Sermons 64–67

[On the same.] If single words of Scripture were committed to single books, not even so would the mysteries in them shine clear to the hearers; and what will a sudden and brief sermon do, which like lightning flees before it lights up the eyes, and gives those who see it not light but fright? So pray that, since we live in the darkness of the world and, placed in the flesh, spend the time of night and not of day, Christ may light for us the lamp of his word, so that with it going before us we may enter the dark places of the heavenly mystery and with slow step come to as much brightness of divine knowledge as we can; like those magi who, measuring the eyes of their mind, did not dare to entrust themselves to the splendour of the sun or the divine brightness, but by night took up the tender light of a star with tender eyes and came to the most tender cradle of Christ (Matt 2). But now, as we promised, let us go through what remains of the Gospel reading. “Martha,” it says, “when she heard that Jesus had come, ran to meet him.” Was there no servant, no neighbour, no friend, certainly some comforter present, that a woman alone should run to meet the coming Saviour through the midst of the crowds, through the whole village, outside the town, and in a time of mourning? Brothers, in these persons it is not mere events that run their course; mysteries are signified. The woman runs for death who ran to death; she hurries to pardon who hurried to guilt; she reaches the loving Redeemer, whom the wicked seducer had reached first; she seeks resurrection who sought ruin; and she who brought death to the man pants to bring life back to the man. That is why Christ stopped in the place, why Christ waited, why he did not enter the crowds, did not make for the house, did not turn aside to the tomb, did not hurry to Lazarus, for whose sake he had come; but he waits for the woman, lingers for the woman, receives the woman first, whom the tempter first infected; he drives faithlessness from the woman and calls faith back to the woman, so that she who was the servant of perdition may be the minister of salvation, and through God may at last be the mother of the living, who through the devil was long the mother of the dead. And since the woman had been the head of evil, he deals with the cause of death, so as to wash away the crime before granting pardon, to remove the cause before annulling the sentence; and he takes care that the man should not reject as partner in life the woman through whom he had once been deceived. In short, the woman would have perished if Christ the Lord had come to the man first. That is why, brothers, Christ is born through a woman; that is why a woman always raises the man from the tomb of her womb, to call back by pains the one she drove away by enticements, to restore by weeping the one she lost by eating. Then, when Martha had confessed Christ and by her loving confession had blotted out whatever guilt lay in the person of the woman, she is sent to Mary, because without Mary death could not be put to flight nor life restored. Let Mary come, let the bearer of the mother's name come, so that man may see that Christ dwelt in the secret of a virgin's womb, so that the dead may come forth from the underworld and the dead go out from their tombs. “Jesus,” it says, “seeing Mary weeping and the Jews who had come with her weeping, groaned in spirit and troubled himself, and said: ‘Where have you laid him?’ They answered: ‘Lord, come and see.’ And Jesus wept.” Mary weeps, the Jews weep, Christ too weeps; do you think it is with a like compassion? Granted that Mary, the sister, wept because she could neither keep her brother nor ward off death: although she was secure about the resurrection, still, at the loss of present comfort, the delay of so long an absence, the sadness of a long separation, she could not but weep; and also because so grim, so deadly, so cruel an image of death could not fail to touch and move even a faithful mind. The Jews wept, both mindful of their own condition and gripped by despair of the future life. Death, bitter enough to the living, disturbs enough by its very departure, but disturbs more by its example: as often as anyone sees a dead man, so often does he wail that he himself is destined for death. So a mortal cannot help grieving over death. Which of these was Christ's case? And if none of these, why did he weep? Certainly he who had said, “Lazarus is dead, and I am glad,” laments over the one whose death made him glad, at the moment he raises him; he who does not weep when he loses him laments when he gets him back; he pours out mortal tears when he pours back the spirit of life. Brothers, the nature of the human body has this property, that the force of joy, like the force of grief, produces tears. Whenever the heart is gripped by an excessive impulse of either joy or sadness, the eyes at once burst into tears. That is why Christ wept, not for the pains of death, but at the recollection of the joy of that day when by his voice, by one voice, he will raise all the dead to everlasting life. He groans in spirit and troubles himself with a whole commotion of heart, because he was still raising Lazarus alone and not yet all the dead. Who then would think that Christ wept here from human weakness, when the heavenly father laments the extravagant son not while he loses him but when he receives him back (Luke 15)? Christ wept for Lazarus on receiving him, not on losing him. Indeed, Christ weeps not when he sees them weeping, but when he asks a question and sees that in those who answer no faith remains. He had said: “Where have you laid him?” And they answered: “Lord, come and see.” They thought that he did not know where he had been laid in the earth, who knew where dread Tartarus held him. By asking in this way he was demanding faith and offering knowledge, so that the bystanders might know that death, the tomb, corruption, decay and stench had come to human beings not from God's ordinance but from man's sin. For when he says, “Where have you laid him?” he rebukes the women, he reproves the women; that is: The one I placed in paradise, in the region of life, see where you have laid him. But the Jews too answered as though the questioner were ignorant: “Lord, come and see.” What? Would they believe that he could command death, could command the underworld, they who believed he did not see what was before his eyes, who argued in this way about his tears? “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have caused this man not to die?” He could have caused him not to die; but he who wished to raise the dead man for his own glory allowed him to die; he allowed him to go down to the underworld, so that he might be seen to be God when he brings a man back from the underworld. But, Jews, your hearts appear more firmly shut than the underworld, your inner parts harder than the dead, your eyes darker than tombs, since the voice that opened Tartarus did not open your hidden places, the command that raises the dead does not raise your minds, the law that lights up the tomb does not illumine your blindness. But let this suffice, so that with Christ we may see more plainly the glory of Lazarus rising.

[On the same.] Since in two sermons we have already touched on the death of Lazarus, Mary's weeping, Martha's tears and the lamentation of the Jews, let us now unburden our minds, cast off our cares and free our senses, so that with our whole minds we may grasp and hear the joy of so great a resurrection. The Evangelist proclaims the Saviour's coming to the tomb in this way: “Jesus,” he says, “again groaning in himself, came to the tomb; it was a cave, and a stone had been laid upon it.” Jesus came groaning to the tomb. Christ groans so that flesh may come to life again; Life groans so that death may be put to flight; God groans so that man may rise; mercy groans so that the sentence may not stand in the way; Christ groans as he overthrows death, because he who snatches a unique victory from the enemy cannot but groan. As for the words “again groaning,” he groans a second time to show the twofold signs of the resurrection: as at Christ's voice those dead in body are raised from their tombs to life, so those dead in faithlessness rise to the life of faith. “It was,” he says, “a cave.” It would have been enough to say that he came to the tomb; why does the Evangelist take such care to mention a cave? Plainly a cave, where the devil's robbery had placed man; a cave, where the woman's deceit had buried the man; a cave, where the greed of death had shut in God's handiwork. “And a stone had been laid upon it.” The door of harsh death was closed, more harshly still, with the hardest stone. But what does one who weeps at a tomb accomplish, when the voice of the weeper does not pierce barriers so hard and so piled up? Christians, let us weep to God for our sins, and let us not weep with the pagans over the dead, who do not hear. “Jesus said: Take away the stone.” Amid his divine mighty works does Christ ask for human help? Is he not able to move a stone who is able to drive away death? Is he not strong enough to unbar a tomb who prevails to open the gates of Tartarus? He had said through the prophet: “I will take away the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh” (Ezek 11:19). So he commands the Jews to take the heart of stone out of themselves, to roll away the rock of faithlessness, to shut out the flint of hard unbelief, so that souls dead through unbelief might leap out of the tomb of the breast, and might rejoice not so much that Lazarus had risen as that they had risen together with Lazarus. “Take away the stone.” Take away the service of wretched humanity, so that the works of blessed divinity may now shine out. “Take away the stone” that you placed, so that I may now restore the man whom I placed. “Martha answered: He already stinks.” Woman, and whose doing is it that he stinks? “He already stinks.” What came from you now belongs to you: you would not perceive a stench at the tomb if you had refused to listen to the persuader in paradise. “He already stinks.” What stinks to the destroyer does not stink to the Creator. “He already stinks.” What the overthrower of another's work shudders at, the lover of his own work does not shrink from. But by speaking thus you bear witness to the death which you, woman, brought in. You cry out the stench, so that the fullness of death may become known to the hearers, and so that Lazarus's rising may be the return of a spirit that had departed, not of one that lay hidden; that it may be the work of divine power, not of human art; and that the Jews, who say that he casts out demons by the prince of demons (Matt 9:34), may not say again that we raise the dead not by God's command but by human aid. “He already stinks; it is the fourth day.” She names the time too, so that they may know that he is the author of times, on whom no times impose limits. “He already stinks; it is the fourth day.” By speaking thus she heightens the despair, so that those present may see that it is God who in this way gives life to the dead, salvation to those beyond hope, vigour to those who stink. “Lifting his eyes,” it says, “upward.” He lifts his eyes upward to give us a pattern of supplication, not to prepare for himself a way of obtaining; for he who looks upward is always on high with the Father; the Father is always in him and he is always in the Father: “I,” he says, “am in the Father, and the Father is in me” (John 14:10). “Father,” he says, “I give you thanks because you have heard me.” He gives thanks for what has been granted; that the Father heard is said; that the Son asked is passed over in silence. Brothers, between Father and Son there is the affection of hearing, not the necessity of supplicating; there is the assent of love, not the severity of command; there everything is done by love, where no deference is needed, as becomes clear from what follows: “Father, I give you thanks because you have heard me; and I knew that you always hear me.” He calls without the trouble of calling, where there is sure confidence of being heard. Or what is the labour of asking doing where the cause of granting is shared? So let no one diminish the Son by his prayers in such a way that he likewise diminishes the Father in the matter of human salvation. Why the Son speaks thus, he himself discloses, saying: “Father, I give you thanks because you have heard me; and I knew that you always hear me; but I said it for the sake of the people standing around.” You see that by saying such things he lifts up and makes known his own and the Father's affection, he lays open grace, he speaks of unity. He had said: “All that the Father has is mine” (John 16:15); and if all things are his, how does he ask? When someone asks from what is his own, what he asks comes not from need but from love. “Father, I give you thanks because you have heard me; and I knew that you always hear me; but I said it for the sake of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me.” He said that he was sent, so that the peoples might know that Christ had come from heaven, not that he had left heaven. He is sent, then, in the same way as he receives what he has: in such a way that he did not leave the place from which he came. So the Son receives what he has, and the Father does not lose what he has given. Brothers, that he is heard, that he is sent, that he comes, that he receives, that he is born, that he suffers, that he dies, that he rises: this belongs not to his divinity but to our weakness, to our nature. All this he bore for our sake in our body; he did not undergo it for his own sake in his majesty. But let us return to our subject. What does he mean when he says, “Father, I give you thanks because you have heard me”? What? When Christ began to knock at the doors of the underworld, to thrust back the gates of Tartarus, to open the doors of death, to undo the law of Gehenna, to overturn the most ancient right of punishment, to demand back the soul of Lazarus, to open anew a way of return from the underworld, the whole raging power of Tartarus met him, holding up the edict of the supreme Ruler, bearing the decree of the King on high, carrying the sentence pronounced by God's own voice so many ages before. And seeing a man, it asked who he was, what he dared, what he wanted, why he alone, without trembling, was attacking and assailing the dread approaches of death. When it asked who he was, the angels, ministers of the resurrection, answered in the prophet's words: “He is the King of glory, he is strong and mighty in battle” (Ps 24:8). But Tartarus replies: “I know that the King of glory in the heavens presides over all the heavenly powers, whose nod the whole creation cannot bear; but this one I see is one of the earthly, formed from mud, enclosed in a mortal body, and in this very human condition more lowly than men; in short, he is soon to be given to the grave and straightway made subject to my rule.” But the angels persisted and repeated: “He is the Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory” (Ps 24:10); he is the ruler of heaven, the creator of the world, the saviour of the age, the redeemer of all; he is himself the giver of the sentence on which you rely in your rage; he will tread on your head, he will crush your empire, he will destroy you by his judgment, you who, ordered to seize the guilty, drag in the innocent, plunder the saints, and threaten the very Son of God. Give back one, then, before you are forced to release many. But Tartarus, still not believing this, runs back to heaven by its usual messengers and makes its lament in this spiteful petition: “Lord, though I am the lowest of your creation, though bound to a grim service, I keep your precepts by an inviolable law; I keep watch lest some new violator change the ancient right of your sentence. But a man has appeared called Christ, who boasts that he is your Son; he censures your priests, refutes your scribes, violates your sabbaths, dissolves your law, and compels souls released from the flesh and already assigned to punishment and to my custody to return to the bodies in which they lived wickedly. Every day he goes on to such daring that he is now trying to break the bars of the underworld and drag out Lazarus, who is already shut in our prison, already bound by our law, already held under our right. Either come quickly to help, or, if once he opens the doors, you will now lose all whom we have kept for so many ages.” To this the Son replied from the bosom of the Father: “Father, it is just that the prison hold not the innocent but the guilty, that punishment torment not the righteous but the unrighteous. How long, under the guilt of one man, for the offence of Adam alone, will this executioner not cease with cruel hostility to drag to himself patriarchs, prophets, martyrs, confessors, virgins, widows, those who remain in the chastity of marriage, all ages, both sexes, even little ones who know neither good nor evil? Father, I will die, so that all may not die; Father, I will pay Adam's debt, so that through me those may live to you who through Adam are dying in hell; Father, because of your sentence I will shed my blood, provided only that your creation returns to you; let the price of my blood, dear to you, be the redemption of all the dead.” At this, by the consent of the whole Trinity, Lazarus was commanded to come out, and Tartarus was ordered to obey by giving back all the dead to Christ. That is why the Son cries: “Father, I give you thanks because you have heard me” (John 11:41–42). The Apostle testifies that Christ is our advocate with the Father; so when he sits he judges together with the Father, and when he stands he performs the office of advocate. Then Christ, his pleading complete, “cries with a loud voice: Lazarus, come out.” Then Tartarus, with hands and feet bound, brought Lazarus back to the world above, fearing and trembling lest, while it was loosing him, while it delayed, while it was slow to give back one, it should be forced to bring out all. So he who used to be the robber of the dead became the restorer of the living. For why did Christ burst the chains of the underworld and undo the bonds of death, if not to show us the dreadful servitude of the underworld? For if the devil disputed with the angel about the body of Moses, how would Tartarus not dispute with Christ about the life and resurrection of Lazarus? Pray, brothers, that we who have received a taste of the resurrection, with Lazarus handing us the cup, may be found worthy, when Christ returns, to hear the voices of the universal resurrection.

[On the rich man and Lazarus.] We have had two readings, issued by two evangelists, read today in such a way that your understanding might go out to meet our sermon and hidden things might be laid open. Why the occasion of Lazarus's rising compelled us to mention another Lazarus you will hear in what follows. For now we long to bring out into the open the astonishing changes of fortune of the inhuman rich man and of poor Lazarus, their fearful reversals and their most lamentable conditions; because the rich man who scorned to hear the poor man asking for a share in the present life did not deserve to find the poor man sharing his suffering in the evils to come; nor did he, burning, receive the refreshment of water, who denied the refreshment of bread to the poor man burning with hunger. “When he was in torment,” it says, “he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off, and Lazarus in his bosom” (Luke 16:23). In vain does he now look up at Lazarus above, who before disdained to look down at Lazarus below. Of such the prophet said: “They set their eyes to bow down to the earth” (Ps 17:11). “When he was in torment.” Punishment stings the one whom repentance did not sting to compunction; torments harass the one whom the sores of Lazarus did not move; and not without cause does he feel the goads of punishment who rolled ungratefully in purple. “He saw Abraham far off.” Abraham was far from him to whom the poor man had not been near. He saw Abraham, a sharer in riches but having no share in inhumanity. Abraham was rich, but more in humanity than in wealth; you, rich man, were greater in your inhumanity than in your riches. Abraham, himself a stranger, was a fellow citizen to his guests; you, possessing palaces, gave the poor man no roof. Abraham, while receiving servants, in this way received the Lord, and setting loaves before all men, received the Lord himself at his table; you, while denying crumbs to one poor man, lost a drop of refreshment. “And he cried out and said.” So he cries out there who here scorned to hear those who cried out; there the voice is empty, here the cry was in vain. Hear the prophet saying: “In hell who will confess to you?” (Ps 6:5). In hell what place is there for mercy? In torments what hope of pardon? And who looks for a time of indulgence at the hour of sentence? “Father Abraham, have mercy on me.” Cruel son, what mercy do you ask, when you denied it to yourself by denying it to the poor man? “And send Lazarus.” Wretched son, if Lazarus had come to your table, you would not have come to this place at table. “To dip the tip of his finger in water.” He who closes his hand to the poor man thus begs the alms of a fingertip, and he thirsts for a drop of water who shut up vats of wine so as not to give a drop. “To dip the tip of his finger.” He who did not give his riches to the poor man in pity thus lessens mercy for himself. “And cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame.” As if he had the rest of his body free from the burning! But the tongue burns more, which neglected to order that mercy be done; the tongue feels the greater burning, which cursed the poor man and spoke against mercy; the tongue is first in torments, which by disparaging the poor man blasphemed the poor man's maker. But now let us hear what Abraham answered. “Son,” he says, “remember that you received good things in your life, and Lazarus likewise evil things.” Let no one, hearing this, think that the rich man received good things in return for good, since he is all the more guilty in this: though he received good things from God in return for evil, he scorned to give good things back to God on our behalf. For out of such great riches he neither gave food to the poor man nor paid God a sacrifice of even the smallest offering. But the poor man, rich in sores, naked of wealth, stripped of body, clothed in pains, continually offered to God as a sacrifice the soul, which alone the sores did not hold. That is why he receives rest for pains, glory for reproach, honour for insults, favour for contempt, immortality for punishments, rewards for wounds, a spring of refreshment for thirst, the everlasting delights of the heavenly table for hunger; and him whom a corner of the rich man's house did not take in, the bosom of divine consolation encloses. You, rich man, who once shone in purple, now be covered in dung; instead of scarlet be clothed with flames; instead of a soft couch endure the hardness of torments; instead of sumptuous dishes feast on punishments; pay for your abundance with want; digest your drunkenness with thirst; instead of perfumes be sprinkled with stench; and you whom the services of pleasure attended, let the ministers of punishment now attend you there, because you yourself exchanged these things for yourself in this way by despising the poor man. “And Abraham added, saying: Besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who wish to cross from here to you cannot, nor can they cross from there to here.” By speaking thus he declares that both the righteous and the unrighteous were in the underworld before the Lord's coming, and he shows that they were divided only by being set apart in places, not in different realms. But after the Lord, rising from the dead, opened the underworld, laid open the heavens and unbarred paradise, he granted the saints to enter the rest of paradise and to come to the glory of heaven. Whoever believes this understands what Christ by his coming has given to mortals. Foolishly, then, does the rich man think that places can be changed in the underworld, since a man, by acting well or ill here, appoints for himself there the end either of punishment or of rest. Foolish in life, the rich man is found more foolish in punishment; and he who did not know the time of his good things, wretched man, does not recognize the time of his evils either. “I ask you, father.” Now you ask; now is the time for you to suffer, not to ask. “I ask you, father.” What? “That you send Lazarus to my father's house.” Before, Lazarus lay well enough at that door, on which by his hunger he fixed the inscriptions of your inhumanity, where he crowned your doorposts with the laurels of his sores, where with his pus he painted your crumbs. Allow the reversal to stand, then; lay aside your tricks now. It is plain that you cannot bear to see Lazarus like this; it is known, it is known that Lazarus's happiness torments you more than the fire of Gehenna. “Abraham answered: They have Moses and the prophets; let them listen to them.” That is: if they not only did not listen to Moses, who crushed the kingdom of Egypt with the elements fighting on his side (Exod 7), who dried up the sea (Exod 14), who made the waves stand firm, who turned rocks into streams (Exod 17), who covered the sun with a cloud and made the night radiant with light (Exod 13), who made the sky rain meat and drop bread like dew (Num 11), but even tried to kill him, will they deign to listen to Lazarus, who is hedged about by as many wounds as the mighty works that surrounded Moses? Allow me to experience what I have begotten, and you endure what you have done. “No, father Abraham.” Truly not father, because he was not a son of Abraham but of Gehenna. “No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.” This the rich man says from the heart of all, asks from the desires of all, speaks from the wishes of all who belong to the world; for we are all in the habit of whispering: “Oh, if only someone would come from the dead and report here what is done there, everyone would believe him!” Surely, so that the doubters might say: “Who has come from there, from where no one comes? Who will prove that anyone exists after death? We all speak of what we have heard; we feel what has been instilled by words; for whatever truth faith holds is sunk in the deep.” But that our speaking thus, even while we believe these things, comes from faithlessness and not from ignorance, today's reading that followed, from blessed John the Evangelist, has shown. For as the rich man asked, God sent a Lazarus in place of Lazarus. But what the one who was sent, longed for and risen achieved, listen patiently. “The chief priests,” it says, “planned to kill Lazarus, because on his account many of the Jews were going away and believing in Jesus” (John 12:10–11). As if he had come, though longed for, only to undergo the dangers of a second death! They do not want, they do not want to report what they have seen, who want what they have heard not to be believed. We know, we know both that life is prepared for the good and that torments are prepared for the wicked; but while, captured by vices, we do not want the time of virtues to come, we pretend not to know what we know, and we do not want anyone to come from the underworld to tell what there is after death, when Christ, coming from heaven and himself returning from the underworld, has both taught by word and confirmed by example what remains for the good in heaven and what awaits the wicked in the underworld. But perhaps we neither believe these things nor want Christ to come because we do not want the world to pass away; or rather, not because we do not want the world to pass away, but because we are grieved to leave our vices behind. Christ comes not to drive away life but death; to drive away death, not life; to call the world back, not to take it away; to destroy vices, not to destroy his own creation. But pray, brothers, that when he comes he may find us such as he desires and commands the sharers of his kingdom to be.

[On the Lord's Prayer.] You have received the hearing of faith, dearest brothers; now hear the form of the Lord's Prayer. Christ taught us to pray briefly, because he wants to grant our requests quickly. Or what will he not give to those who ask him, who gave himself to those who did not ask? Or what delay will he make in answering, who in dictating the prayers so anticipates the wishes of those who pray? What you are about to hear today the angels are astonished at, heaven marvels at, earth trembles at; flesh does not bear it, hearing does not take it in, the mind does not reach it, the whole creation cannot sustain it. I do not dare to say it; I cannot keep silent. May God grant that you may be able to hear and I to speak. Which is more awesome: that God gave himself to the earth, or that he gives you to heaven; that he himself enters into fellowship with flesh, or that he makes you enter into partnership with divinity; that he himself takes on death, or that he takes you back out of death; that he himself is born into your servitude, or that he begets you as free children for himself; that he takes on your poverty, or that he makes you his heirs, co-heirs of his only Son? It is surely more awesome that earth is carried over into heaven, that man is changed by deity, that the lot of servitude obtains the rights of lordship. But though this is to be feared, since the matter rests not with the one who teaches but with the one who commands, let us draw near, little children, to where charity calls, love draws, affection invites. Let our hearts feel God as Father, our voice sound it, our tongue speak it, our spirit cry it, and let everything that is in us respond to grace, not to fear; because he who changed the judge into a father wanted to be loved, not feared. “Our Father who are in heaven” (Matt 6:9). When you say this, do not take it as though he were not on earth; do not understand it as though he who encloses all things were enclosed in a place; but understand that you have a lineage from heaven, since your Father is held to be in heaven, and act so that by living holily you may answer to a holy Father. He proves himself a son of God who is not darkened by human vices but shines with divine virtues. “Hallowed be your name.” We are reckoned by the name of him whose lineage we are; so we ask that his name, which in itself and through itself is holy, be hallowed in us; for God's name is either honoured by our conduct or blasphemed because of our actions. Hear the Apostle saying: “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you” (Rom 2:24). “Your kingdom come.” And when did God not reign? So we ask that he who always reigned for himself may now reign in us, so that we too may be able to reign in him. The devil has reigned, sin has reigned, death has reigned, and mortality was long held captive. So we ask that, with God reigning, the devil may perish, sin may fail, death may die, captivity may be taken captive, so that we, set free, may reign into everlasting life. “Your will be done, as in heaven so also on earth.” This is the kingdom of God: when both in heaven and on earth God's will alone prevails, when in all people God is the mind, God lives, God acts, God reigns, God is everything, according to the Apostle's word: “That God may be all in all” in you (1 Cor 15:28). “Give us today our daily bread.” He who gave himself to us as Father, who adopted us as sons for himself, who made us heirs of all things, who exalted us with his name, who gave us his honour and his kingdom, he himself has bound us to ask for daily bread. In the kingdom of God, amid divine gifts, what does human poverty seek? Does so good, so loving, so generous a Father grant bread to his children only when he is asked? And where is that saying: “Do not be anxious about what you will eat, or what you will drink, or what you will wear” (Matt 6:31)? He commands us to ask for what he forbids us to worry about, because the heavenly Father urges us, as heavenly children, to ask for the heavenly bread. He himself said: “I am the bread that came down from heaven” (John 6:41). He is the bread which, sown in the Virgin, leavened in the flesh, kneaded in the passion, baked in the oven of the tomb, stored in the churches, brought to the altars, daily supplies heavenly food to the faithful. “And forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.” O man, if you cannot be without sin and want always to be forgiven everything, always forgive; as much as you want to be forgiven, so much forgive; as often as you want to be forgiven, so often forgive; or rather, since you want everything forgiven you, forgive everything. O man, understand that by forgiving others you have given pardon to yourself. “And lead us not into temptation.” For in this world life itself is temptation: “The life of man,” he says, “is a temptation” (Job 7:1). So let us ask that he not leave us to our own choice, but hold us fast in every act with fatherly love and strengthen us on the path of life with heavenly guidance. “But deliver us from evil.” From what evil? From the devil, of course, from whom comes all evil. We ask to be delivered from evil, because one who is not free of evil cannot enjoy the good. If those not yet born, still placed in the womb, ask for bread and seek the kingdom, why is there any question about how the Son of God always remained in the secret of God the Father? If the church gives birth, this is not a matter of reason; it is a heavenly mystery. How the Son of God was in God the Father is not to be handled by human reasoning; divinity is not to be estimated in a human way. You have heard “God”: think nothing earthly, nothing human. You have heard “Father of Christ”: believe this by substance. You have heard “your Father”: believe this by grace. He always had it that he was Son; to you he has now given to be a son. So know yourself a son in such a way that you do not forget that you are a servant; so hear that you have been brought back to the likeness of Christ, that you always recognize yourself to be subject to Christ.