Sermons to the People 304.1–305.4

The Roman Church commends to us today the triumphal day of blessed Lawrence, on which he trampled on the world raging, spurned it flattering, and in both conquered the devil persecuting. How glorious, and adorned with how great a multitude of virtues as with a variety of flowers, the crown of the martyr Lawrence is, all Rome is witness. For in that Church, as you are used to hearing, he performed the office of deacon. There he ministered the sacred blood of Christ; there for the name of Christ he shed his own blood. He had approached the table of the mighty one wisely. To that table of which the proverbs of Solomon were just speaking to us, where it is written: “If you sit down to dine at the table of a mighty man, consider carefully what is set before you; and so stretch out your hand, knowing that you must prepare the like.” The mystery of this supper the blessed apostle John explained plainly, saying: “As Christ laid down his life for us, so we too ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.” Saint Lawrence understood this, brothers; he understood it, and he did it: and indeed such things as he received at that table, such he prepared. He loved Christ in his life; he imitated him in his death. And we too, then, brothers, if we truly love, let us imitate. For we shall be able to render no better fruit of love than the example of imitation: “For Christ suffered for us, leaving us an example, that we should follow his footsteps.” In this saying the apostle Peter seems to have seen that Christ suffered only for those who follow his footsteps, and that the passion of Christ profits nothing except those who follow his footsteps. The holy martyrs followed him even to the shedding of blood, even to the likeness of his passion: the martyrs followed, but not they alone. For after they passed over, the bridge was not cut; or after they drank, the fountain itself was not dried up. For what is the hope of good believers, who either under the conjugal yoke bear the yoke of marriage chastely and in harmony, or under widowed continence tame the allurements of the flesh, or even, raising higher the peak of holiness and flowering in new virginity, follow the Lamb wherever he goes? What, I say, is the hope of these, what of all of us, if none follow Christ but those who shed their blood for him? Is mother Church then going to lose her children, whom she bore the more fruitfully the more securely in time of peace? So as not to lose them, must persecution be prayed for, temptation be prayed for? Far from it, brothers. For how can he pray for persecution who cries every day, “Lead us not into temptation”? That garden of the Lord has, brothers, has, has not only the roses of the martyrs, but also the lilies of virgins, and the ivy of the married, and the violets of widows. Altogether, dearly beloved, let no kind of people despair of its calling: Christ suffered for all. Truly it is written of him, “Who wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”

Let us understand, then, how a Christian ought to follow Christ apart from the shedding of blood, apart from the danger of suffering. The apostle says, speaking of the Lord Christ: “Who, though he was in the form of God, did not think it robbery to be equal with God.” What majesty! “But he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and found in appearance as a man.” What humility! Christ humbled himself: you have, Christian, something to hold. Christ became obedient: why are you proud? How far did Christ become obedient? To the incarnation of the Word, to sharing human mortality, to the threefold temptation of the devil, to the mockery of the Jewish people, to spittle and chains, to slaps and scourges; if that is little, “to death”; and if something must still be added about the kind of death, “even the death of the cross.” We have such an example of humility, a medicine for pride. Why then do you swell, O man? O dead skin, why are you stretched? O stinking pus, why are you puffed up? You pant, you grieve, you seethe, because someone or other has done you an injury. From there you demand revenge, you thirst for vengeance with parched throat; nor do you desist from your purpose until you are avenged on him who hurt you. If you are a Christian, wait for your king: let Christ first be avenged. For he has not yet been avenged who suffered so much for you. And surely that majesty could either suffer nothing or be avenged at once. But since there was such power in him, therefore there was also such patience: because he suffered for us, leaving us an example, that we should follow his footsteps. You see surely, dearly beloved, that apart from the shedding of blood, apart from chains and prisons, apart from scourges and claws, there are many things in which we can follow Christ. Then, this humility having run its course and death having been laid low, Christ ascended into heaven: let us follow him. Let us hear the apostle saying, “If you have risen with Christ, savor the things that are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God; seek the things that are above, not those on earth.” Whatever delightful thing the world has thrust upon us from temporal things, let it be rejected; whatever harsh and terrible thing it has roared, let it be despised. And whoever acts so, let him not doubt that he cleaves to Christ’s footsteps, so that he may rightly dare to say with the apostle Paul, “Our citizenship is in heaven.”

But strength can be unconquered in these things only if love is not feigned. He gives us true strength, then, who pours love into our hearts. For when would blessed Lawrence not fear the fires applied from outside, unless the flame of love burned within? Therefore, my brothers, the glorious martyr did not dread the atrocious flames of the fires in his body, because he was blazing in his mind with the most ardent desire of heavenly joys. In comparison with the fervor with which his breast burned, the outer flame of the persecutors was cold. For when would he bear the stings of such great pains, unless he loved the joys of eternal rewards? Finally, when would he despise this life, except by loving a better life? “And who can harm you,” says the apostle Peter; “who,” he says, “can harm you, if you are lovers of the good?” Let the persecutor do evil to you; do not you fail in loving the good. For if you truly love with your whole heart what is good, you will bear every evil patiently and calmly. For how did those torments inflicted by the persecutors harm blessed Lawrence, except that they made him more famous by those very punishments, and made for us this most festive day out of his precious death?

Your faith recognizes the grain which fell into the ground so that, having died, it might be multiplied. Your faith, I say, recognizes this grain, because it dwells in your mind. For no Christian doubts that Christ said this of himself. But plainly, that grain having died and been multiplied, many grains were scattered on the earth: among them is blessed Lawrence too, whose sowing we celebrate today. And from those grains scattered throughout the world, how great a crop has sprung up we see, we rejoice, we are: if indeed we too by his grace belong to the barn. For not everything that is in the crop belongs to the barn. For the same useful and nourishing rain feeds both the wheat and the chaff. Far be it that both should be stored together in the barn, although both are nourished together in the field and both threshed together on the threshing floor. Now is the time for choosing. Before the winnowing comes, let there be a separation of conduct: as on the threshing floor the grain is still distinguished by cleaning, it is not yet separated by the final winnowing fan.

Hear me, holy grains, which I do not doubt are here; for if I doubt it, I myself shall not be a grain: hear me, I say; or rather hear the first grain through me. Do not love your lives in this world: do not love them, if you love them; so that by not loving you may keep them: because by not loving you love more. “Whoever loves his life in this world will lose it.” The grain speaks, the grain that fell into the ground and was put to death to be multiplied speaks: let it be heard, for it does not lie. What he urged, he himself did: he instructed by precept, he went before by example. Christ did not love his life in this world; for this he came, to lose it here, to lay it down for us, and to take it up again when he willed. But because he was a man in such a way as also to be God—for Christ is Word, soul and flesh, true God and true man; but man without sin, who would take away the sin of the world—he was surely of greater power, so that he could truly say: “I have power to lay down my life, and I have power to take it again: no one takes it from me; but I lay it down of myself, and I take it again.” Since, then, he was of such power, why did he say, “Now my soul is troubled”? Why is the God-man of such power troubled, unless because in him is the image of our weakness? “I have power to lay down my life, and I have power to take it again.” When you hear this from Christ, he is in himself; when, I say, you hear this from Christ, he is in himself: when his soul is troubled as death draws near, he is in you. For his body would not be the Church unless he were also in us.

Attend, then, to Christ: “I have power to lay down my life, and I have power to take it again: no one takes it from me.” “I have slept”: for this is what he says in the psalm, “I have slept.” As if he said: Why do they rage? Why do they exult? Why are the Jews blown about with joy, as though they had done something? “I have slept.” I, he says, I who have power to lay down my life, by laying it down have slept and taken sleep. And since he had power to take it again, he added, “And I have risen.” But giving glory to the Father: “For the Lord,” he says, “has taken me up.” When he says these words, “For the Lord has taken me up,” let it not occur to your minds as though Christ himself did not raise up his body. The Father raised him, and he also raised himself. How shall we show that he also raised himself? Recall what he said to the Jews: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” So understand Christ born of the virgin by power, not by condition, but by power: dead by power, so dead by power. He used the evil, who did not know it, for his own good, and turned the raging, mad people to the use of his power for our blessedness; and in those by whom he was dying he saw his own who would live with him: and seeing them still mad in a mad people, he said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” I, he says, I the physician feel the pulse; from the wood I examine the sick; I hang and I touch; I die and I give life; I shed my blood, and from it I make the medicine of salvation for my enemies. They rage and shed it: they will believe and drink it.

Christ himself, then, our Lord and Savior, the head of the Church, born of the Father without a mother; he himself, I say, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, as far as concerns himself, laid down his life by power, took it up again by power. To this power “My soul is troubled” does not properly belong. He transferred us into himself; he saw us, he looked upon us, he took us up wearied and cherished us; lest perhaps, when the last day came to some member of his, on which this life was to be ended, he should be troubled through weakness and despair of salvation and say that he did not belong to Christ, since he was not so prepared for death that no disturbance arose in him, no sadness clouded his most devout mind. Since, then, his members would be endangered by despair when someone was troubled as death approached, not wanting to end a wretched life, slow to begin one never to be ended: lest they be broken by despair, he attended to these weak ones of his, he gathered these last, not very strong members of his into his bosom; these not very strong ones he covered as a hen covers her chicks; and he as it were addresses them: “Now my soul is troubled.” Recognize yourselves in me, so that when perhaps you have been troubled you do not despair, but turn your gaze back to your head and say to yourselves: When the Lord said, “My soul is troubled,” we were in him, we were signified. We are troubled, but we do not perish. “Why are you sad, my soul? And why do you trouble me?” Do you not want to end a wretched life? It is the more wretched, the more wretched it is loved and you do not want it ended: it would be less wretched if it were not loved. What is the happy life like, when a wretched life is so loved only because it is called life? “Why then are you sad, my soul? And why do you trouble me?” You have something to do. Have you failed in yourself? “Hope in the Lord.” Are you troubled in yourself? Hope in the Lord, who chose you before the foundation of the world, who predestined you, who called you, who justified you when ungodly, who promised you everlasting glorification, who for you underwent a death not owed, who shed his blood for you, who transferred you into himself when he said, “My soul is troubled.” You belong to him, and you are afraid? And will the world harm you in anything, the world for which he died, through whom the world was made? You belong to him, and you are afraid? “If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but handed him over for us all, how has he not also given us all things with him?” Resist disturbances, lest you consent to love of the world. It tickles, flatters, lies in wait: let it not be believed; let Christ be held fast.