If, then, you have not controlled your gift of speech, which was given you to edify your neighbor, to speak and sing the praises of God, but have given way to a habit of using God's holy name and that of his Son in vain, ask him to give you the grace to overcome the habit. If you hear people on the street or in company blaspheming, cursing, or swearing, lift up your heart to God and make reparation for the injury by saying the prayer, "Blessed be the name of the Lord." Never give scandal to others, and especially the little ones around your family hearth, by blaspheming, or even by carelessly using the name of God or his saints without due reverence. Many men and women have grown up with this old habit clinging to them--a habit that they contracted at home, and that they learned when young from their father and mother. Cursing and swearing are the language of hell. Blessing, prayer, and praise are the language of heaven. {86} Do all in your power to learn the language of the saints--that is, the language of love and reverence for the holy name of Jesus. For "his name is holy and terrible." Repeat the prayer which is sung and said in the holy Mass on this feast: "O God, who hast made thy only-begotten Son to be the Saviour of mankind, and hast commanded that he should be called Jesus, mercifully grant that we may so venerate his holy name on earth that we may be favored with beholding his face for ever in heaven." -------------------- Sermon XXII. _There was a marriage in Cana, of Galilee; and the Mother of Jesus was there. And Jesus also was invited, and his disciples, to the marriage._ --St. John ii. 1, 2. As we read the story of this marriage, my dear brethren, it must certainly occur to all of us how singularly favored it was, above all that have ever been celebrated since the beginning of the world, in being honored with the presence of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, of his Blessed Mother, and of his apostles, and in the fact that it witnessed the first of the miracles which he performed in his three years' ministry--the change of water into wine. But when we come to look at the matter more closely we shall see that, great as was the honor which this marriage received, every Christian marriage has the same. For every Christian marriage is honored really and truly, though not visibly, with the presence of our Lord, his Blessed Mother, and the apostles; and at every Christian marriage a miracle of grace is performed of which we may well believe the change of water into wine to have been only a shadow or type. {87}