Sermons to the People 376.1–379.1

Your Love heard, when the holy gospel was read, that our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ after his resurrection came in to his disciples with the doors shut. A great miracle; but you stop marveling if you think of God. For it would be a marvel if a mere man had done this. Refer it to omnipotence, not to illusion. He came in with the doors shut. I answer you: so that you may know that it was true flesh, he showed his scars to be touched. "But," you say, "it is not the nature of a body to enter through a shut door." Neither is it the nature of a body to walk on the waves of the sea. He came in through shut doors: answer me, account for the solidity of his flesh. He walked on the waters of the sea: you too, account for the weight of his flesh. Do you want to know that this was a matter of omnipotence? He gave it to Peter too. What he willed, he gave; what was proper to himself, he kept for himself. For he who, alive, entered through closed doors is he who in being born did not violate his mother's integrity. So, brothers, having marveled, let us believe; believing, let us obey; obeying, let us hope for the promises, if we do the commands: for he helps us to do the commands from whom we hope for the promises.

Today is called the octave of the infants; their heads are to be uncovered, which is a sign of freedom. For this spiritual birth carries freedom, while the birth of the flesh properly carries slavery. There are indeed two births of man: being born and being reborn. We are born to toil, reborn to rest; born to miseries, reborn to eternal happiness. For those children, babies, little ones, sucklings, who cling to their mothers' breasts and do not know how much grace is conferred on them, as you yourselves see, are called infants and have their octave today; and these old men, young men, and youths are all infants too. For the one infancy belongs to oldness, the other to newness. For those whom you see fresh from birth are born old. Our old man is called Adam, from whom we are born; the new man is Christ, through whom we are reborn. These, then, are both new and reborn to another life; and there is in those, if it can be put this way, when they are born, a new oldness.

See, our infants are mingled today with the faithful and are flying, as it were, from the nest. We must therefore address them as those who labored to bring them to birth. For you remember, my brothers, how when the chicks of swallows or house sparrows begin to fly from the nest, their mothers fly around them noisily and with anxious cries bear witness to their young ones' dangers. We know, then, that many who are called faithful live badly, and do not match by their conduct the grace they received; they praise God with the tongue and blaspheme him with their lives. But we also know others among these many, like grains among much abundant chaff, groaning on the threshing floor but consoling themselves with the hope of the barn. We know that these two kinds of people are in the Church. We know the Church to be the Lord's threshing floor; we hope for the winnowing on the day of judgment; we long for the heap of wheat at the resurrection; we desire to be taken into the barn in eternal life. There will be no chaff there, just as there will be no grain in Gehenna. Now, then, my brothers, since we know that these two kinds of people are in the Church, the devout and the ungodly, the good and the bad, those who fear and those who despise, we do not know which of them these will join. They themselves know what we want; whether our prayers for them will be fulfilled, human ignorance is worn out with anxiety and sometimes troubled with false suspicions. Such things are learned on this earth, where life is not lived without temptation. I admonish you, then, holy shoots; I admonish you, new plants in the Lord's field, that it may not be said of you what was said of the vineyard of the house of Israel: "I waited for it to make grapes, but it made thorns." Let him find a cluster in you who was the cluster trodden for us. Bear grapes; live well. For the fruit of the Spirit, as the apostle says, is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faith, continence, chastity. When our farmer comes to us, whose workers we are, he who gives the growth within (for we know how to plant and water outwardly; but the apostle says, "Neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the growth"), he who now sees how you listen, who now looks into how you are disposed, or whether you are already beginning to fear: when that farmer comes to you, may he find in you what the apostle had said: "My joy and my crown, all you who stand in the Lord."

Brothers, sweetest sons, dearest sons, imitate the good, beware of the bad. For I know that bad men will come to you and urge drunkenness on you, and will say to you, "Why not? Aren't we among the most faithful too?" I know it; that is why I grieve, that is why I fear. Now if you say firmly, "Brother, I would not want even you to do what you are doing; but if I cannot lead you into my good, at least do not drag me into your evil"... These people, as usually happens, will get a headache. Your neighbor, man or woman, will say to you, "There's an enchanter here, there's a healer here, and an astrologer somewhere or other." You say, "I am a Christian; it is not lawful for me." And if he says to you, "Why? Am I not a Christian?" you will say, "But I am one of the faithful." And he to you: "And I am baptized." Members of Christ become angels of the devil. Because the enemy possesses him, he tries to drag another along too. May he who has prepared these things for you find you prepared. That is why I speak, that is why I testify, that is why I am not silent, that is why I shake out my garments, that is why I hold myself excused at the tribunal of my God. I will say to my God: "Lord, I was not silent; Lord, I did not hide the talent you gave me, but paid it out." He could say to me: "Wicked servant, you were to give, and I would exact." "Behold, Lord, I have given; you exact." And if perhaps your old habit tickles you, you have one to call on. The helper is greater than the attacker. That is why you groan, why you pray, why you say, "Lead us not into temptation." Observe also, my brothers, what you say just before, "Forgive us our debts," so that you do what follows, "as we also forgive our debtors." You give alms, you receive alms. You forgive; you will be forgiven. You give out; it will be given out to you. Hear God saying, "Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you." Keep the poor in mind. I say to all: give alms, my brothers; give, and you will not lose. Believe God. I do not only tell you that you do not lose what you do for the poor; I tell you plainly that this alone you do not lose; the rest you lose. Look, let us see whether you cheer the poor today; you are their barns, so that God may give you the means to give and may forgive what perhaps you sin. Shut up your alms in the heart of the poor, and it will plead with the Lord for you, to whom be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.

Dearly beloved brothers, who could worthily utter a temporal word about the eternal Word? How can the lowest things suffice for the greatest? The heavens praise him, the powers praise him, the ethereal powers praise him, the lights of heaven praise him, the stars praise him; the earth too praises him as it can: not that it may praise worthily, but that it may not condemn itself as ungrateful. Who can explain, who can speak, who can even understand how he who reaches mightily from end to end and orders all things sweetly exulted to run his course, so that his going forth was from the highest heaven and his return to the highest heaven? If he reaches everywhere, from where did he go out? If he reaches everywhere, where does he go? He is not extended in places, nor varied by times, nor does he have approaches and withdrawals: remaining in himself, he goes round everywhere whole. What spaces are there that do not have the Almighty, that do not hold the Immense, that do not receive him as he comes? If you think of the Word, we have said nothing. But to teach the humble to say something about him, he humbled himself, taking the form of a servant. In this form he came down; in this form, according to the gospel, he advanced in wisdom; in this form he was patient; in this form he fought bravely; in this form he died; in this form he conquered death and rose again; in this form he returned to heaven, he who never left heaven. Blessed, then, is he in the firmament of heaven, who for many, according to the apostle, became a curse, so that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles. "He exulted like a giant." What kind of giant? By dying he overcame death. What kind of giant? He broke the gates of hell; he went out and ascended. Who is this king of glory, on whose account it was said to certain princes, "Lift up your gates, O princes, and be lifted up, eternal gates"? "Be lifted up": he is great; you are too narrow, you cannot hold him: be lifted up. Why this? "That the king of glory may come in." They are terrified: "Who is this king of glory?" He is not recognized. He is not only God but also man; not only man but also God. He suffers: is he then God? He rises: is he then man? Or is he both God and man? For he truly suffers and truly rises. Now in one and the same psalm it is said twice, "Lift up your gates, O princes, and be lifted up, eternal gates, and the king of glory will come in." And this is repeated after the same words, as if it might be thought superfluous and unnecessary. But in the repetition of the same words, attend to the endings, and notice why it was said twice. For it is as though for him who rose once and ascended once, the gates of hell and of heaven are opened twice. For it is a new thing, God present in hell; a new thing, man taken up into heaven. At both times and in both places the princes are terrified: "Who is this king of glory?" How do we tell them apart? Hear what is answered to each. To those who ask below it is said, "The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle." What battle? To undergo death for mortals, to suffer alone for all, the Almighty not to resist, and yet to conquer in dying. Great, then, is this king of glory, even in hell. It is repeated also to the heavenly powers: "Lift up your gates, O princes, and be lifted up, eternal gates." Are not those the eternal gates whose keys Peter received? But because he is lifting man up with him, there it is said as though he were not recognized: "Who is this king of glory?" But there, because he is no longer a contestant but a victor, because he does not fight but triumphs, the answer there is not "The Lord mighty in battle" but "The Lord of hosts, he is the king of glory."

A feast is pleasing to God where piety flourishes and love burns. For this is the effect of the presence of the Holy Spirit, as the apostle teaches when he says, "The love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." The coming of the Holy Spirit, then, filled a hundred and twenty people gathered in one place. When the Acts of the Apostles was read, we heard, "They were gathered together, a hundred and twenty, holding fast to Christ's promise." For he had told them to stay in the city until they were clothed with power from on high. "For I," he says, "will send my promise upon you." A faithful promiser, a kindly giver: what he promised while he was on earth, he ascended into heaven and sent. We have a pledge of the eternal life to come and of the kingdom of heaven. He has not cheated us of the recent promise; will he cheat us of what we await in the future? When people make some business agreement with one another and bind themselves by a promise in a money transaction, they usually receive or give an earnest; and the earnest, once given, gives assurance that the thing for which the earnest was given will also follow. Christ gave us the Holy Spirit as an earnest; and though he could not deceive us, he nevertheless made us secure when he gave the earnest, though even if he had not given it he would without doubt have delivered what he had promised. What did he promise? Eternal life, of which he gave the Holy Spirit as the earnest. Eternal life is the possession of those who dwell there; the earnest is the consolation of pilgrims. For it is better called an earnest than a pledge. These two seem similar, yet they have a difference not to be overlooked. Both when a pledge is given and when an earnest is given, it is done so that what is promised may be fulfilled; but when a pledge is given, the one who received it gives it back once the matter for which he received it has been completed; whereas when an earnest is given, it is not taken back, but more is added to complete it. We have the earnest, then: let us thirst for the very fountain from which the earnest comes. We have as earnest a certain sprinkling of the Holy Spirit in our hearts: whoever feels this dew, let him long for the fountain. For why do we have the earnest, if not so that we may not faint with hunger and thirst on this pilgrimage? For we hunger and thirst, if indeed we recognize that we are pilgrims. Whoever is on pilgrimage and knows that he is a pilgrim longs for his homeland; and while he longs for it, his pilgrimage is irksome to him. If he loves the pilgrimage, he forgets his homeland and does not want to return. Our homeland is not one to which we should prefer anything. For sometimes people grow rich while abroad: those who were poor in their own country grow rich abroad and do not want to return. We have all been born as pilgrims away from our Lord, ever since he breathed the breath of life into the first man. Our homeland is in heaven; its citizens are the angels. From our homeland letters have been sent to us, to urge us to return, and they are read daily among the peoples. Let the world grow cheap to us; let him be loved by whom the world was made.

Blessed John, dearest brothers, whose birth we celebrate today, was so great among men that our Lord Jesus Christ gave him this testimony: "Among those born of women there has not arisen one greater than John the Baptist." We heard, when the gospel was read, how wonderfully he was conceived when all hope was gone, and with how great a testimony of the Holy Spirit he was born. His father was struck dumb because he did not believe. Announced, then, by an angel and not believed, John took away his father's voice; born, he set his tongue free. Receive, then, a great sacrament in the mystery of this event. John was sent before the Lord Jesus Christ; prophets were sent in earlier ages, and there was no lack of those who preached Christ. For so great a judge was to come that many heralds had to go before him. From the very beginning of the human race Christ did not cease to prophesy himself and foretell his coming. Last of all John was sent, a man, but a man than whom no one greater arose. The Lord Jesus was to come, not only man but also God: indeed both God and man; God always, man for a time; God before times, man at the end of times; God before the ages, man at the end of the age. God who made man deigned for man's sake to become the man he had made. So for the coming Lord Jesus Christ, who is more than man, a great man had to bear witness, lest he be thought to be only a man. Christ the Lord, I say, is not only God, but God and man: God who made us, man who remade us. But John was only a man; yet how great a man? Hear him who is God and man speaking of him. O Lord Jesus Christ, who is John? And God says, "Among those born of women there has not arisen one greater than John the Baptist." O John, great man, than whom no one greater has arisen among those born of women, you too tell me, O great man: who is this who is thought to be only a man? Who he is, hear: "Whose sandals," he says, "I am not worthy to carry." See, we have learned through John, and through a man, that we must believe in Christ and not put our hope in man but in Christ. See, you have a great man, than whom no one greater has arisen, and he is John. But notice that this John is the friend of the bridegroom; he is jealous for the bridegroom, not for himself. For he says to those who come to him: "I baptize you with water; but he who comes after me is greater than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to untie; he will baptize you in the Holy Spirit." Come after me, but do not stay with me: pass on to him who created both you and me, because he is the one who will give life to you and to me.