CHAPTER VII. THE PANEGYRICS OF THE SAINTS AND OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY. SECTION I. ANTIQUITY AND SPECIAL UTILITY OF THIS CLASS OF SUBJECTS. OREMOST amongst those subjects which will naturally claim the attention of the Priest from time to time, are the Panegyrics of the Saints. A panegyric is a discourse conse crated to the praise of a saint, with a view, of course, of proposing him as a model to be followed, and as a patron to be honoured and invoked. "Ut et illis debitus honor dicetur, et nobis virtutis exempla monstrentur." The practice of preaching the Panegyrics of the Saints, has come down to us from the earliest days of the Church, which never allowed her heroic children to depart this life without summoning the survivors around their tombs, that, by recounting the noble examples of those who were gone, she might encourage the faithful to imitate the lessons of piety placed before them. The pastor of souls can never sufficiently persuade himself of the advantages which lie open to him in the 1.St. Chrys. 1, Ser. de Mart. skilful treatment of this class of subjects. There is no subject more worthy of his highest aspirings, as there is none which can be more interesting or more useful to his people. Examples of piety and virtue make a much more lively impression upon us than any mere reflections can ever do. They excite more interest, they strike deeper root in the heart, and obtain a stronger hold upon the soul. Men upon whom the most earnest exhortations have fallen coldly and without fruit, have been converted to God by the examples of the saints. "Quod isti et istæ, cur non ego," said St. Augustine. In the lives of the saints we have the Gospel reduced to practice. We have a clear and welldefined rule of life laid before us for our imitation, with a certain knowledge that such imitation is not only practicable, but that it will infallibly lead us to eternal happiness. Hence it is that the Holy Fathers, anxiously corresponding with the views of the Church in instituting the festivals of the saints, were ever most assiduous in celebrating these festivals, and in proposing the saints thus honoured to the veneration and the imitation of their people. "Solemnitates martyrum exhortationes martyriorum sunt," cries St. Augustine;1 whilst St. Basil lays down, in a few beautiful words, the true end and aim to which we are to aspire in preaching these panegyrics : "Hoc est martyrum vera laus alios ad eorum virtutem æmulandam invitare."2 Besides St. Augustine and St. Basil, St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. 1 Ser. 47, de Sanctis. 2 Hom. 20, in Quadragintc Martyres. Chrysostom, and other holy doctors, have left us many beautiful panegyrics of the saints of God; and the example of these great men is the one which the zealous pastor of souls will surely propose to himself to follow. Hence, as often as the Church proposes any of her saints as objects worthy of the special veneration of the faithful, the pastor will gladly seize the opportunity of making the panegyric of this saint the subject of his discourse. In addition to the more solemn occasions which occur from time to time, he will, when he foresees that his people may not be able to assemble for solemn worship on the day of the festival, after previously looking through the calendar of the approaching week, take, for the subject of his ordinary Sunday's sermon, the panegyric of any saint whose feast occurs during the week, and whom he may deem it specially useful or becoming to bring before the notice of his flock. By this prudent foresight he will thus secure the respectful veneration which is due to the memory of God's favoured servants, the saints: he will cause the power of their example to bring forth its due fruit and he will, at the same time, produce a discourse which will be equally pleasing and useful to his people. : In preparing to preach a panegyric, the young pastor will carefully distinguish between the panegyric of a saint and his history-two matters which, though distinct, are often confounded. The history of a saint. merely treats of the actions and the circumstances of his life, while the panegyric only aims at treating of those matters in his life which may, directly or indirectly, be made the subject of edification. If we extol our saint, it is that we may cause our people to honour him, and to invoke his intercession, and that we may engage them to the practice of virtue, by bringing before them models which may instruct and encourage them. We insist upon the means which sanctified him, in order to prove to our people how worthy he is of their worship; to make them understand in what true sanctity consists; to show them that they can, and that they ought, acquire it; and to encourage them, by all that is strongest in its influence over the heart of man, viz., example and reward-to labour earnestly in the work of their sanctification. Everything in a panegyric which does not tend to this two-fold end, is altogether out of place, and should be strictly eliminated; and, from this view of it, we can see, at a glance, the essential difference between the history and the panegyric of a saint. After these brief reflections on the general idea of a panegyric, we now have, in studying this important branch of Sacred Eloquence, to consider the following points : I. The sources whence we are to derive the materials for the panegyric. II. The different methods according to which the subject may be treated. III. A comparison between the two principal modes of preaching a panegyric. IV. The rules which are common to both modes. H SECTION II. THE SOURCES WHENCE TO DRAW THE MATERIALS FOR The sources whence to draw the materials which will aid us in composing the panegyrics of the saints may, as a general rule, be reduced to four, viz.: 1. The position which they occupied. 2. The great actions which they performed. 3. The intentions with which they performed these actions. 4. Comparisons between them and other men. I. The circumstances of position can readily be shown to have a great influence on virtue. A man's position may be such as to render the practice of virtue very difficult, and to demand great courage in order to be faithful to duty; or, a man may generously despise the accident of wealth, of talents, of temporal advantages, which he may possess, and count all these things as nothing in comparison with his sanctification. The sanctity of St. Martin shines out all the more brightly from the fact that it was nurtured and perfected in the midst of an idolatrous and pagan family. The courage of St. Agnes is all the more admirable because it was exhibited by a young and tender virgin. We reverence all the more profoundly those lessons of humility in the midst of grandeur, of mortification in the midst of delicacies, and of recollection amidst affairs of state, which are taught us by St. Louis, because they are taught us by a rich and powerful king: and so |