The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1919-05-17
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is long time now since the modern
world began to acknowledge it's short
comings and transgressions, the ine-
qualities of it's distribution of wealth,
the iniquities of its leaders, the n.y.
pocrisy and the failure of it's fairest
professions. With amazing frankness
1T has exhibited what other ages have
Striven to hide and, like Lazarus, it
has paraded its sores in the market
place and cried a woe on the culprits
who brought it to such pass. Never
has there been a sharper diagnosis of
the ills of society than today, never
less hesitation in bringing home re-
sponsibility to those who should
rightly bear it, never a more insist
ent cry for instant justice. But the
sin that it has banned has been not
its own sin but the sins of others. 1t
has denounced the tyrant the oppres-
sor of the poor and all the privileged
classes. 1t has proclaimed the
wrongs of the groaning millions of
men who bear the burdens of the
world and whose backs are CALLED no
matter who is master. 1t has justi-
he'd all bloodshed, all violence, all VEN
geance, out of the pages of history,
Tor 1t has known no penalty for sin
save death, it has taken comfort
In no remedy for wrong save destruc-
ton, it has had no vision of dawn
save that of day. of wrath.
An Altar Speaks of Personal Sin.
An altar indeed speaks of sin but
1t is OF our own sin that it speaks
All men have sinned it seems to say
with the vehemence of the Apostle
and do need the grace of God. For
the altar is Calvary brought to our
days and our doors in all its mute
tragedy, in all its divine compassion,
in all it's tender pleadings with the
heart. Before the altar the past, the
present, the future coalesce into a
unity and time and eternity are one
where God and man meet at the
mournful tryst of death-God the vic
tim, and the Victor, man the van
pushed yet the redeemed in the mys-
t1cal struggle of life with death
where life seems death and death is
only sin. Here history vanishes and
the proud deeds of man are brought
low and all the STORED past becomes
a fable, and the cross is the symbol
OF the ages raising it's bleak arms
above all time. 1t is the withered
tree OF knowledge whose fruit is pain
and woe. 1t is earth's pinnacle round
which surge the many waters OF
man. sorrows-the crushed hopes,
the long anXieties, the cruel fears, the
glooms of the darkened heavens, the
terror of endless night, the cries of
broken hearts. 1t is the climax of
life Illustrate and Intellectual. 1t first
emerged from the shadows of the Lost
Paradise. 1t passed from age to age
a heritage of woe, a symbol of sorrow,
q type Of that sinful freedom whose
bound is Gods awful ban Bare and
barren on times bleak hill the cross
would have ever stood had not God in
a miracle of mercy made it tree of
life and the Vine which bore the
blood-red wine of atonement fastened
It's tcndrllS on the splintered shaft of
pain and trellised it's branches on the
became an altar, a stone of help,
mercy seat for sinners where sin dis
solves in sorrow that is crimsoned
with the blood of Christ Before the
altar, life's standards are established
and life itself secured, for here is the
anchor OF our hope and the bridge
head of eternity where angels ascend
and descend on Jacobs mystic ladder
TO minister to the souls of men. This
is no other than the House of God
and the Gate of Heaven" and Christ
Himself is the door by which we en-
ter into peace through pardon.
Through all the Christian ages the
Church Of Christ has done His work
through the agency of an altar. So
mas she understood His words to do
TINS IN commemoration of Him. 1t
mas been the secret of her vitality
Thus did she renew her youth. She
mas not remembered Him merely, she
mas known Him always as the disci-
pies at Emmaus knew Him once i'm
the breaking of the bread, and in the
commence of His abiding presence she
mas never lost heart through all the
weary centuries. She has shared His
life and met the opposition that He
met with; has had false friends as
He had Judas; has had her rash adj
herents as He the impetuous Peter:
has been hunted out of cities as He
from Jerusalem; has been tried and
condemned, against justice and right,
Tor sedition, for treason, for bias
phemy; has been again and again de-
spoiled as He was stripped of His
garments. Her hands have been tied
as His creative hands were pinioned
TO the Cross and time and again her
end has been announced as His was
published when the magistrate sealed
His tomb and set the guards to watch
1t, and still like Him she rose again
and rises on the third day without re-
sentiment, without malice, without an
ger, uttering His words of peace and
pardon, setting up her affairs and in
the ancient way enacting the blessed
rite of the Mass. Side by side with
the altar has ever stood the chair of
the Bishop-the shepherd of the flock,
the high priest, i'll the fullness of the
rieSthOod-SIJcceSsor of tho AnoetIac