_I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord._ --St. John i. 23.
Whenever, my dear brethren, men are going to a place they always ask the way. They also make up their minds as to which is the long way, which the short way, which the most convenient and easiest way. They do this with reference to the places to which they go in this world. Now, we are all going to heaven; at least, each one of us will say, I hope I am going there. We know there are many places to which we can go in this world, and many different ways by which we can get to them. { 43} There are also many places in heaven, but there is but one way of getting to any one, even to the least of them.
Which is that way? Some will say it is the good way, or the way of the good man. Another will say it is attending to your duties, to your church. Yet another will say it is by keeping away from mortal sin. Each answer is a good one, but neither one brings out the important point. The true answer, and the first one to be given, is that it is God's way--the way of the Lord. Yes, my dear brethren, it is the very way, the one and only way, that our Lord Jesus Christ has travelled before us. Every step he took along this path was marked by the precious Blood from his own veins. It is the way of the cross, of sacrifice, of penance and mortification.
Are we all going this way? Is each one of us now here present moving daily and hourly on this path? It is almost useless to ask this question, for I know many, very many indeed, will answer. No! It is indeed a sad truth that most people, most even of our Catholic people, are not going this way.
But why is this? One reason is because they do not try, sincerely and earnestly, to fix in the mind that this is the only condition upon which any soul can be saved. For our Lord himself declares that unless a man take up his cross _daily_ and follow him he cannot be his disciple. They do not realize that there is an absolute necessity, an unchangeable law in this assertion. God has said it, and will not unsay it. Yet how quickly will men stop a business or a transaction that will surely cause them to lose their money! How quickly will they turn from a road that is sure to lead to death! They realize the necessity when property and life are to be lost; but they will not see or feel the same necessity when their souls and eternal life are most certainly to be forever lost.