Sermons 39–42

[On perseverance in prayer.] Divine things are always sufficient in themselves, but they are often conveyed to men by human examples, because heavenly providence attends not to what it can say but to what the hearer can grasp. So a spring at first bursts out through slender channels of veins and gradually creeps in narrow streams, until, by fitting growth, it bursts out into the full breadth of rivers and pours itself forth mightily. And to speak to you of ourselves: when a little child is born, nature at once prepares a nourishment of the same age, changes food into drink, and with a long infusion of milk fits the still numb throat and the sluggish inner passages for the use of more solid food. So the Lord raises and forms us to grasp divine things by homely examples, saying: “Which of you will have a friend, and go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves, for a friend of mine has come to me from a journey and I have nothing to set before him’; and he answers from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door is already shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give to you’? I tell you, though he will not get up and give him because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will rise and give him as many as he needs” (Luke 11:5–8). O how he wants to give, who allows himself to be so disturbed, so roused! O how he wants what lies in his power to seem a matter of necessity! O how he longed to meet the one knocking, who so placed the bed of his privacy right at the door! O how he did not want to refuse, who showed even while refusing how he might be prevailed upon! O how the Lord was not only at the door, but the Lord was the door itself! “I am,” he says, “the door” (John 10:9), who, while the servants slept, alone and first came to the need of the one knocking. O how kind, how merciful, who proves and forms by examples what he teaches by commands! “When you give alms,” he says, “do not sound a trumpet.” And again: “Let your left hand not know what your right hand is doing” (Matt 6:2–3). “Which of you will have a friend, and go to him at midnight?” It is not enough that night veiled the one doing mercy, that the persistence of the one asking covered the generosity of the one giving, unless sleep too was added to heap up the veiling of kindness. He sets in this kindness a twofold form of necessity, of the one asking and of the one sleeping, so that the guest compels the one to ask and sleep compels the other to give: since he says that he will give to him at the time for this reason, that he may seem not to come to his friend's aid but to hurry back to sleep, and that he would rather be allowed to sleep than be pleased to give to one asking in this way. What more? See, sleep rather than sound proved the advocate of the one knocking. Nor do I think it idle that he so discloses, so marks, the hour of asking, saying: “Which of you will have a friend, and go to him at midnight?” As if at the first, second, and third hours of the night, when gentle slumber first pours itself into the bodies of the sleepers and glides sweet and whole into the inward parts wearied by the day's labor, the persistence of one disturbing would not be troublesome and harsh. But this is the time that shows the devout and constant judgment of one who keeps watch through the night; this is the time when the mind, burning, but toward divine things, between past and future labors, indulges nothing to the body, nothing to rest, but before it finishes the works of the day gone by, begins and anticipates those of the day to come. This hour is quite effective for obtaining. Knowing this, the prophet asserts that this was the very time of his supplication, singing: “At midnight I rose to give thanks to you” (Ps 119:62). At this hour that heavenly bridegroom always comes to meet those who keep watch, who says: “At midnight there was a cry: behold, the bridegroom comes” (Matt 25:6). He could not fail to obtain what he wanted, who, so as to receive a guest and refresh a guest, denied himself all rest. Or how would he not answer one so asking, so knocking, who confesses that he is received in the guest, when he says, “I was a stranger and you welcomed me” (Matt 25:35)? I think that the one knocking said this, or perhaps addressed him in another way: “I did what you commanded; give what you promised; I believed you when you said, ‘Do not be anxious about tomorrow’ (Matt 6:34). Hence yesterday left nothing that I could set before the guest: if I am troublesome to you who have, how much more troublesome has he been to me who have not? And yet I could not excuse myself to him, because I strove to obey you. Here the shame of the one commanding labors now more than that of the one who has not. The guest is in the house, and you are sleeping; rather you are sleeping who do not sleep. I have received the guest; unless you give bread, it is you who have denied bread to the guest.” Rightly, to one so knocking, so asking, this Gospel lender gave as many loaves as he needed. What do they do who lay themselves not in a bed but in a very tomb? Who give themselves over not to sleep but to death? Whom the cock does not warn, the morning star does not rouse, the sun itself does not call back and bring out to the light? These have lost the time of supplicating, the reward of the guest, and the very works of the day. We are saddened, brothers, when we stand before the Lord at dawn and do not see our sons with us. He knocked so at midnight, in whose house a guest had come. I ask, why do you not keep watch even at dawn, who have a guest in your house? What he gave to grace, you give at least to sloth; what he gave to humanity, spend at least on necessity, you who are a lover of sleep more than of yourself. Certainly, so that you who sleep unto death may be able to keep watch unto life, listen to what follows: “And I say to you,” he says, “ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and whoever seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.” But you say: Granted that I can ask, how will I be able to knock at the heavenly secret? How? By repeating prayers, by awaiting the judgment of the giver, by most patiently bearing the delays of the one giving; for whoever, having knocked once, is at once indignant if he is not heard, is not a suppliant petitioner but an imperious exactor. Hear the prophet saying: “Wait for the Lord; act manfully, and let your heart be strengthened” (Ps 27:14). And if he puts it off again into the future, wait patiently for your Lord. But if you want to know where you ought to seek, riches are in the bosom of the poor, and the kingdom of heaven is within you. “The kingdom of heaven is within you,” says the Lord (Luke 17:21). But who the friend is who sleeps, who the friend is who comes from a journey, who the children are who sleep, who this is who knocks, and why with a fixed number he asks for only three loaves: when I have asked, sought, knocked, and, as a wakeful disturber, deserved to receive, I will not deny it to you, friends of my Lord. But you say to me: See, a friend of your Lord has come to you; this one is accustomed to give, not to receive; in short, this eager shepherd has filled this provision bag from the abundance of his own provisions, so as to taste of the very poor preparation of our poverty; nor did he, the richest of guests, allow me in the dead of night to seek elsewhere for him what he himself had. And no wonder, brothers: the rich man always wants to give to the poor when he turns aside to him. This man always remains at the door of that Gospel friend; in this man's bedchamber that Gospel giver with his children abides, in whose heart the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit always make and set their dwelling. What more? He is the Father: from him I believed I was asking, in him seeking, through him knocking; and so I declared, not as a careless promiser, that I would give to you.

[On the good shepherd.] When the time of the spring breeze has begun to open the yearly births of the sheep, when it has begun to scatter the abundant offspring of the fruitful flock through fields, meadows, and roads, the good shepherd lays aside his songs, and with anxious running about seeks, picks up, and gathers the tender young, and, a happy carrier, sets them on his neck, shoulders, and arms, so as to carry them all safely and bring them to safe folds. So we, brothers, when with the smile of Lent's spring we see the Church's flock pour out rich births, laying aside the songs of our treatises and the feasts of our customary preaching, have spent all our care, anxious, with the heaviest labor, in gathering and carrying together the heavenly offspring. But since we see the lambs restored to the flock and all now within the folds of Christ, we are called back, most joyful, to the divine songs, setting before you with full exultation the life-giving stores of the Lord's food, so that we may have as partners in joys those whom we found to be companions in labor. And since this preface of ours has made and brought in mention of the good shepherd, let the whole intent of our sermon and treatment be filled with and occupied by him who alone is good, alone shepherd, alone shepherd of shepherds. “The good shepherd,” he says, “lays down his life for his sheep” (John 10:11). The force of love makes one brave, because true love reckons nothing hard, nothing bitter, nothing heavy, nothing deadly. What iron, what wounds, what punishment, what deaths can prevail to separate perfect love? Love is an impenetrable breastplate; it spits out javelins, shakes off swords, mocks dangers, laughs at death: if it is love, it conquers all. But let us ask whether this death of the shepherd is beneficial to the sheep, which deserts the sheep, hands the defenseless flock to wolves, leaves the dear flock to the bites of beasts, gives it up to plunder and exposes it to death, as is proved from the death of the shepherd Christ himself. For from the time he laid down his life for his sheep and allowed himself to be killed by Jewish fury, his sheep have been plundered by the attack of the Gentiles as by robbers; they are shut up in prisons to be slaughtered as in robbers' dens; they are torn without ceasing by persecutors as by raging wolves; they are bitten by heretics with rabid tooth as by strange dogs. The slain choir of the apostles proves this, the blood of the martyrs spread through the whole world cries it out, the limbs of Christians given to beasts, consumed by fires, drowned in rivers plainly show it: all of which, just as the shepherd's death brought it on, so the shepherd's life could have prevented it. So the shepherd proves his love for you by death, because when he sees danger threatening the sheep and cannot defend the flock, he would rather die than see any evil befall his sheep. But what are we to make of it, since Life could not die unless it wished? Who could have taken away the soul from the giver of souls against his will? As he himself says: “I have power to lay down my life, and I have power to take it up again; no one takes it from me.” So he willed to die, who, since he could not die, allowed himself to be killed. Let us ask, then, what the force, what the reason of this love is, what the cause of this death, what the usefulness of this passion. And plainly the force is certain, the reason true, the cause shining, the usefulness of so great a blood wide open: for from the one death of the shepherd a singular power shone out; the shepherd for the sheep went to meet the death that threatened the sheep, so that in a new order, captured, he might capture the author of death, the devil; conquered, conquer him; slain, punish him; and by dying open to the sheep the way of conquering death. For the devil too, while he went after man, leaped upon God; while he raged against the guilty, he ran into the judge; he found punishment while he inflicted penalty; he himself received sentence while he gave it; and death, living by feeding on mortals, dies while it devours Life: death, swallowing the guilty, is swallowed while it gulps down the author of innocence; and death itself perishes, which destroyed all, while it wishes to destroy the salvation of all. In this way, then, the shepherd went before the sheep; the shepherd did not withdraw from the sheep; nor did he give them to the wolves, but he handed over the wolves to them, to whom he granted to choose their own robbers in such a way that, slain, they would live; torn, they would rise; dyed in their own blood, they would gleam with royal purple and shine with snowy fleece. So the good shepherd, when he laid down his life for the sheep, did not lose it; and he so held the sheep that he did not leave them; nor did he desert the sheep in this way, but in life and strength called and led them through deadly fields, along the road of death, to life-giving pastures. But someone says: When will these things be? See, meanwhile the sheep, that is, the apostles, prophets, martyrs, and confessors, lie buried; torn apart, they are scattered through the whole world; wrapped in blood, they are shut in dark tombs. And who doubts that the slain martyrs rise, live, and reign, when Christ, slain, has risen for them, lives, and reigns? Hear the voice of this shepherd: “My sheep hear my voice and follow me.” Those who followed to death must follow to life; those who accompanied him to insult must accompany him to honor; and those who were sharers in the passion must be sharers in the glory. “Where I am,” he says, “there will my servant be also” (John 12:26). Where? Surely above the heavens, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. O man, let faith not disturb you, let a longer hope not weary you, because what is kept for you in the very Author of things is a sure thing for you. “You have died,” it says, “and your life is hidden with Christ in God; but when Christ your life appears, then you too will appear with him in glory” (Col 3:3–4). The laboring reaper will see in the harvest what he does not see in the seed, and he who weeps in the furrow will rejoice in the fruit.

[On fasting and almsgiving.] We read that very many men overcame the wars of nations, whom yet we read did not conquer the battles of the flesh; and we have heard that those who did not turn their backs to enemies surrendered their breasts to offences. O grief! The conquerors of nations were captives of vices; the lords of peoples served crimes in shameful servitude; they stood amid raging swords and collapsed amid enervating seductions; they were a terror to kingdoms and a laughingstock to sins; fasting, they crushed opposing battle lines, and, drunk with excess, they dissolved the camps of their own virtues; those who did not know how to lie low in shed blood lay low in spilled wine. Why is this? Why? Because this is not reason but sickness; not life but fever; frenzy, not nature. For whenever indigestion of foods casts down the vital parts, weakens the stomach, corrupts the blood, vitiates the humors, kindles the bile, and produces the extreme blaze of fever, the sick man loses his mind and his sense, is carried away by desires, is driven by contrary things, spits out what is wholesome, seeks what is harmful, flees treatment. Then the physicians busy themselves to help with the remedy of abstinence, so that he may be healed, so that abstinence may heal what voracity had wounded. And if the sick obey physicians for temporal healing and keep a hard frugality, why should it be hard for eternal salvation to obey Christ in moderate fasts, to govern the body by measure, rule the mind by frugality, bridle the senses by sobriety? As earthly clouds darken the sky, so intemperate banquets obscure souls; as whirlwinds confound the elements, so heaped-up dishes disturb the stomach; as a wave sinks a ship, so drunkenness sinks the body, gives man to the deep, takes away the gains of life, and makes him suffer the shipwreck of death. There is, then, a fever, there is a fever which the blessed Apostle laments panting in the human inward parts thus: “I know that good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh” (Rom 7:18). If not good, then surely evil. What evil? Frailty, certainly, which, while it creeps in the flesh, seethes in the veins, enters the bones, is stored in the marrow, boils in the blood, breaks out thus into the frenzy of vices. Frailty is the fever of nature, the mother of sicknesses, the begetter of passions; it is frailty that imposes such necessities on us; and where there is necessity, not will, where captivity stands by condition, judgment does not rest on power. It is frailty through which a man goes not where the will invites but where necessity leads. Hear the Apostle saying: “What I want, I do not do” (Rom 7:15). Frailty, while it provides man with necessities, brings him to what is not necessary; while it provides food, it leads to excess; it urges drunkenness while it serves drink; it offers sleep so as to hand over to sloth; it cares for the burdens of the belly so as to take away care for salvation; it gives everything to the flesh so as to leave nothing to the soul; it makes the body a parade of passions; it makes a man the death of himself and the life of vices. So if a man feels himself sick in this way, let him hand himself over to the heavenly physician, let him confidently comply with his advice, restrain himself from foods, keep measure in drink, so that he may thus overcome the sickness of frailty, flee the frailty of passions, avoid the fever and frenzy of vices. Abstinence is man's first medicine; but for a full cure it requires the expense of mercy. Abstinence puts out the fever; but limbs dried up by the burning of a long fever cannot return to complete health unless they are bathed in generous ointment, moistened with soothing poultices, helped by the expense of medicine: so fasting, though it shuts out the diseases of vices, cuts off the passions of the flesh, and drives away the causes of crimes, yet without the ointment of mercy, without the stream of kindness, without the expense of almsgiving, does not restore perfect health to minds. Fasting heals the wounds of sins, but without mercy it does not cleanse the scars of the wounds. Hear the Lord saying: “Give alms, and behold, everything is clean for you” (Luke 11:41). Fasting, by singular cultivation, pulls up vices, roots out crimes, prepares the field of mind and body for good fruits; but unless it lays the foundations of mercy, it (…) the labor and zeal of the one fasting. Fasting is the offering of holiness, the sacrifice of chastity; but without the incense of mercy it cannot rise before the divine sight as a sweet fragrance. What the soul is to the body, mercy is agreed to be to fasting: when fasting lives from mercy, then it gives life to the one fasting. Fasting, the ship of the virtues, carries the profit of life and brings in the gain of salvation. But whoever enters the sea of the flesh, cleaves the waves of vices, passes between the rocks of crimes, sails by the shores of passions, unless he quickly enters the harbor of kindness, cannot exercise virtues, cannot have the gain of virtues. Whoever knows that he stands on the slippery ground of this life, who understands that he passes along the way of the flesh by slipping, who feels himself subject to the attacks of ignorance and the falls of negligence, let him so hold to fasting as not to leave mercy. Fasting opens heaven to us, fasting brings us in to God; but unless mercy is then present to us as advocate of our cases, we who cannot rely on our innocence will not be secure of pardon, as the Lord says: “Judgment without mercy to him who has not shown mercy” (Jas 2:13). A day is welcome, but a clear day is more welcome: so our fasting will be brighter if the splendor of mercy gives us clear days of Lent. God cries: “I desire mercy” (Hos 6:6). O man, give God what he wants, if you want God to give you what you want. “I desire mercy” is the voice of God; God asks mercy of us, and if we give it, what will he say? What was read today: “I was hungry, and you gave me to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me to drink.” And what then? “Come, blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matt 25:34–35). Whoever gives bread to the hungry will give himself a kingdom; those who deny a cup of water to the thirsty will deny themselves the fountain of life. For love of the poor God sells his kingdom; and so that every man may be able to buy it, he sets a fragment of bread as the price, because he wants to have all, who asks only as much price as a man is able to have. God sells his kingdom for a fragment of bread: who can excuse the one who does not buy, whom so great a cheapness of sale accuses? Brothers, let our lunch be the poor man's supper, so that Christ's table may be prepared for our lunch, as he himself promises, saying: “You will eat at my table in my kingdom” (Luke 22:30). Brothers, let our fasts be the delights of the poor, so that our temporal fast may be changed for us into eternal delights. O man, in giving to the poor you give to yourself; for what you do not give to the poor, another will have. You will have only what you give to the poor.

[On the same.] Brothers, in the previous sermon we touched, as well as we could, on the good things of fasting, and in the very conclusion of the sermon we made plain that prayer is akin to fasting. But since fasting without mercy fails, fasting without kindness goes hungry, prayer without compassion grows weak, prayer without generosity grows weary, let us refresh our fasting by the showing of mercy, let us lift up our prayer by attending to kindness, let us add mercy to fasting as its advocate. For fasting without mercy is the hunger of avarice, and fasting without kindness is the punishment of greed: it is vengeance, not devotion, to fast not for God but for the purse; to wear oneself down with abstinence and be swollen with the dropsy of greed; to unload the belly of foods and weigh down the mind with the weight of money. He reduces himself to a purse who does not know how to spend money but only to shut it up: he is a guardian of others' goods, not the master of his own, because he prepares for another and denies himself, while the merciful man pays out what the miser kept pressed down. One who fasts without compassion is a cultivated field without seed. A cultivated field lacks thorns, avoids weeds, escapes everything that belongs to neglect and squalor. But as without seed it becomes barren, gives no fruit from its very cultivation, gives labor, and cannot reach a good crop; so the one fasting tills his soul again, purifies his senses, cleanses his heart, cuts off vices, roots out crimes, gives cultivation to the mind and grace to the body; but without mercy he does not reach the fruit of life, does not go to the reward of salvation. What a royal hall is without a king, fasting is without generosity. A king's hall shines with gold, gleams with marble, glitters with paintings, grows large with spaces, rises to a summit, is made pleasant with greenery, is awesome in its very privacy; but without the king it has no honor, lacks glory, is an empty solitude, a closed wilderness, a horrid waste. So fasting shines with innocence, radiates with chastity, gleams with action, is painted with morals, sparkles in its bearing, is magnified with the whole adornment of holiness; but without mercy it has no glory, lacks reward, does not hold the palm, loses the confidence of supplicating, does not attain the merit of obtaining, as Scripture attests, which says: “Whoever shuts his ear so as not to hear the weak will himself cry out, and there will be no one to hear” (Prov 21:13). How will he ask mercy who has denied it? “Judgment,” it says, “without mercy will be for him who has not shown mercy” (Jas 2:13). Whoever does not give mercy to another takes it away from himself. Mercy will be his who scatters to the poor. “He has scattered,” it says, “he has given to the poor; his righteousness remains for ever and ever” (Ps 112:9). Whoever sows mercy for the needy will reap for himself. “Those who sow,” it says, “in tears will reap in joy” (Ps 126:5). Rain does not so soak the earth as the tears of the poor water fasting. O man, cast the seeds of your fasting into the tears of the poor, because the virtues of fasting dry up, the harvests of those who fast wither, if they have not been watered by the weeping of the poor. Heaven's rain soaks the earth; the poor man's tears water heaven; so heaven thirsts and awaits the lament of the poor in place of dew, because mercy plows the fields of heaven, kindness draws furrows across the heights, mercy sows there; because what the hand of the poor has received, he reaps there; there he gathers the crop who has entrusted his seed to the poor to be sown here. Blessed is he for whom, sowing in this way, eternal granaries are prepared for unending life. The blessed Apostle described this sower when he said: “But I say this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows in blessings will also reap from blessings; each one as he has resolved in his heart, not out of sadness or necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Cor 9:6–7). Great are the works of the Lord, but the greatness of mercy surpasses their greatness: for when the prophet had said, “Great are the works of the Lord” (Ps 111:2), he added elsewhere: “His mercies are above all his works” (Ps 145:9). Mercy, brothers, fills heaven and fills the earth. “Lord,” it says, “your mercy is in heaven” (Ps 36:5). And the same: “The earth is full of the mercy of the Lord” (Ps 33:5). And truly, brothers, everything that God had made would have perished had mercy not come to its aid. Guilt and punishment were carrying off whatever had come into this world; because frailty always tended to fall, and the censure of the judge was always compelled to vengeance. So the angel is cast down from heaven (Isa 14); so man is exiled from paradise (Gen 3); so the world is destroyed by the flood (Gen 7); so the nations are confounded in their languages (Gen 11), given to the sword (Gen 14); so cities are burned up by divine fire (Gen 19); so the people led out of Egypt were buried in the desert (Num 14); so the gaping earth swallows the people (Num 16); and, not to say much, so the Roman army, avenger of Christ's blood, destroyed Judea (Matt 24). This is the great, generous, singular mercy of Christ, which has kept all judgment for one day and has assigned to man all time as a truce for repentance, so that what infancy takes up from vices, adolescence seizes, youth invades, at least old age may correct; and that a man may repent of sin at least then, when he feels that he can no longer sin; and may abandon guilt at least then, when guilt has already abandoned him; may make a virtue of necessity; may die innocent who lived wholly in crime. This is why the prophet runs wholly to mercy, because he had no confidence in his own righteousness: “Have mercy on me, O God,” he says, “according to your great mercy” (Ps 51:1). And why great? “Because your mercy,” he says, “is great upon me, and you have rescued my soul from the lower hell” (Ps 86:13). And if God gives back by mercy what had perished by judgment, O man, what did you think could stand, could hold firm, for you without mercy? It has been proved to you, then, that not fasting alone but all the virtues totter without mercy. Burning hospitality, spent on God, made Abraham the chief of the heavenly banquet (Gen 18): for because he received two with God at an earthly table, he received the peoples of the East and the West at the heavenly table. “They will come,” it says, “from the East and the West, and will recline with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 8:11). Lot, because he received angels as guests, forestalled judgment (Gen 19). Hence he conquered Gehenna in the flesh: the divine fire does not know how to burn up the merciful man. Whoever wishes not to fear the fire of Gehenna, then, let him show mercy. In short, Christ at his coming argues about mercy before he judges about guilt. “When he sits,” it says, “on the throne of his glory, he will say: I was hungry and you did not give me to eat” (Matt 25:31, 42). He did not say, “You killed, you committed theft,” but, “I was hungry and you did not give me to eat.” He will not give account of crime whose case for mercy stands firm. Why? Because “give alms, and behold, everything is clean for you” (Luke 11:41). He will not be judged for fault to whom praise for generosity is given by the judge; he who acknowledges the debt of kindness does not incur vengeance. “I was hungry,” he says, “and you did not give me to eat.” God eats in heaven the bread that the poor man has received on earth. “As long as you did it to one of these least, you did it to me” (Matt 25:40). Give bread, then, give drink, give clothing, give shelter, if you want to have God as debtor, not as judge; nothing will harm us on earth if mercy is our advocate in heaven.