A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
limes where he had dreamed of being buried, the firelight on the wall
of the infirmary where he lay sick, the sorrowful face of Brother
Michael. His soul, as these memories came back to him, became again a
child’s soul.
—We are assembled here today, my dear little brothers in Christ, for
one brief moment far away from the busy bustle of the outer world to
celebrate and to honour one of the greatest of saints, the apostle of
the Indies, the patron saint also of your college, saint Francis
Xavier. Year after year for much longer than any of you, my dear little
boys, can remember or than I can remember the boys of this college have
met in this very chapel to make their annual retreat before the feast
day of their patron saint. Time has gone on and brought with it its
changes. Even in the last few years what changes can most of you not
remember? Many of the boys who sat in those front benches a few years
ago are perhaps now in distant lands, in the burning tropics or
immersed in professional duties or in seminaries or voyaging over the
vast expanse of the deep or, it may be, already called by the great God
to another life and to the rendering up of their stewardship. And still
as the years roll by, bringing with them changes for good and bad, the
memory of the great saint is honoured by the boys of this college who
make every year their annual retreat on the days preceding the feast
day set apart by our Holy Mother the Church to transmit to all the ages
the name and fame of one of the greatest sons of catholic Spain.
—Now what is the meaning of this word _retreat_ and why is it allowed
on all hands to be a most salutary practice for all who desire to lead
before God and in the eyes of men a truly christian life? A retreat, my
dear boys, signifies a withdrawal for a while from the cares of our
life, the cares of this workaday world, in order to examine the state
of our conscience, to reflect on the mysteries of holy religion and to
understand better why we are here in this world. During these few days
I intend to put before you some thoughts concerning the four last
things. They are, as you know from your catechism, death, judgement,
hell and heaven. We shall try to understand them fully during these few
days so that we may derive from the understanding of them a lasting
benefit to our souls. And remember, my dear boys, that we have been
sent into this world for one thing and for one thing alone: to do God’s
holy will and to save our immortal souls. All else is worthless. One
thing alone is needful, the salvation of one’s soul. What doth it
profit a man to gain the whole world if he suffer the loss of his
immortal soul? Ah, my dear boys, believe me there is nothing in this
wretched world that can make up for such a loss.
—I will ask you, therefore, my dear boys, to put away from your minds
during these few days all worldly thoughts, whether of study or
pleasure or ambition, and to give all your attention to the state of
your souls. I need hardly remind you that during the days of the
retreat all boys are expected to preserve a quiet and pious demeanour
and to shun all loud unseemly pleasure. The elder boys, of course, will
see that this custom is not infringed and I look especially to the
prefects and officers of the sodality of Our Blessed Lady and of the
sodality of the holy angels to set a good example to their
fellow-students.
—Let us try, therefore, to make this retreat in honour of saint Francis
with our whole heart and our whole mind. God’s blessing will then be
upon all your year’s studies. But, above and beyond all, let this
retreat be one to which you can look back in after years when, maybe,
you are far from this college and among very different surroundings, to
which you can look back with joy and thankfulness and give thanks to
God for having granted you this occasion of laying the first foundation
of a pious honourable zealous christian life. And if, as may so happen,
there be at this moment in these benches any poor soul who has had the
unutterable misfortune to lose God’s holy grace and to fall into
grievous sin, I fervently trust and pray that this retreat may be the
turning point in the life of that soul. I pray to God through the
merits of His zealous servant Francis Xavier, that such a soul may be
led to sincere repentance and that the holy communion on saint
Francis’s day of this year may be a lasting covenant between God and
that soul. For just and unjust, for saint and sinner alike, may this
retreat be a memorable one.
—Help me, my dear little brothers in Christ. Help me by your pious
attention, by your own devotion, by your outward demeanour. Banish from
your minds all worldly thoughts and think only of the last things,
death, judgement, hell and heaven. He who remembers these things, says
Ecclesiastes, shall not sin for ever. He who remembers the last things
will act and think with them always before his eyes. He will live a
good life and die a good death, believing and knowing that, if he has
sacrificed much in this earthly life, it will be given to him a
hundredfold and a thousandfold more in the life to come, in the kingdom
without end—a blessing, my dear boys, which I wish you from my heart,
one and all, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy
Ghost. Amen!
As he walked home with silent companions a thick fog seemed to compass
his mind. He waited in stupor of mind till it should lift and reveal
what it had hidden. He ate his dinner with surly appetite and when the
meal was over and the grease-strewn plates lay abandoned on the table,
he rose and went to the window, clearing the thick scum from his mouth
with his tongue and licking it from his lips. So he had sunk to the
state of a beast that licks his chaps after meat. This was the end; and
a faint glimmer of fear began to pierce the fog of his mind. He pressed
his face against the pane of the window and gazed out into the
darkening street. Forms passed this way and that through the dull
light. And that was life. The letters of the name of Dublin lay heavily
upon his mind, pushing one another surlily hither and thither with slow
boorish insistence. His soul was fattening and congealing into a gross
grease, plunging ever deeper in its dull fear into a sombre threatening
dusk, while the body that was his stood, listless and dishonoured,
gazing out of darkened eyes, helpless, perturbed and human for a bovine
god to stare upon.
The next day brought death and judgement, stirring his soul slowly from
its listless despair. The faint glimmer of fear became a terror of
spirit as the hoarse voice of the preacher blew death into his soul. He
suffered its agony. He felt the deathchill touch the extremities and
creep onward towards the heart, the film of death veiling the eyes, the
bright centres of the brain extinguished one by one like lamps, the
last sweat oozing upon the skin, the powerlessness of the dying limbs,
the speech thickening and wandering and failing, the heart throbbing
faintly and more faintly, all but vanquished, the breath, the poor
breath, the poor helpless human spirit, sobbing and sighing, gurgling
and rattling in the throat. No help! No help! He—he himself—his body to
which he had yielded was dying. Into the grave with it. Nail it down
into a wooden box, the corpse. Carry it out of the house on the
shoulders of hirelings. Thrust it out of men’s sight into a long hole
in the ground, into the grave, to rot, to feed the mass of its creeping
worms and to be devoured by scuttling plump-bellied rats.
And while the friends were still standing in tears by the bedside the
soul of the sinner was judged. At the last moment of consciousness the
whole earthly life passed before the vision of the soul and, ere it had
time to reflect, the body had died and the soul stood terrified before
the judgement seat. God, who had long been merciful, would then be
just. He had long been patient, pleading with the sinful soul, giving
it time to repent, sparing it yet awhile. But that time had gone. Time
was to sin and to enjoy, time was to scoff at God and at the warnings
of His holy church, time was to defy His majesty, to disobey His
commands, to hoodwink one’s fellow men, to commit sin after sin and to
hide one’s corruption from the sight of men. But that time was over.
Now it was God’s turn: and He was not to be hoodwinked or deceived.
Every sin would then come forth from its lurking-place, the most
rebellious against the divine will and the most degrading to our poor
corrupt nature, the tiniest imperfection and the most heinous atrocity.
What did it avail then to have been a great emperor, a great general, a
marvellous inventor, the most learned of the learned? All were as one
before the judgement seat of God. He would reward the good and punish
the wicked. One single instant was enough for the trial of a man’s
soul. One single instant after the body’s death, the soul had been
weighed in the balance. The particular judgement was over and the soul
had passed to the abode of bliss or to the prison of purgatory or had
been hurled howling into hell.
Nor was that all. God’s justice had still to be vindicated before men:
after the particular there still remained the general judgement. The
last day had come. Doomsday was at hand. The stars of heaven were
falling upon the earth like the figs cast by the figtree which the wind
has shaken. The sun, the great luminary of the universe, had become as
sackcloth of hair. The moon was bloodred. The firmament was as a scroll
rolled away. The archangel Michael, the prince of the heavenly host,
appeared glorious and terrible against the sky. With one foot on the
sea and one foot on the land he blew from the archangelical trumpet the
brazen death of time. The three blasts of the angel filled all the
universe. Time is, time was, but time shall be no more. At the last
blast the souls of universal humanity throng towards the valley of
Jehosaphat, rich and poor, gentle and simple, wise and foolish, good
and wicked. The soul of every human being that has ever existed, the
souls of all those who shall yet be born, all the sons and daughters of
Adam, all are assembled on that supreme day. And lo, the supreme judge
is coming! No longer the lowly Lamb of God, no longer the meek Jesus of
Nazareth, no longer the Man of Sorrows, no longer the Good Shepherd, He
is seen now coming upon the clouds, in great power and majesty,
attended by nine choirs of angels, angels and archangels,
principalities, powers and virtues, thrones and dominations, cherubim
and seraphim, God Omnipotent, God Everlasting. He speaks: and His voice
is heard even at the farthest limits of space, even in the bottomless
abyss. Supreme Judge, from His sentence there will be and can be no
appeal. He calls the just to His side, bidding them enter into the
kingdom, the eternity of bliss prepared for them. The unjust He casts
from Him, crying in His offended majesty: _Depart from me, ye cursed,
into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels._
O, what agony then for the miserable sinners! Friend is torn apart from
friend, children are torn from their parents, husbands from their
wives. The poor sinner holds out his arms to those who were dear to him
in this earthly world, to those whose simple piety perhaps he made a
mock of, to those who counselled him and tried to lead him on the right
path, to a kind brother, to a loving sister, to the mother and father
who loved him so dearly. But it is too late: the just turn away from
the wretched damned souls which now appear before the eyes of all in
their hideous and evil character. O you hypocrites, O you whited
sepulchres, O you who present a smooth smiling face to the world while
your soul within is a foul swamp of sin, how will it fare with you in