ut of harmony
with the virtuous; the children of darkness cannot find peace with the
children of light. And not only is there a lack of sympathy in the
worldly-minded for the men and women who are led of God, but there is
often positive hatred for them--a hatred which spends itself in actual,
persistent persecution. To be devout, to refrain from sinful words and
sinful deeds, to shun the vain and dangerous amusements of worldlings, to
attend much to prayer and recollection, to love the house and worship of
God, to be seen often approaching the sacraments and partaking of the
bread of life at the communion rail--even these holy acts are sufficient
frequently to draw down on the servants of God the curse and persecution
of a world which knows not what it does.

And that which happens individually to the faithful children of God takes
place on a larger scale with respect to God's Church. The children of this
world, those who have set their heart on temporal things, or who, through
wilful error have deviated from the right path to things eternal, never
cease from pursuing and persecuting the Church of God. They hate the
Church and attack it unceasingly. Like the perverse and blinded Jews of
old who reviled the Saviour and His words and deeds, who pursued Him and
put Him to death, these ever-living and ever-active enemies of light and
truth never abate in their fury against the chosen friends of Christ, and
against His holy Church. But need we be surprised at this? Was it not
foretold? Did not our blessed Shepherd, speaking in the beginning to His
little flock, warn them that men would deliver them up in councils and
scourge them? Did He not say to them plainly, "And you shall be hated by
all men for my name's sake; but he that shall persevere unto the end, he
shall be saved. And when they persecute you in this city, flee into
another.... The disciple is not above the master, nor the servant above
his lord. It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the
servant as his lord. If they have called the good man of the house
Beelzebub, how much more them of his household."(37)

It happens, therefore, that fidelity to God, and careful adherence to the
paths of justice and holiness, can frequently be the occasion of perils
and sufferings for us individually, as they also are the excuse for a
vaster persecution of the Church in general. All holy persons and holy
things are signs of contradiction. They are not of the