Sermons to the People 114.1–116.7

The holy Gospel which we heard just now when it was recited reminded us of the forgiveness of sins. You are to be reminded of this by our sermon. For we are ministers of the word, not ours but surely of God and our Lord, whom no one serves without glory, whom no one despises without punishment. He, then, our Lord God, who abiding with the Father made us, and being made for us remade us, our Lord God Jesus Christ himself, says to us what we have just heard in the Gospel: “If your brother sins against you,” he says, “rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him: and if he sins against you seven times in a day, and comes saying, I repent, forgive him.” By “seven times in a day” he wanted nothing understood but “as often as”; lest perhaps he sin eight times and you refuse to forgive. What, then, is “seven times”? Always, as often as he sins and repents. For this is “Seven times a day I will praise you,” which is in another Psalm, “His praise is always in my mouth.” And the most certain reason why seven is put for always is that all time revolves in seven days coming and returning.

Whoever, then, you are who think of Christ and long to receive what he promised, do not be slow to do what he commanded. For what did he promise? Eternal life. And what did he command? That pardon be given to your brother. As if he were saying to you: “You, a man, give pardon to a man, so that I, God, may come to you.” But to omit, or rather to set aside for a while, those higher divine promises, in which our Creator is going to make us equal to his angels, so that we may live without end with him and in him and from him; not to speak of this for the moment: this very thing which you are commanded to give your brother, do you not want to receive from your God? This very thing, I say, which you are commanded to give your brother, do you not want to receive from your Lord? Tell me if you do not want it, and do not give it. What is this, except that you forgive one who asks, if you ask to be forgiven? Or if you have nothing to be forgiven, I dare to say: do not forgive. And yet I ought not to have said even this. Even if you have nothing to be forgiven, forgive.

You will say to me now: “But I am not God; I am a sinful man.” Thanks be to God that you confess that you have sins. So forgive, so that they may be forgiven you. Yet our Lord God himself urges us to imitate him. First, God Christ himself, of whom the apostle Peter said: “Christ suffered for us, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps; who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth.” And certainly he had no sin, and he died for our sins, and shed his blood for the forgiveness of sins. He took on for us what he did not owe, so as to free us from debt. He did not owe death, nor did we owe life. Why? Because we were sinners. Neither was death owed to him, nor life to us: he received what was not owed to him; he gave what was not owed to us. But since we are dealing with the forgiveness of sins, lest you think it too much for you to imitate Christ, hear the apostle saying: “Forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. Be, then, imitators of God.” These are the apostle’s words, not mine: “Be, then, imitators of God.” Surely it is proud to imitate God? Hear the apostle: “Be imitators of God, as dearest children.” You are called a son: if you reject imitation, why do you seek the inheritance?

I would say this if you had no sin that you wanted remitted to you. But now, whoever you are, you are a man: though you are righteous, you are a man; though you are a layman, you are a man; though you are a monk, you are a man; though you are a cleric, you are a man; though you are a bishop, you are a man; though you are an apostle, you are a man. Hear the voice of an apostle: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves.” He, he, he, John, the evangelist too, whom the Lord Christ loved above the rest, who reclined on his breast, he says, “If we say”: he did not say, “If you say that you have no sin,” but, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” He joined himself in the fault, so as to be joined in the pardon too. “If we say”: see who says it: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all iniquity.” How does he cleanse? By forgiving: not as finding something to punish, but as finding something to remit. So if we have sins, brothers, let us forgive those who ask. Let us not keep enmities in our heart against another. For enmities kept do more to corrupt our own heart.

So I want you forgiving, because I hold you asking for pardon. You are asked: forgive. You are asked, and you will ask; you are asked: forgive; you will ask to be forgiven. See, the time for praying will come: in the words you are going to say, I hold you. You are going to say, “Our Father, who are in heaven.” For you will not be in the number of the sons if you are not going to say, “Our Father.” So you are going to say, “Our Father, who are in heaven.” Go on: “Hallowed be your name.” Say further: “Your kingdom come.” Go on further: “Your will be done, as in heaven, so on earth.” See what you add: “Give us this day our daily bread.” Where are your riches? See, you are begging. Meanwhile, though, since that is the matter in hand, say next: “Give us this day our daily bread.” Say further what follows: “Forgive us our debts.” You have come to my words: “Forgive us,” he says, “our debts.” By what right? On what terms? By what agreement? On reading out what bond? “As we also forgive our debtors.” It is little that you do not forgive: you also lie to God. The condition is set, the law is fixed: “Forgive, as I forgive.” So he does not forgive unless you forgive. “Forgive, as I forgive.” You want to be forgiven when you ask; forgive the one who asks. The heavenly lawyer dictated these prayers: he does not deceive you; ask according to his heavenly voice: say, “Forgive us, as we also forgive”; and do what you say. Whoever lies in his prayers loses the benefit; whoever lies in his prayers both loses his case and finds punishment. And if someone lies to the emperor, when the emperor comes he is convicted of lying: but when you lie in praying, you are convicted in the prayer itself. For God does not look for witnesses against you to convict you. He who dictated the prayers to you is your advocate: if you lie, he is a witness; if you do not correct yourself, he will be your judge. So both say it and do it. For if you do not say it, you do not obtain, since you ask against the law; but if you say it and do not do it, you will also be guilty of lying. There is no way to get past this verse except to fulfill what we say. Shall we be able to delete this verse from our prayer? Or do you want “Forgive us our debts” to be there, and delete what follows, “as we also forgive our debtors”? You will not delete it, lest you be deleted first. In prayer, then, you say, “Give”; you say, “Forgive”: so that you may receive what you do not have, and what you have done wrong may be remitted. So you want to receive: give. You want to be forgiven: forgive. It is a short summary. Hear Christ himself in another place: “Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you.” “Forgive, and you will be forgiven.” What will you forgive? What others have sinned against you. And what will be forgiven you? What you have sinned. “Forgive.” “Give, and it will be given to you”: what you desire, eternal life. Support the temporal life of the poor; sustain the present life of the poor; and for so small and earthly a seed you will receive the harvest of eternal life. Amen.

The reading of the holy Gospel builds us up to pray and to believe, and to trust not in ourselves but in the Lord. What greater encouragement to pray than that the likeness of the unjust judge was set before us? For the unjust judge, neither fearing God nor respecting man, yet heard the widow who pestered him, overcome by weariness, not moved by goodness. If, then, he heard who hated what he was asked, how does he hear who urges us to ask? So when the Lord had persuaded us of this by a comparison from the opposite, “that one ought always to pray and not lose heart,” he added and said, “But when the Son of Man comes, do you think he will find faith on earth?” If faith fails, prayer perishes. For who prays for what he does not believe? Hence the blessed apostle too, when he was urging us to pray, said: “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” And to show that faith is the fountain of prayer, and that the stream cannot flow where the source of the water dries up, he added and said: “But how will they call on him in whom they have not believed?” So let us believe so that we may pray; and let us pray so that the faith by which we pray may not fail. Faith pours out prayer; prayer poured out obtains firmness for faith. Faith, I say, pours out prayer; prayer poured out obtains firmness even for faith itself. For it was so that faith might not fail in temptations that the Lord said: “Watch and pray, that you may not enter into temptation.” “Watch,” he says, “and pray, that you may not enter into temptation.” What is it to enter into temptation, but to go out from faith? For temptation advances as far as faith fails, and temptation fails as far as faith advances. For so that your Charity may know more plainly that the Lord said, “Watch and pray, that you may not enter into temptation,” about faith, lest it fail and perish, in that place of the Gospel he says: “This night Satan has asked to sift you like wheat; and I have prayed for you, Peter, that your faith may not fail.” Does he who protects pray, and he who is in danger not pray? But when the Lord said, “When the Son of Man comes, do you think he will find faith on earth?”, he spoke of faith that is perfect. For that is scarcely found on earth. See, God’s church is full: who would come here if there were no faith? Who would not move mountains if faith were full? Look at the apostles themselves: having left all they had, trampling on the hope of the world, they would not have followed the Lord unless they had great faith; and yet, if they had full faith, they would not say to the Lord, “Increase our faith.” See also that man confessing both of himself (see faith, and not full faith), who, when he had brought his son to the Lord to be healed of an evil demon and was asked whether he believed, answered and said: “I believe, Lord; help my unbelief.” “I believe,” he says, “I believe, Lord”: so there is faith. “But help my unbelief”: so faith is not full.

But because faith belongs not to the proud but to the humble, “he told this parable to some who thought themselves righteous and despised others: Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee said: I thank you, God, that I am not like the rest of men.” He might at least have said, “like many men.” What does “like the rest of men” mean, but all except himself? “I,” he says, “am righteous; the rest are sinners. I am not like the rest of men, unjust, robbers, adulterers.” And see, from the tax collector nearby, an occasion for greater swelling. “Like this tax collector,” he says. “I,” he says, “am alone; he is one of the rest. I am not,” he says, “such as he is, through my righteous deeds, by which I am not unjust. I fast twice in the sabbath, I give tithes of all that I possess.” Look in his words for what he asked of God: you will find nothing. He went up to pray: he did not want to ask God, but to praise himself. It is little not to ask God but to praise himself; besides, he insulted the one who was asking. “But the tax collector stood far off”; and yet he drew near to God. The awareness of his heart kept him away; his devotion brought him near. “But the tax collector stood far off”: but the Lord looked at him from near. “For the Lord is high, and looks on the lowly.” But the lofty, such as that Pharisee was, “he knows from afar.” The lofty he knows from afar, but he does not pardon. Hear further the tax collector’s humility. It is little that he stood far off: “nor did he lift his eyes to heaven.” So as to be looked upon, he did not look. He did not dare to look up: his conscience pressed him down, hope lifted him up. Hear further: “He beat his breast.” He exacted punishment from himself: that is why the Lord spared him when he confessed. “He beat his breast, saying: Lord, be merciful to me a sinner.” See one who asks. Why wonder if God pardons, when he himself acknowledges? You have heard the dispute of the Pharisee and the tax collector; hear the verdict. You have heard the proud accuser, you have heard the humble defendant; hear now the judge. “Amen I say to you.” The Truth says it, God says it, the judge says it: “Amen I say to you, that tax collector went down from the temple justified rather than that Pharisee.” Tell us, Lord, the reason. See, I see the tax collector going down from the temple justified rather than the Pharisee. I ask why. You ask why? Hear why: “Because everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” You have heard the verdict; beware of a bad cause. I say it another way: you have heard the verdict; beware of pride.

Let certain people now see, let them hear these things, who babble impiously and presume on their own strength; let those hear who say, “God made me a man; I make myself righteous.” O worse and more detestable than the Pharisee! That Pharisee proudly called himself righteous, but still he gave thanks to God for it. He called himself righteous; but still he gave thanks to God. “I thank you, God, that I am not like the rest of men.” “I thank you, God”: he gives thanks to God that he is not like the rest of men: and yet he is rebuked as proud and puffed up; not because he gave thanks to God, but because he wanted nothing more added to him, as it were. “I thank you that I am not like the rest of men, unjust.” So you are righteous; so you ask for nothing; so you are already full; so human life on earth is not a temptation; so you are already full; so you already abound; so there is now no reason for you to say, “Forgive us our debts.” What, then, of the one who impiously attacks grace, if the one who proudly gives thanks is rebuked?

And see, after the dispute was stated and the verdict pronounced, the little children too come forward; rather, they are carried and offered to be touched. To be touched by whom, but the physician? The healthy, surely? To whom are infants offered to be touched? To whom? To the Savior. If to the Savior, then certainly to be saved. To whom, but him who came to seek and to save what was lost? Where had these been lost? As far as concerns them properly, I see they are innocent; I look for their guilt. From where? I hear the apostle: “Through one man sin entered into the world. Through one man,” he says, “sin entered the world, and death through sin; and so it passed to all men, in whom all sinned.” So let the little ones come; let them come: let the Lord be heard, “Let the little ones come to me.” Let the little ones come, the sick to the physician; let the lost come to the Redeemer: let them come; let no one forbid them. In the branch they have committed nothing yet: but in the root they perished. Let the Lord bless the small with the great: let the physician touch both small and great. We commend the cause of the little ones to the grown. Speak for those who are silent; pray for those who cry. If you are not grown for nothing, be their guardians: protect those who cannot yet plead their own cause. The ruin was common; let the finding be common: together we had perished; together let us be found in Christ. The merit is unequal, but the grace is common. They have no evil except what they drew from the source: they have no evil except what they drew from their origin. Let those not keep them from salvation who to what they drew have added much. Whoever is greater in age is greater also in iniquity. But the grace of God wipes out what you drew, and wipes out what you added. “For where sin abounded, grace abounded the more.”

The Lord appeared after the resurrection to his disciples, as you have heard, and greeted them, saying, “Peace be with you.” This is peace, and the greeting of salvation: for greeting (salutatio) itself took its name from salvation (salus). And what better than that Salvation himself should greet a man? For our salvation is Christ. He is our salvation, who was wounded for us and fastened with nails to the tree; and taken down from the tree, laid in the tomb. But from the tomb he rose, his wounds healed, his scars kept. For he judged it expedient for his disciples that his scars be kept, so that the wounds of the heart might be healed by them. What wounds? The wounds of unbelief. For he appeared to their eyes showing true flesh: and they thought they were seeing a spirit. This is no light wound of the heart. Indeed, those who remained in this wound made a malignant heresy. But do we not think the disciples were wounded, because they were quickly healed? Let your Charity consider: if they had remained in that wound, so as to think that the body buried had not risen, but that a spirit had deceived human eyes by the image of a body; if they had remained in that faith, or rather in that unbelief, not their wounds but their death would have had to be mourned.

But what does the Lord Jesus say? “Why are you troubled, and why do thoughts arise in your heart?” If thoughts arise in your heart, the thoughts come from the earth. It is good for a man, not that a thought should rise into his heart, but that his heart itself should rise upward: where the apostle wanted to place the hearts of believers, to whom he said: “If you have risen with Christ, savor the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God; seek the things that are above, not those on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God: when Christ, your life, appears, then you too will appear with him in glory.” In what glory? Of the resurrection. In what glory? Hear the apostle saying of this body: “It is sown in dishonor; it will rise in glory.” This glory the apostles were unwilling to grant to their Master, their Christ, their Lord: they did not believe he could have raised his body from the tomb; they thought him a spirit, and they were seeing flesh, and did not trust their own eyes. And we believe them when they proclaim to us and do not show. See, they did not believe Christ himself showing himself. A bad wound: let the remedies of the scars come forth. “Why are you troubled, and why do thoughts arise in your heart? See my hands and my feet,” where I was fastened with nails. “Handle and see.” But you see, and do not see. “Handle and see.” What? “For a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see me have.” Having said this (so it was read), “he showed them his hands and feet.”

“And while they were still trembling and wondering for joy.” Already there was joy, and still trembling remained. For an incredible thing had happened, but it had happened. Is it incredible now that the Lord’s flesh rose from the tomb? The whole world has believed it: whoever has not believed has remained unclean. Yet then it was incredible: and it was being made convincing not only to the eyes but to the hands as well, so that through the sense of the body faith might descend into the heart, and faith, descending into the heart, might be preached through the world to those who neither see nor touch, and yet believe without doubting. “Have you here,” he says, “anything to eat?” How much the good builder adds to the building! He was not hungry, and he asked to eat; and he ate by power, not by need. So let the disciples recognize the true body, which the world recognized through their preaching.

If perhaps there are some heretics who still hold in their heart that Christ showed himself to the eyes, and that it was not Christ’s true flesh, let them now lay this aside; let the Gospel persuade them. We rebuke them because they think this; he will condemn them if they persist in thinking it. Who are you, who do not believe that a body laid in the tomb could rise? If you are a Manichee, who do not believe him crucified because you do not believe him born, you proclaim that he showed everything falsely. Did he show falsehoods, and do you speak the truth? Do you not lie with your mouth, but he lied with his body? See, you think that what was not there appeared to the eyes; that it was a spirit, not flesh. Hear him: he loves you, so as not to condemn you. Hear him saying: see, he says to you, unhappy man; he speaks to you: “Why are you troubled, and why do thoughts arise in your heart? See,” he says, “my hands and my feet. Handle and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see me have.” Did the Truth say this and deceive? It was a body, it was flesh; what had been buried appeared. Let doubt perish; let fitting praise follow.

So he showed himself to his disciples. What does “himself” mean? The head of his church. The church that was to be throughout the world was foreseen by him; it was not yet seen by the disciples. He was showing the head; he was promising the body. For what did he add next? “These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you.” What does “while I was still with you” mean? Was he not with them then, when he was speaking with them? What does “while I was still with you” mean? With you as a mortal, which I am no longer. I was with you when I was going to die. What does “with you” mean? Going to die with those who were going to die. Now no longer with you: because I am never again to die with those who are going to die. “This, then, I said to you.” What? “That everything must be fulfilled that is written in the law, and the prophets, and the psalms about me.” I told you that everything must be fulfilled. “Then he opened their minds.” Come, then, Lord: use your keys, open, so that we may understand. See, you say everything, and you are not believed. You are thought a spirit; you are touched, you are handled, and still those who touch you tremble. You remind them of the Scriptures, and still they do not understand. Their hearts are shut: open, and enter. He did it: “Then he opened their minds.” Open, Lord, open the heart of the one who doubts about Christ too. Open the mind of him who believes that Christ was a phantom. “Then he opened their minds, so that they understood the Scriptures.”

“And he said to them.” What? “That so it was necessary.” “That so it is written, and so it was necessary.” What? “That the Christ should suffer and rise from the dead on the third day.” They saw this; they saw him suffering, they saw him hanging, they saw him after the resurrection present, alive. What, then, did they not see? The body, that is, the church. Him they saw; her they did not see. They saw the bridegroom; the bride was still hidden. Let him promise her too. “So it is written, and so it was necessary that the Christ should suffer and rise from the dead on the third day.” This is the bridegroom. What about the bride? “And that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.” This the disciples did not yet see: the church through all nations, beginning from Jerusalem, they did not yet see. They saw the head, and they believed the head about the body. Through what they saw, they believed what they did not see. We are like them too: we see something they did not see, and we do not see something they saw. What do we see that they did not see? The church through all nations. What do we not see that they saw? Christ present in the flesh. As they saw him and believed about the body, so let us see the body and believe about the head. Let our sights help each other. Christ seen helped them to believe in the church to come: the church seen helps us to believe that Christ has risen. Their faith was made complete; ours too is being made complete: theirs was completed from the head, ours is completed from the body. The whole Christ became known both to them and to us; but the whole was not seen by them, nor is the whole seen by us. By them the head was seen, the body believed: by us the body is seen, the head believed. Yet Christ is lacking to no one: in all he is full, and still his body remains to be completed. They believed; through them many in Jerusalem believed; Judea believed, Samaria believed. Let the members come, let the building come to the foundation. “For no one can lay a foundation,” says the apostle, “other than that which is laid, which is Christ Jesus.” Let the Jews rage, let them be filled with jealousy; let Stephen be stoned, let Saul guard the clothes of those stoning him, Saul who would be Paul the apostle. Let Stephen be killed, let the church of Jerusalem be thrown into turmoil: let the burning logs go out from there, let them go and set things on fire. For the logs, in a way, were burning in the church of Jerusalem with the Holy Spirit, when they had one soul and one heart toward God. When Stephen was stoned, that pile suffered persecution: the logs were scattered, and the world was set on fire.

Then, after this, that raging Saul received letters from the chief priests, and began to go, raging, panting for slaughter, thirsting for blood, to drag in chains whomever he could from wherever he could, to snatch them off to execution, to sate himself with shed blood. But where is God, where is Christ, where is Stephen’s crowner? Where, but in heaven? Let him see Saul too, let him laugh at his raging, let him cry from heaven: “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” I am in heaven, you on earth; and yet you persecute me. You do not touch the head, but you trample my members. But what are you doing? What are you gaining? “It is hard for you to kick against the goad.” However many kicks you give, you hurt yourself. So lay aside your fury, take up health. Lay aside your bad plan; seek good help. At that voice he was thrown to the ground. Who was thrown down? The persecutor. See, he was conquered by one voice. Where were you going? Why were you raging? Those you were seeking, you now follow; those you were persecuting, you now suffer persecution for. The preacher rises who was thrown down as persecutor. He heard the Lord’s voice. He was blinded, but in the body, so that he might be enlightened in the heart. Led to Ananias, catechized on many things, baptized, he went forth an apostle. Speak, preach; preach Christ, spread it abroad, good ram, lately a wolf. See him, look at him who was raging: “But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” Pour out the Gospel: what you have conceived in your heart, spread with your mouth. Let the nations hear, let the nations believe; let the nations multiply; let a bride be born to the Lord from the blood of the martyrs, clothed in purple. And how many have come from her! How many members have clung to the head, and cling now, and believe! And these have been baptized, and others will be baptized, and after us others will come. Then, I say, at the end of the age, stones will be added to the foundation, living stones, holy stones, so that at the end the whole building may be built from that church; rather, from this very church, which now sings a new song while the house is being built. For so the Psalm itself has it: “When the house was being built after the captivity.” And what? “Sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth.” How great a house! But when does it sing a new song? While it is being built. When is it dedicated? At the end of the age. Its foundation has already been dedicated: because he ascended into heaven and does not die. When we too have risen, never to die, then we shall be dedicated.