CATHOLIC CAUCUS: The Catechism Explained III. Can We Attain Perfect Happiness On Earth?


INTRODUCTION. 
III. CAN WE ATTAIN PERFECT HAPPINESS ON 
EARTH ?
1. Earthly goods, such as riches, honor, pleasure, cannot by 
themselves make us happy, for they cannot satisfy our soul; they 
often only make life bitter, and invariably forsake us in death. 
Earthly goods deceive us; they are like soap-bubbles, which reflect 
all the colors of the rainbow but are really only drops of water. 
Earthly joys are like artificial fruit, beautiful to behold, but disap- 
pointing to the taste. Earthly pleasures are like drops of water; 
they do not quench the fire of the passions, but only make it burn 
more fiercely. Man can no more be happy without God than a fish 
can live out of the water. Hence St. Augustine says: "Unquiet is 
the heart of man until it rests in God." No sensible or material 
goods will nourish or satisfy the soul. Hence Our Lord says to the 
Samaritan woman ; " He who drinks of this water will thirst again." 
Riches will no more satisfy the soul than salt water will quench 
thirst. In the days of the early empire of Rome, when riches and 
sensual pleasures abounded, suicide was most widely prevalent. 
Earthly possessions are a continual source of anxiety; he who rests 
in them is tormented by them, like a man who reposes on thorns. 
As the fresh waters of the rivers are changed into the salt waters of 
the sea, so all earthly pleasures sooner or later turn to bitterness. 
Forbidden pleasures soon bring misery after them, like the forbidden 
fruit. They are like bait that has a hook concealed within it. Earthly
goods all forsake us when we die : " We brought nothing into 
the world, and certainly we cannot carry anything out of it " (1 Tim. 
vi. 7). When the Pope is crowned, a handful of tow is kindled, and 
while it blazes up the choir sing : " Thus passes the glory of the 
world." As the spider spins a web out of its own bowels and in a 
moment the broom sweeps it all away, so man labors for long years to 
obtain some honor, or possession, or office. Some obstacle comes in 
the way, death or sickness visits him, and all the labor is gone for 
naught. As the glow-worm shines in the night, but in the light of 
day is but an ugly insect, so the delights of earth are brilliant during 
the night of life on earth, but under the light of the Day of Judgment 
will show themselves vain and worthless. 
Earthly goods are given to us only that through them we 
may attain to eternal happiness. 
Every creature on earth is intended as a step to bring us 
nearer to God. As in the workshop of the painter, brushes, colors, 
oils, are all destined to serve to the completion of the picture, 
so all things in the world are intended to contribute to our 
eternal happiness in heaven. Not to use earthly things for this 
end is to lose the hope of eternal happiness; but to make them 
our end and to be dependent on them no less deprives us of the 
end for which we were created. Earthly goods are like the sur- 
geon’s instruments; if they are ill-employed, they kill instead 
of curing. We must therefore use them only in so far as they 
help us towards the attainment of our last end. When they hinder 
us we must cut ourselves free from them. We must not serve them, 
they must serve us. 
2. Only the Gospel of Christ is capable of giving us a partial 
happiness on earth, for he who follows the teaching of Christ is 
certain to have peace in his soul. 
This is why Christ says to the Samaritan woman : " He that shall 
drink of the water that I shall give him, shall not thirst forever " 
(John iv. 13). And again: "He that cometh to Me, shall never 
Hunger " (John vi. 35). The teaching of Christ can alone satisfy 
the heart of man. The reason of this is, that earthly sufferings do 
not render unhappy the man who follows Christ. 
3. He who follows Christ will have to endure persecution; but 
these persecutions can do him no harm. 
St. Paul tells us that " All who will live godly in Christ Jesus, shall 
suffer persecution " (2 Tim. iii. 12). 
The whole life of the Christian is a carrying of the cross and a 
suffering of persecution. Christ Himself says : " The servant is not 
above his master" (Matt. x. 24). That is, the servant of Christ has 
no claim to a better lot than his Master Christ. We must expect the 
men of the world (that is, those who seek their happiness in this 
life) to regard us as erratic people and as fools, to condemn us and to 
hate us (1 Cor. iv. 3, 10; John xvii. 14; xv. 20). To be loved and 
praised by the world is to be the enemy of Christ. The principles of 
the world are in contradiction with those of Christ, and the world re- 
gards as a fool him whom Christ declares blessed (Matt. v. 3, 10). 
Yet Christ tells us: " Every one that heareth My words and 
doeth them, shall be likened to a wise man, that built his house 
upon a rock " (Matt. vii. 24). 
He who trusts in God builds on solid ground. The patriarch 
Joseph derived advantage, not harm, from being persecuted ; the pious 
David was persecuted, first by Saul, and then by his own son Absalom. 
From his own experience he was able to say : " Many are the afflic- 
tions of the just ; but out of them all the Lord will deliver them " (Ps. 
xxxiii. 20). All the saints of Christ have been persecuted, but God 
has turned to good the evil that their enemies thought to do them. 
" If God is with us, who can be against us ? " 
4. Hence perfect happiness is impossible on earth; for no man 
can entirely avoid suffering. 
The end of the worldling is misery as we have seen, and the just 
man is persecuted. No one can escape sickness, suffering, death. The 
world is a valley of tears ; it is a big hospital, containing as many sick 
men as there are human beings. The world is a place of banishment, 
where we are far from our true country. In the world good and ill 
fortune succeed each other like sunshine and storm. Prosperity is 
the sure forerunner of adversity. In life we are on a sea, now lifted 
up to heaven, now cast down to hell. Society is always sure to be full 
of all kinds of miseries, whatever efforts may be made to improve the 
condition of mankind. Vain indeed are the hopes of the modern 
school of social democrats who dream of gradually abolishing all evil 
and misery from the world.
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INTRODUCTION.

THE CATECHISM EXPLAINED

INTRODUCTION
