Sermons to the People 336.1–338.4

The celebration of this gathering is the dedication of a house of prayer. This, then, is the house of our prayers; the house of God is we ourselves. If the house of God is we ourselves, we are being built in this world, so as to be dedicated at the end of the world. The building, or rather the building process, has toil; the dedication has exultation. What was done here when these walls were rising is done now when those who believe in Christ are gathered. For by believing, as it were, timbers and stones are cut from the woods and mountains; but when they are catechized, baptized, formed, they are as it were hewn, lined up, levelled between the hands of the builders and craftsmen. Yet they do not make the house of the Lord unless they are joined together by love. If these timbers and stones did not hold together in a set order, if they did not bind themselves peaceably together, if, by holding to one another, they did not in a way love one another, no one would enter here. In short, when you see in some building stones and timbers holding well together, you enter securely; you do not fear collapse. So the Lord Christ, wishing to enter and to dwell in us, said, as though building: “A new commandment I give you, that you love one another.” “A commandment,” he says, “I give you.” For you were old; you were not yet making a house for me; you were lying in your ruin. So that you may be raised out of the ruin of your oldness, love one another. Let your Charity consider, then, that this house is still being built throughout the whole world, as was foretold and promised. For when the house was being built after the captivity, as another psalm has it, it was said: “Sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth.” What it said there, “a new song,” the Lord said, “a new commandment.” For what does a new song have but a new love? To sing belongs to one who loves. The voice of this singer is the fervour of holy love. Let us love, let us love freely: for we love God, than whom we find nothing better. Let us love him for his own sake, and ourselves in him, yet for his sake. For he truly loves a friend who loves God in the friend, either because he is in him or so that he may be in him. This is true love: if we love ourselves for the sake of something else, we hate rather than love. For “he who loves iniquity,” what does he hate? Perhaps his neighbour, perhaps his neighbour's wife? Let him be terrified: “he hates his own soul.” Hatred of the soul is love of wickedness. So, against the hatred of wickedness, love of the soul. “You who love the Lord, hate evil.” God is good; what you love is evil, and you, being evil, love yourself: how do you love God, when you still love what God hates? For you have heard that God loved us; and it is true, he loved us; and if we consider what we were when he loved us, we blush. But we do not blush for this reason, that by loving such people he made them not to be such. We blush at the memory of the past; we rejoice in the hope of the future. For why should we still blush at what we were, and not rather trust, because “in hope we have been saved”? And then we heard: “Come to him and be enlightened, and your faces will not blush.” If the light withdraws, you return to confusion. “Come to him and be enlightened.” So he is light; we without him are darkness. If you withdraw from the light, you will remain in your darkness; but if you come near, you will not shine from your own. “For you were once darkness,” the apostle says to believers who had been unbelievers: “You were once darkness, but now light in the Lord.” If, then, light in the Lord, darkness without the Lord. Further, if light in the Lord and darkness without the Lord, “come to him and be enlightened.”

Attend, in the Psalm of dedication which we have just sung, to the building out of ruin. “You have torn my sackcloth”: this belongs to the ruin. What then belongs to the building? “And you have girded me with gladness.” The voice of dedication: “That my glory may sing to you, and I may not be pierced.” Who is it who speaks? Recognize him in his words. If I explain, it is obscure. So I will say his words, and at once you will recognize the speaker, so that you may love the one addressing you. Who is it who could say, “Lord, you have brought my soul up from the underworld”? Whose soul has already been brought up from the underworld, except the one of whom it was said in another place, “You will not leave my soul in the underworld”? The dedication is set before us, and deliverance is sung: the song of the dedication of the house is shouted, and it is said, “I will exalt you, Lord, for you have taken me up, and you have not let my enemies rejoice over me.” Consider the Jews, the enemies, who thought they had killed Christ, had conquered him as an enemy, had destroyed him as a man like others and mortal. He rose on the third day, and this is his voice: “I will exalt you, Lord, for you have taken me up.” Consider the apostle saying, “Therefore God has exalted him, and given him the name which is above every name.” “And you have not let my enemies rejoice over me.” They indeed rejoiced at Christ's death, but at his resurrection, ascension and preaching some were pierced to the heart. At his preaching, then, and its spreading through the steadfastness of the apostles, some were pierced to the heart and converted, some were hardened and confounded; but none rejoiced. Now, when the churches are filled, do we think the Jews rejoice? Churches are built, dedicated, filled: how do they rejoice? Not only do they not rejoice, they are even confounded; and the voice of the one exulting is fulfilled: “I will exalt you, Lord, for you have taken me up, and you have not let my enemies rejoice over me.” You have not let them rejoice over me: if they believe me, you will let them rejoice in me.

Not to say much, let us at last come to what we sang. How does Christ say, “You have torn my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness”? His sackcloth was the likeness of sinful flesh. Do not hold cheap what he says, “my sackcloth”: your price was shut up in it. “You have torn my sackcloth.” We have come to this sackcloth. “You have torn my sackcloth.” In the passion the sackcloth was torn. How then is it said to God the Father, “You have torn my sackcloth”? Do you want to hear how it is said to the Father? “You have torn my sackcloth.” Because he did not spare his own Son, but handed him over for us all. For he did it through the Jews, who did not know it, so that those who knew might be redeemed, and those who denied might be confounded. For they do not know what good they have worked for us by their own evil. The sackcloth was hung up, and the ungodly as it were rejoiced. The persecutor tore the sackcloth with a spear, and the Redeemer poured out our price. Let Christ the Redeemer sing; let Judas the seller groan; let the Jew the buyer blush. See, Judas sold, the Jew bought; they made a bad bargain; both were the losers; seller and buyer ruined themselves. You wanted to be buyers: how much better if you had been redeemed? The one sold, the other bought: unhappy trade; this one does not have the price, that one does not have Christ. To this one I say: Where is what you received? To that one I say: Where is what you bought? To this one I say: Where you sold, you deceived yourself. Exult, Christian: in the trade of your enemies you have won. What the one sold and the other bought, you have acquired.

Let our head speak, then; let the head slain for the body, dedicated for the body, speak; let him speak, let us listen: “You have torn my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness”: that is, you have torn my mortality, and girded me with immortality and incorruption. “That my glory may sing to you, and I may not be pierced.” What is “I may not be pierced”? Let the persecutor no longer bring a spear against me, so that I am pierced: “for Christ, rising from the dead, dies no more; death will no longer have dominion over him: for in that he died, he died to sin once; but in that he lives, he lives to God. So we too,” he says, “should consider ourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” So in him we sing, in him we have been dedicated. For where the head has gone before, we hope the members will follow. “For in hope we have been saved: but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does anyone hope for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience”; with patience we are built. But perhaps our voice is there too, if we pay good attention, if we look carefully, if we have a sharp eye; not as the blind lovers of bodies usually do: if, then, we direct our spiritual eye, we find ourselves too in the very words of our Lord Jesus Christ. For not for nothing did the apostle say, “Knowing that our old man was crucified together with him, so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we may no longer serve sin.” Recognize your voice there: “That my glory may sing to you, and I may not be pierced.” For now, while we carry these burdens of a mortal body, there is no lack of things to pierce us. For if the heart is not pierced, why is the breast beaten? So when there comes also the dedication of our body, which has gone before in the Lord's example, then we shall not be pierced. For the piercing we have for sin was signified by the spear of the one who struck him. Indeed, since it is written, “From a woman was the beginning of sin, and through her all die”: recall from what member she was made, and see where the Lord was pierced by the spear. Recall, I say, recall our first making: for not for nothing, as I said, “our old man was crucified together, so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we may no longer serve sin.” Indeed Eve, from whom the beginning of sin was made, was taken from the side of the man to be formed. He lay sleeping when it was done; this one hung dead when it was done. Sleep and death are two kin; side and side. The Lord was pierced in the place of sins. But from that side Eve was made, who by sinning would put us to death; from this side the church was made, which would give us life by giving birth. [So, while we gladly look at the new construction of this holy church, which we dedicate today to the divine name, we find that we owe both the highest praise to our God and to your Holiness a sermon fitting the building of the divine house. And our sermon will be fitting if it has in it something of upbuilding, to profit your souls as God builds you inwardly. What we see done here bodily in walls, let it be done spiritually in minds; and what we see completed here in stones and timbers, let it be completed in your bodies by the building of God's grace. Above all, then, let us give thanks to the Lord our God, from whom is every best gift and every perfect gift; and let us praise his goodness with all eagerness of heart, since for the building of this house of prayer he visited the mind of his faithful, stirred their affection, supplied help; he inspired those not yet willing to will, he helped the efforts of good will to act; and so God, who works in his own both to will and to accomplish according to his good will, himself began all these things, himself completed them. And because he never allows good works to be empty in his sight, to his faithful, to whom as they worked he gave the favour of his power, he will grant a fitting wage for so great a work. Still more thanks must be given to our God. For this church, which he caused to be built to his name, he has caused also to be honoured further with relics of the holy martyrs.]

When the good works that believers do from their temporal and earthly substance are laid up in heavenly treasuries, faith sees it, which has the eye of piety in the heart. So also, when it has looked with the eye of the flesh at these buildings put up to gather religious assemblies, it praises inwardly what it sees outwardly, and receives by visible light what it may rejoice at in invisible truth. For faith is not busy looking at how beautiful the members of this dwelling are, but at the great beauty of the inner man from which these works of love proceed. So the Lord will repay his faithful, who do these things so piously, so cheerfully, so devoutly, by setting them too in the construction of his own building, to which living stones run, formed by faith, made solid by hope, joined by love. There that wise architect the apostle laid as foundation Christ Jesus, himself the chief cornerstone, as Peter too recalls from the prophetic Scripture, rejected indeed by men, but chosen and honoured by God. By clinging to him we are at peace; by resting on him we are made firm. For he is at once the foundation stone, because he rules us, and the cornerstone, because he joins us. He is the rock on which the wise man, building his house, stands firm most safely against all the temptations of this world: it does not slip when the rain falls, it is not overturned when the river floods, it is not shaken when the winds blow. He is also our peace, who made both one: for in him neither circumcision avails anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. For these two, like walls coming from different sides, had been far from each other, until, brought to him as to the corner, they were joined to each other in him.

So, just as this visible building was made for gathering us bodily, so that building which we ourselves are is being constructed for God to dwell in spiritually. “For the temple of God is holy,” says the apostle, “which you are.” As we construct this one with earthly masses, so let us raise that one with well-ordered morals. For this one is dedicated now as we visit it; that one will be dedicated at the end of the world when the Lord comes, when this corruptible of ours will put on incorruption, and this mortal of ours will put on immortality: because he will conform the body of our lowliness to the body of his glory. For see what he says in the Psalm of dedication: “You have turned my mourning into joy for me; you have torn my sackcloth and girded me with gladness, that my glory may sing to you, and I may not be pierced.” For while we are being built, our lowliness groans to him; but when we are dedicated, our glory will sing to him: for in the building there is toil, in the dedication gladness. While stones are cut from the mountains and timbers from the woods, while they are shaped, hewn, fitted, there is toil and care: but when the dedication of the completed building is celebrated, joy and security follow the toils and cares. So too the spiritual building, whose inhabitant God will be not for a time but for ever: while people are separated from an unbelieving life to faith, while whatever is not good and is perverse in them is cut off and hewn away, while fitting, peaceable and devout joinings are made, how many temptations are feared, how many tribulations endured? But when the day of the dedication of the eternal house comes, when it will be said to us, “Come, blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world,” what exultation, what security will there be! Glory will sing, and weakness will not be pierced. When he who loved us and gave himself for us shows himself to us; and he who appeared to men as what he was made in his mother will appear to them as God the maker, what he was in the Father: when the eternal inhabitant himself enters his house, perfect and adorned, established in unity, clothed with immortality, he will fill all things, he will shine in all, so that God may be all in all.

This one vision a certain man asked of the Lord; and that certain man, if we will, is we. With desire for it he laboured in his groaning; for it he washed his bed every night, and watered his couch with his tears. For on account of it his tears were his bread day and night, while it was said to him every day, “Where is your God?” For he himself says: “One thing I have asked of the Lord, this I will seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, that I may contemplate the delight of the Lord, and be protected as his temple.” They are themselves the inhabitant, themselves the dwelling. For those who dwell in the house of God are themselves also the house of God: which contemplates his delight, and is protected as his temple, and is hidden in the hiding place of his face. We hold this hope; we do not yet see the reality. “But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience,” and with patience we are built.

Come then, brothers: “if you have risen with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God: set your minds on the things that are above, not on those that are on the earth.” For this reason Christ too, our foundation, has been placed there, so that we may be built upwards. For just as in building earthly masses, whose heavy bodies certainly incline only downwards, the foundation is laid at the bottom: so for us, on the contrary, that foundation stone has been placed above, so that it may draw us upwards by the weight of love. So “with eagerness, with fear and trembling, work out your own salvation. For it is God who works in you to will and to work according to his good will. Do all things without murmuring.” And as living stones be built together into the temple of God; and as timbers that do not rot, make of yourselves a house of God. Be squared, be smoothed, in labours, in necessities, in vigils, in tasks; be made ready for every good work: so that in eternal life you may deserve to rest as in the framework of the fellowship of the angels.

For this place has been built for a time, and will not last for ever: just as our bodies too, for whose needs it was made through works of mercy, are certainly not everlasting, but temporal and mortal. But “we have a dwelling from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens”: where our very bodies too, by the change of the resurrection, will be heavenly and everlasting. And now, although not yet by sight, as it will be face to face, yet God dwells in us by faith; and for him so dwelling we are made a dwelling through good works; which works are not eternal, but lead to eternal life. Among them is this work too, by which this basilica has been built: for we shall not carry out such buildings there. No place that will fall is built there, where no inhabitant who will die enters. Now, however, let your work be a good temporal one, so that your reward may be eternal. Now, I say, build the house of faith and hope with spiritual love in every good work, which will not exist then, because there will be no need. So lay the apostolic and prophetic admonitions as foundations in your hearts; spread your humility like a pavement without stumbling; fortify the saving teaching in your heart with prayers and sermons as with firm walls; light them up with the divine testimonies as with lamps; support the weak like columns; protect the needy like roofs: so that the Lord our God may give back eternal things for temporal goods, and possess you for ever, perfected and dedicated.

When good works, even those done for God's sake, are shown to men, when good and devout people do them, human praise is not being sought, but they are set forth to be imitated. For the mercy done in a good work is twofold, bodily and spiritual. The hungry, the thirsty, the naked, strangers are helped by bodily mercy; yet when these same works are shown and stir others to imitation, spirits and minds too are fed. One is fed by a good work, another by a good example: for both are hungry. The one wants to receive something to be nourished by, the other wants to see something to imitate. The reading of the holy gospel which has just been read also reminds us of this truth. For it is said to Christians who believe in God, who do good, who await the hope of eternal life for good works: “You are the light of the world.” And it is said to the universal church spread everywhere: “A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden.” “There will be,” he says, “in the last times the mountain of the house of the Lord made manifest, prepared on the top of the mountains.” That is the mountain which grew from a small stone and, by growing, filled the whole world. On it is built the church, which cannot be hidden.

“Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but on a lampstand, so that it may give light to all who are in the house.” The reading comes fittingly when lampstands are being dedicated, so that whoever works may be a lamp set on a lampstand. For the man who does good is a lamp. But what is the lampstand? “But far be it from me to boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” So whoever acts according to Christ, and acts for Christ's sake, so as to boast only in Christ, is a lampstand. Let him give light to all; let them see what they may imitate: let them not be lazy, not dry; let what they see profit them; let them not be seeing with their eyes and blind in their hearts.

But lest it occur to someone that the Lord seems to command good works to be hidden, where he says, “Beware of doing your righteousness before men, to be seen by them; otherwise you will have no reward with your Father who is in heaven”: this question ought to be resolved, so that we may know how to obey the Lord and not be unable to obey him when we hear him command the opposite. Here he says, “Let your works shine before men, that they may see your good deeds”; there he says, “Beware of doing your righteousness before men, to be seen by them.” Do you want to know how this question is to be resolved, which, unless it is resolved, would be troublesome if it remained unresolved? Some people do good and are afraid of being seen; and with all care, as far as they can, they cover their good works. They watch for when they see no one: then they hand something out, fearing to fall over that precipice where it was said, “Beware of doing your righteousness before men, to be seen by them.” But the Lord did not command good works to be hidden, but that in good works we should not think of human praise. Indeed, when he said, “Beware of doing your righteousness before men,” where did he end? “To be seen by them.” That is, that I should act for this reason, that they may be seen by men; let them seek this fruit of a good work, let them carry this off: let them expect nothing else, desire nothing of a higher and heavenly benefit. But if one acts only in order to be praised, this the Lord forbade. “Beware of doing.” How? “To be seen by them.” Beware of having this as your fruit: being seen by men.

But he commands our works to be seen, and says, “No one lights a lamp and puts it under a bushel, but on a lampstand, so that it may give light to all who are in the house.” And, “So let your works shine before men, that they may see,” he says, “your good deeds.” And he did not stop there, but added, “and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” It is one thing in a good work to seek your own praise, another in a good work to seek the praise of God. When you seek your own praise, you have stopped at being seen by men; when you seek the praise of God, you have gained eternal glory. Let us act, then, in such a way that we are not seen by men; that is, let us act in such a way that we do not seek being seen by men as our reward: but let us act in such a way that we seek the glory of God from those who see and imitate, and recognize that if he did not make us such, we would be nothing.