Does non-Catholic worship please God?
Our Lord teaches that no worship can be acceptable while we harbour malice in our hearts, or stand outside the unity of the Church.
Our Lord teaches that no worship can be acceptable while we harbour malice in our hearts, or stand outside the unity of the Church.
Editor’s Notes
In this section, Fr. Coleridge tells us…
How Christ declares that charity is a condition for offering anything to God.
That peace with our neighbour is necessary even for entering into divine worship.
Why interior bitterness or schism renders all acts of zeal unacceptable.
Reconciliation, both personal and ecclesial, must precede sacrifice if we are truly to worship God.
For more context on this section, and its place in the Gospel and the Liturgy, see the previous part.
See also here:
The Gospel Law as to Anger
The Sermon on the Mount (To the End of the Lord’s Prayer)
Chapter V
St Matt. vi. 20-30
Story of the Gospels, § 32
Burns and Oates, London, 1878
The precept of instant reconciliation
Our Lord then next proceeds to lay down a precept with regard to the same subject, which expresses in the most forcible manner, the importance which He attaches to that charity which would make the sin of anger almost impossible.
‘If, therefore, thou art offering thy gift before the altar, and there shouldst remember that thy brother hath something against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar, and go first to be reconciled unto thy brother, and then thou shalt come and offer thy gift.’
It is universally recognized as of extreme obligation, that a sacrifice once begun should not be interrupted, and that an offering once brought to the altar should not be withdrawn. Our Lord does not bid us withdraw our offering, but His teaching implies that a sacrifice offered to God cannot be acceptable as long as there is any resentment, or aversion, or feeling of animosity, in the heart of him who offers it. On no other account, save that of absolute necessity, must a sacrifice be interrupted.
But it is a matter of absolute necessity that so vital an impediment to the spirit which is requisite for a sacrifice as any feeling contrary to charity, should be removed. And as our Lord tells us, it must be removed at once, supposing of course that an actual reconciliation is immediately possible. In such a case the gift is to be left before the altar. It is not even enough that all animosity should be laid down interiorly, because there are two parties concerned, and the reconciliation is not perfect until each has given his consent.
This is the perfection of the commandment of mutual charity and the full condonation of all injuries, which must be carried out with such urgency that the direct worship of God may be laid aside for a time, rather than the risk incurred of the offering of a sacrifice to Him by a heart in which there is lurking any ill-will against a brother. That is enough to mar entirely any such offering.
And, on the other hand, it may be gathered from our Lord’s precept that there can be no condition of heart which can secure with more absolute certainty the favour of God for any one who offers to Him sacrifice or service of any kind, than this of perfect charity and the forgiveness of injuries, and the humility which seeks for pardon and reconciliation when any offence has been given.
How to be carried out
In cases such as that which is mentioned by our Lord, there will often be a difficulty or an impossibility as to the literal execution of the precept which He gives.
For the brother who has something against us may be at a distance, or on some other account it may be difficult to approach him. But the principle which our Lord here lays down is of very wide application indeed, and extends far beyond the particular case which He has given as an instance.
That principle is, that nothing is to be offered to God, no access to Him attempted, nothing undertaken in His service, and the like, until every cloud that hangs between our brother and ourselves is removed as far as it lies in our power to remove it, and until absolute peace and charity reign in our hearts. Our Lord gives the instance in which the existence of such a cloud is only remembered when we are before the altar to make our oblation, and it is therefore easy to see how much more imperatively the rule applies to greater differences, quarrels, or aversions, which cannot be forgotten.
Again, in a Christian sense, the words ‘our brother having aught against us,’ will apply to hard thoughts and judgments, to feelings of displeasure and ill-will, as well as to words and actions, even if the feelings and judgments have been kept entirely to ourselves and not manifested in word or by any other sign whatever.
A feeling of sourness or harshness in our own minds is enough to constitute the case in which we must reconcile ourselves, at least in heart, to our brother before we can offer our gift. Such a feeling of aversion, dislike, or severe judgment, may be grounded on what our brother is as well as on what he may have done.
It may extend to classes and nations as well as to single persons, and the principle which our Lord here proclaims applies to all prejudices and bitternesses whatsoever, such as exist sometimes within the Church, and among persons, or classes of persons, who are devoted by profession or choice to the service of God itself.
There have been times when rivalries or jealousies among ecclesiastical persons, or between religious bodies, may have produced just the sort of hardness in the heart which our Lord here speaks of. For such men often feel more for the interests and honour of the class to which they belong, than for personal matters, and they are often liable to the temptation of narrowness of mind in wishing to be alone or foremost in the pursuit of the objects to which they are devoted.
Application of the principle
In all such cases the good work, whatever it may be, will not go on well, as long as there is a flaw in the perfect charity and peace of the soul.
The rule applies to prayer, where dryness and difficulty are very often the punishment of severe thoughts of others, or of censorious words, inconsiderately spoken.
It applies, of course, with particular closeness of application, to the offering of the Christian Sacrifice, or to the intimate union of the soul with our Lord in Holy Communion.
It applies to any work of zeal or of piety, or again to the daily practices of personal religion or of mortification, penance, or to the functions of the sacred ministry.
All these are in truth the oblation of something to God, either of absolute duty or of voluntary service, and in all cases the access to Him must first be laid open by the entire clearing away from the soul of everything that can be against us in His sight on account of our dealings with our brother.
It need hardly be said that this precept of our Lord, which is partly a matter of necessity and partly a matter of counsel, at least as to any external steps that may be taken towards the most perfect reconciliation, includes in principle the observance of the great law of charity and unity on which our duties as members of the Church are built, as well as the law which regulates our conduct one to another.
When our Lord, at a later period of His teaching, laid down the great precept of ‘fraternal correction,’ which is one of the laws of the Christian society, He introduced the authority of the Church as having jurisdiction over her children in matters of this sort, and if the person who is corrected will not hear the Church, he is to be unto us as a heathen or a publican.1
The sin of schism
In the Sermon on the Mount, He has not yet drawn out the doctrine as to the Church, although, as has been seen, it seems to underlie much of what He says. But it must be clear to all that our Lord, Who is so strict in requiring the most sincere fraternal charity among those who belong to His kingdom, cannot be less strict in what He demands of us as to the observance of fraternal charity in the larger sense in which it is the law of our membership in the One Visible Body of the Church Catholic.
And if we are to leave our gifts before the altar, in order first to be reconciled to our brother if he have aught against us, much more is it idle, and even disrespectful and insulting to God, to bring to His feet any offering of zeal, any effort to extend His kingdom, to preach His faith or administer His sacraments, if we are in any way, either by our own choice or from the circumstances of our position, rebels against that law of charity which is violated by schism or heresy, by any insubordination to the authorities by which the Catholic Church is ruled, or by any separation from her world-wide unity.
In that case it is not one brother who has aught against us, but the whole body of our brethren in Christ, whose rights are trampled under foot, and who appear against us before the altar of God.
No good works of avail without charity
The passage before us, then, is one which should very deeply be pondered by those who think that they can serve God acceptably by works of zeal, the sacrifice of their substance, or their time, by their personal devotion, the defence of portions of the true doctrine of the Faith, prayers, austerities, almsdeeds, and the like, outside the unity of the Christian Church.
The principle laid down by our Lord is enough of itself to warn them that nothing that they do can be acceptable to Him until they have made their peace with the wounded charity of the Church, and that, however great their labours, their industry, and their sacrifices, they may perhaps be used in some sort to serve to the welfare or enlightenment of others, but that all the while their own souls are wandering outside the pale of salvation.
For though they ‘speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity,’ they are ‘become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal.’ And though ‘they have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge,’ and though they ‘have faith, so as to remove mountains, and have not charity,’ they are nothing. And though they ‘bestow all their goods to feed the poor, and though they give their bodies to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth nothing.’2
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The Gospel Law as to Anger
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St. Matt. xviii. 17.
1 Cor. xiii. 1–3.
“He cannot have God for his Father who will not have the Church for his mother.”
― St. Augustine of Hippo