Vigils Reading – St Bartholomew

A reading from

ST JOHN HENRY NEWMAN

◊◊◊

It is not only among the poor and lowly that the blessed character of

guilelessness is found to exist. Secular learning and dignity have doubtless in

their respective ways a powerful tendency to rob the heart of its brightness and

purity; yet even in kings’ courts, and the schools of philosophy, Bartholomew

may be discovered. Nay, like the Apostles, they have been subjected to the

world’s buffets, they have been thwarted in their day, lived in anxiety, and

seemingly lost by their honesty, yet without being foiled either of its present

comfort or its ultimate fruit.

I have in these remarks spoken of guileless persons as members of society,

because I wished to show that, even in that respect in which they seem deficient,

they possess a hidden strength, and unconscious wisdom, which makes them

live above the world, and sooner or later triumph over it. The weapons of their

warfare are not carnal; and they are fitted to be Apostles, though they seem to be

ordinary people. Such is the blessedness of the innocent, that is, of those who

have never given way to evil, or formed themselves to habits of sin; who in

consequence literally do not know its power of its misery who have thoughts of

truth and peace ever before them, and are able to discern at once the right and

wrong in conduct, as by some delicate instrument which tells truly because it

has never been ill-treated. Nay, such may be the portion (through God’s mercy)

even of those who have at one time departed from Him, and then repented; in

proportion as they have learned to love God, and have purified themselves, not

only from sin, but from the recollections of it.

Lastly, more is requisite for the Christian, even than guilelessness such as

Bartholomew’s. When Christ sent forth him and his brethren into the world, He

said, “Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves; be ye therefore

wise as serpents and harmless as doves.” Innocence must be joined to

prudence, discretion, self-command, gravity, patience, perseverance in well-

doing, as Bartholomew doubtless learned in due season under his Lord’s

teaching; but innocence is the beginning.

Let us then pray God to fulfill in us “all the good pleasure of His goodness,

and the work of faith with power;” that if it should please Him suddenly to bring

us forward to great trials, as He did His Apostles, we may not be taken by

surprise, but be found to have made a private or domestic life a preparation for

the achievements of Confessor and Martyrs.