This morning’s story is about the nose of a statue. A Roman artist named Titus once carved a statue of the emperor. On the day of its unveiling the emperor was in the forum at Rome with all the people of the city. When the silk covering was pulled away, the’ people gasped in amazement. The statue looked perfect. It showed the emperor standing as at the head of his army, holding aloft a sword. Every muscle and especially every line of his face was copied in perfect mold. So pleased was the emperor that he gave Titus great rewards. The statue stood as good as new until a few months later the summer sun of Italy began to beat down upon it. Then something happened. The nose fell off. On inspection it was found that the statue was all marble except for the nose. This had not been cut out of stone but had been done in wax and stuck on. Titus’ trick was discovered and he was sent away from Rome in disgrace. A law was passed that all statues of the emperor were to be made without wax. From this law we get our English word “sincere.” Maybe some of the older children can tell me what the Latin words “sine cera” mean. They mean without wax or in English “sincere.”
Each thing in this story reminds us of something. We are like, as was said before, artists carving our souls into likenesses of our Emperor, Christ. What does the wax nose remind you of? What would be in our souls what the wax nose was to Titus’ statue? It was a defect in the statue. What would be a defect in our souls? Yes, sin or a bad habit, or a weakness of will. The nose of Titus’ statue would not withstand the heat. Some characters are like that. They have noses of wax. Noses that can’t stand the heat of temptation. Noses that fall off as soon as temptation comes and spoil all their statues. Get rid of all such weakness. This week pick out the one weak spot which would be like the wax nose on your statue. Each one of us has a weakness. Do what you can during the week to strengthen it. We do not want to insult Christ, our Emperor, by giving Him an image of Himself with a nose of wax. From now on we are going to learn more about making ourselves images of Christ. We have seen the things out of which we make an image. Now we will look at the things that destroy it. We are going to see what will spoil our image and try to avoid these things.
We must build up images of Christ which can bear the heat of temptation; strong images without any flaw or blemish; images which are true copies of Christ; which are without wax, sine cera - sincere.
~ “Heavenwords,” Imprimatur 1941 ~