
| insulted, the whole civilization created
and upheld by that faith, with all
| the heroic holiness and charity in
Il In ie IT, ~