Sermons 68–71

[On the same.] The mortal condition, an earthly frame, a muddy substance, a nature uncertain of life and death, worn down by labour, consumed by pains, subject to rot and dust, cannot grasp, is not able to estimate, does not dare to drive off, is afraid to believe what today it is compelled to confess. Human frailty cannot find how it could merit so great a grace of God's gifts, such greatness in his promises, such generosity in his bounty. This, I think, the prophet Habakkuk foresaw without doubt by the gaze of his mind, when, shaken with such fear, so agitated by trembling at this report, he says: “Lord, I have heard your report and was afraid; I considered your works and was terrified” (Hab 3:2 LXX). He feared the report not because so great a prophet heard the Lord at that time, but because the servant then found his Lord turned toward him and heard him as Father; he was terrified not because he contemplated the fabric of this world, harmonious though its elements are so discordant among themselves, but because, considering then the works of such great love toward himself, he was shaken with the trembling and fear of wonder. “I considered,” he says, “your works and was terrified.” He was astounded then at being adopted as a son, when he had lost even the confidence of a servant. Then, so that you may know the feeling of this prayer which the Godhead today instils and pours into you, the prophet, undone as it were by fear of this gift received from heaven, then dares to speak. Observe what he said next: “I kept watch,” he says, “and my belly trembled at the voice of the prayer of my lips” (Hab 3:16 LXX). After he had felt the generosity of the divine gift, he kept watch over himself, lest he should again endure an enemy, a foe, a robber, as in paradise. He becomes more vigilant, a more careful guard of himself, who after the loss of so great a thing kept the heavenly treasure in vessels of clay. “And my belly trembled.” Here the prophet calls the inner parts of the heart the belly; for as the belly is fed and filled with food, so is the heart with thoughts. “And my belly trembled at the voice of the prayer of my lips.” If the understanding of the heart had poured the voice into the mouth and given words to the lips, why did he tremble at his own prayers, at his own desires, at what he was about to pray for? Because he spoke not at the prompting of his own heart but by the breath of the divine Spirit. Hear Paul saying: “God has sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying: Abba, Father” (Gal 4:6). When he passed what he heard into his inner self, he marvelled that he had merited so much, and the whole inner man trembled. Rightly he added: “And trembling entered my bones,” because the prophet's very inmost parts were shaken. “And beneath me,” he says, “my strength was troubled.” What does “beneath me” mean? That the same man, already lifted on high by grace, lay below by his former nature, and earthly strength could not bear heavenly power. Mount Sinai smoked once when God came down upon the mountain to give the law (Exod 19:18). What would flesh do when God came down into flesh to confer grace upon flesh? He came as Father, because man could not bear God, nor the servant his master. And since he is faithful in the words he has spoken, “Open your mouth and I will fill it” (Ps 81:10), open your mouths now, that he may fill them with such a prayer and such a cry. “Our Father who are in heaven” (Matt 6:9). Where are those who distrust God's promise? See how quickly the confession of faith has been rewarded: as soon as you confessed God as the Father of the only Son, you yourself were adopted as a son of God the Father, so that you might be heir of heaven, you who were held an exile from paradise, and earth; and so now you call, “Our Father who are in heaven.” Because you once had a father who dissolved you into mud, who led and dragged you to the bars of hell, let him who seeks again God the heavenly Father as his origin not know the earth, ignore love of the flesh, not look for a father of dust, permit no vice in himself. And let him who believes himself a son of God answer to so great a lineage by action, life, conduct and integrity, lest, going down again to earthly things, he turn to the very insult of so great a parent. “Hallowed be your name.” If the name of Christ gives sight to the blind, a gait to the lame, health to those wasting with various illnesses, life to the dead, and sanctifies you yourself, O man, and the whole creation, how is it that you pray and ask for the holiness of that name? Because from Christ you are called Christian; and so you pray that the privilege of so great a name may be strengthened in you by merits that follow. “Your kingdom come.” He who holds his coming in his own power commands devotion, demands desire, seeks out prayers. That soldier is faithful who thirsts for the presence of his king, longs for the kingdom, seeks and desires triumphs. But here you ask that he come to you and in you to reign, in whom the devil long held the citadel, death the command, hell the power. Let us pray, then, dearest ones, that Christ may always reign in his soldier, and the soldier always triumph in his king. “Your will be done, as in heaven so also on earth.” Blessed that day which joins, unites and makes equal the wills of earthly beings with heavenly ones, so that among unlike substances there may be one and the same will. This is faithful peace, unshaken concord, persevering grace, when by the ordering of one lord a household different in nature becomes one in will and is found the same in mind. “Give us today our daily bread.” After the heavenly kingdom, who would ask for temporal bread? But he wants us to ask for daily bread, for the day, as provision for the journey in the sacrament of his body, so that through this we may come to the everlasting day and to the very table of Christ, and there receive the fullness and complete satisfaction of that from which we have taken a taste here. “And forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.” Whoever asks this and does not release debts accuses himself through the very thing he prays; whoever asks that as much be granted and forgiven him as he himself forgives and grants, invites God to an agreement, invites God in this way to a contract. Let each demand that as much be granted to himself as he himself has granted to another. Debts are to be forgiven, brothers, not only of money but of all matters, faults and crimes; whatever you, O man, could fall into, when another has fallen into it against you, you will pardon. He asks pardon for his sins with confidence who gladly pardons one who sins. “And lead us not into temptation.” We are compelled to ask this a thousand times in many ways, brothers, lest frailty, daring too much and presuming to stand firm by itself and not taking the measure of its strength, should succumb in the conflict through poor caution, and God, offended, should then hand over to temptations those who offend. “But deliver us from evil.” He thinks humbly enough of himself and does not presume to be saved by himself, who implores to be delivered from evil through God. Sign yourselves. Understand, little children, how great is the glory and power of the perfect and the strong, when such power is disclosed in the very conception, such majesty in the birth. Not yet born, he calls on the Father, asks for holiness, seeks the kingdom, gives laws to the earth, makes earthly wills equal to heavenly ones, and, already devoted, demands rations for labours that will profit. “Give us,” he says, “today our daily bread.” Blessed are you who have begun to conquer before the battle, to triumph before living, to reach the Father's storehouses before the mother's lap, to take the food of the flock before the juice of milk, to resound with the whole shout of victory before answering with the cradle's wail. Truly, as the Apostle said, “the weakness of God is stronger than men” (1 Cor 1:25). Or who will be able to tell the mystery of so great a conception, where the virgin mother gives birth daily throughout the world, and does not leave her offspring to toil but sends them ahead to eternal glory? [Sermon 69. On the same.] Do you think a mortal breast can grasp the greatness of the Lord's love toward us? Do you think a mind pressed down by the weight of an earthly body understands and feels the divine affection toward us? For whatever adornment of heaven glitters, shines and gleams, whatever on earth is fragrant in flowers, savoury in fruits, glad in living creatures, was made for love of us and assigned to our service. But however great these things are, they are small as a sign of the heavenly love toward us. For us the principalities of the heavens, for us the powers of the upper air, for us the dominions on high, for us the ranks of angels serve in unwearied watches. But even these are small and lesser for proving the divine bond with us, and as weak as the creature is less than its creator. God, whose face cannot be contemplated, whose sight cannot be penetrated, who cannot be estimated by any sense, inaccessible to the mind, not fully known even by hearing: how often, in what ways, how variously, how diversely has he adapted himself to human sight? How he offered and granted himself to human fellowship and familiarity, when he made Noah a sharer in his counsel, forewarned him that a flood was coming to cleanse the world, and marked out the whole world, with Noah himself as its guardian, in the small seed of the ark (Gen 6)! When he comes to Abraham as a guest, invited he enters with every condescension, does not refuse what is offered, takes what is set before him as though hungry and tired, and as though in need receives and accepts human things in a divine exchange (Gen 18). That is why the old man's deadened limbs soon come to life again, the barren old woman's extinguished womb is revived, and nature, buried in a living corpse, rises again to bring forth its author, and, its time long past, generates multitudes through the one whom it had believed the Creator would give (Gen 21). To Moses God gathers himself as fire in the bush; then he consults with his servant about what is to be done, exerts himself in various mighty works in Egypt, and is made manifest at his servant's nod (Exod 3); he inflicts plagues or takes them away (Exod 8); and in the sea the obedience of the avenging waters shows how great he is and how much he has given to man, when the deep is dried up and the water gives way to the righteous, and, its liquid hardened, provides a wall, offers a defence to those who are to be set free, and with the whole force of its nature rushes down to triumph over the cruellest enemy (Exod 14). God, living in wondrous fellowship in the camp of Israel (Deut 23:14), now strikes numerous nations with lightning, now with hail (Josh 10), now lays them low with nothing but the blast of trumpets (Josh 6), so that without battle and without a wound God leads to victory the ranks he goes before. He was present to their desires, assented to the prayers of individuals, answered questions at once, revealed hidden things, foretold the future, laid open what was sought, granted a king, gave wealth, tempered the rains, made the lands fruitful, adorned marriages themselves with abundance and honour of children. But he still thought it too little to show his affection toward us only by granting prosperity and not also by enduring adversity. After everything, he enters his world poor; he lies in a cradle as a man; by his wailing he implores, seeks and demands the loving care he himself granted to you. The parent of all had you for a parent; he to whom every height is subject was subject to you; he whom all fearful things fear was afraid; he to whom all things flee for refuge fled; the arbiter of the heavens was a guest in the houses of sinners; he who feeds all is fed with bread. And what more? The Pantokrator of the ages is held fast; the founder of the earth is made to stand trial; the giver of pardon to mankind is judged; the searcher of hearts is examined; the giver and restorer of life is punished; the resurrection of all is buried; so that the slow mind of man, and his rather sluggish understanding, might at least through death prove God's affection toward it, the mind which through all the benefits of God already mentioned, countless as they are, had not understood or felt God's love toward it. He who made us exist and gave us life also taught us to pray, because he wanted to grant everything, he who wanted to be entreated with his own prayer. “Our Father who are in heaven” (Matt 6:9). See, O man, today Christ, by your own voice, to make you co-heir with himself of God the Father, adopts you as a son when you say, “Our Father.” What belongs to his condescension he willed to be in your power, according to the word: “As many as received him, he gave them power to become children of God” (John 1:12); and yet he commands you to say it, so that it may be the condescension of the giver, not the rashness of one who presumes. “Who are in heaven.” Not that he is not on earth; but he wants you, who now call on a heavenly Father, to strive toward and seek again a heavenly nature, so that our life may answer to so great a lineage and earthly conduct may not degenerate from what the heavenly nature has now given and conferred. “Hallowed be your name.” Not that the name which sanctifies you has to be sanctified by your prayer; but because from the name of Christ you are called Christian, you must ask that this name be sanctified and honoured in you by your conduct. For as the fame of virtues answers to the glory of the name, so the infamy of one who lives badly redounds to the injury of that same name, as the Apostle says: “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you” (Rom 2:24). And truly, children, the pagan disparages the Christian name when he sees a Christian living otherwise than he professes and is said to live. “Your kingdom come.” Not that a kingdom should come to God, who always has it; but you ask that it come to you, who do not have it, and that you may receive what the Lord in his love promises you when he says: “Come, blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matt 25:34). “Come, blessed”: he did not say “Let us come”; “receive”: he did not say “Let us receive.” Let no one be surprised that one not yet born calls on the Father; for if John leaps (Luke 1:41) and Jacob wrestles in the womb (Gen 25:22), let the wise consider what the divine nature can do, if a human conception can do so much through God.

[On the same.] All the things that are related as divinely said and done are matters of wonder and astonishment, to be dreaded by mortals and trembled at even by heavenly beings; but nothing so astounds heaven, frightens the earth and terrifies the whole creation as what you are about to hear today as we speak. A servant dares to call the Lord Father; the guilty man names his judge his parent; an earthly creature by its own voice adopts itself as God's son; one who lost earthly things reckons himself heir of divinity. But we dare, because there is no presumption on the speaker's part where there is the authority of one who commands; for he who taught us to pray thus wanted us to speak thus today. And what wonder if he consecrated human beings as sons of God, when he gave and fitted himself to be a son of man? He carried the nature of flesh over into the divine when he brought the deity down to human nature; he made man his co-heir in heaven when he made himself a sharer in earthly things. Or what love, what gift could he deny to man, who took on everything that belonged to man, even sin and death? Or how will he not have man as partner in his prosperity, who made himself man's companion in adversity? O man, return to God, loved so much by God; and give your whole self to his glory, who for your sake brought his whole self to insult; and call him Father with confidence, whom you prove, feel and understand to be your parent by so great a love. “Our Father.” Let no one wonder that one not yet born calls on the Father: for God the things that are to be born are already born, the things to come are already done. “What will be,” it says, “already has been” (Eccl 3:15). That is why John in the womb perceives his maker (Luke 1:41), and stands forth as a messenger to his mother while still unaware of his own life. That is why Jacob is read to have fought before he was born, to have triumphed before he lived (Gen 25). That is why those already exist for God who do not yet exist for themselves, who were chosen before the foundation of the world. “Who are in heaven.” Not that he is not on earth, but so that by this you may know that you are a heavenly offspring; and if you confess that you are a son of God, live as a son of God, so that by action, life and virtues you may answer to so great a parent. “Hallowed be your name.” Since from Christ you are called Christian, you ask that the privilege of so great a name be hallowed in you; because God's name, which is holy through itself and for itself, is either hallowed in us by our conduct or blasphemed among the Gentiles because of our conduct. “Your kingdom come.” He himself says: “The kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21). If it is within us, why do we pray that it come? It is there in faith, in hope, in expectation; but we pray now that it come in reality. Let it come to us, not to him who always reigns together with his Father and always reigns in the Father; let it come to us: “Come, blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world” (Matt 25:34). We say “Your kingdom come,” that God may reign in us in such a way that death ceases to reign in us and sin ceases to reign. “Death reigned,” it says, “from Adam to Moses” (Rom 5:14). And elsewhere: “Let not sin reign in your mortal body” (Rom 6:12). “Your will be done, as in heaven so also on earth.” Now on earth many things are done according to the will of the devil, the wickedness of the world, the desire of the flesh; but in heaven nothing is done except the Lord's will. So we ask that, when the devil has been slain, the world renewed, the body changed, the rule of death destroyed and the dominion of sin abolished, there may be in heaven and on earth, in God and in human beings, one and the same will of God. “Give us today our daily bread.” After the heavenly kingdom we are not commanded to ask for earthly bread, since he himself forbids it when he says: “Do not be anxious for your life, what you will eat or what you will drink” (Matt 6:25). But since he himself is the bread that came down from heaven (John 6:41), we ask and pray that the very bread by which we are to live daily, that is, continually, in eternity, we may receive today, that is, in the present life, from the banquet of the holy altar, for strength of body and mind. “And forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.” By saying this, O man, you have set for yourself the measure of indulgence and the extent of pardon, since you ask the Lord to forgive you as much as you yourself have forgiven your fellow servant. So forgive the one who wrongs you completely, if you want to owe the Lord nothing for your own wrongs; forgive yourself in the other, if you want to escape an avenging sentence. “And lead us not into temptation.” God, as it is written, tempts no one (Jas 1:13); but he is said to tempt when he abandons those who stubbornly go toward the snares of temptations. So Adam ran into the tempter's ambush when he deserted the commands of his Creator. From where and by whom man is tempted he discloses by saying: “But deliver us from evil”: that is, from the devil, who is the author and origin of all evil. The devil was heavenly by nature; now he is spiritual wickedness, older than the world, practised in the habit of doing harm, most skilled in the art of injuring; so he is now called not evil but the Evil, from whom comes everything that is evil. That is why man, bound by fleshly chains, cannot be freed by his own strength. So we must ask God to free us from the devil, God who lent Christ to the earth to conquer the devil. Let man cry out, let him cry out to God, let him cry, “Deliver us from evil,” so that we may be freed from so great an evil, with Christ alone conquering. “Our Father who are in heaven.” He whom you are to entreat has himself granted you, in very few words, the theme of praying, the matter of asking and the rule of supplicating, so that from this you may take the sense of asking, grasp the understanding of requesting, gather the measure of obtaining, and from the briefest lesson in prayer receive the widest instruction. At the same time, as a sign of love, the King himself performed the office of advocate, dictating the prayers that he himself was to answer. All hesitation about obtaining has been taken away, rather complete confidence of obtaining has been conferred, when he who is asked reads himself in the prayers. Fear has no place where a son, with love as interpreter, desires to obtain holy things from his Father.

[On the same.] Dearest brothers, he who granted you to believe has himself also taught you to pray, and has fitted the whole form of asking into a few words; because when a son asks his father he does not labour over long prayer; for as need drives the child to ask, so charity urges the parent to give. So the Father, who grants of his own accord, shows not so much that he is to be asked as what is to be asked, so that the son, who can displease by asking for foolish things, may please by asking for just ones. Hear the Father, and believe that you are now sons, so that you may obtain without hesitation whatever you ask. What faith avails, what belief can do, how much confession is worth, is shown today in you. See, the threefold confession of the Trinity has lifted you from earthly servitude into heavenly offspring; see, the faith that spoke of God as Father has today won God as Father for you; see, the voice that confessed God the Son has adopted you as sons of God; see, the belief that proclaimed God the Spirit has changed you from the mortal substance of flesh into the living substance of the Spirit. Who will be found worthy to declare such great love? God the Father deigns to make human beings his heirs; God the Son does not disdain to have little servants as co-heirs; God the Spirit takes flesh as a partner in divinity; heaven becomes the possession of earthly beings, and those condemned to the jurisdiction of the underworld are received on high, as the Apostle proves when he says: “Do you not know that we shall judge angels?” (1 Cor 6:3). So call God Father, and believe that you, though not yet born, are already designated sons; and take care that you have a heavenly life and divine conduct, and that the whole form of deity shines out in your form; because the heavenly Father enriches with divine gifts the sons who answer to their lineage, and calls back to penal servitude those who degenerate. “Our Father who are in heaven.” A servile conscience would give way and the earthly condition would dissolve, if the authority of the Father himself and the Spirit of his Son did not rouse us to this cry. “God,” he says, “has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying: Abba, Father” (Gal 4:6). The mind grows weary, our flesh fails before divine things, unless God himself, who commands, fulfils what he commands to be done. When did mortality ever dare to call God Father except now, when man's inner self is given life by heavenly power? “Our Father who are in heaven.” O man, what have you in common with the earth, you who confess that your lineage is from heaven? So show a heavenly life in your earthly dwelling; because if earthly thought has done anything in you, you have brought a stain on heaven and an insult on your heavenly lineage. “Hallowed be your name.” We ask God to hallow his name, which by its holiness saves and sanctifies the whole creation. Brothers, this is the name that the powers on high fear, that they receive with awed servitude; this is the name that gives salvation to a lost world. But we ask that God's name be hallowed in us by our conduct; for when we act well, God's name is blessed; when we act badly, it is blasphemed. Hear the Apostle saying: “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you” (Rom 2:24). So we ask, we ask that we may be found worthy to have as much of its holiness in our minds as God's name is holy. “Your kingdom come.” We now ask that the kingdom of Christ come, as though it had not always been and did not exist now. And where is that saying: “The kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21)? It is among us by faith, but we pray that it may come in reality. Brothers, as long as the devil, by various kinds of wickedness and many arts of deceit, confuses the sight of things, throws human minds and conduct into disorder, rages through idols, raves through sacrileges, deceives by auguries, lies through divination, misleads by signs, mocks by the stars, preoccupies with the shows, besieges with vices, wounds with sins, injures with crimes and lays low with despair, he prolongs Christ's kingdom and keeps it away from us. So we ask that the time may come when, the author of so great an evil perishing, the whole world and the whole creation may reign and triumph to the full glory of Christ alone; and that what follows may be done, that as in heaven so also on earth there may be one will of the Lord. Let earth be heaven, God be life, time be eternity, the homeland be rest, wealth be innocence, honour be immortality, glory be chastity, God be everything. He added: “Give us today our daily bread.” After God's fatherhood, after the holiness of the divine name, after the kingdom of heaven, we are commanded to ask for daily bread. Christ is not subject to forgetfulness; Christ does not command things contrary to his own commands. He himself said: “Do not be anxious for your life, what you will eat or what you will drink” (Matt 6:25). But since he himself is the bread that came down from heaven (John 6:41), who was ground into flour by the millstone of law and grace, kneaded in the passion of the cross, leavened in the mystery of great love; who raised the leavened dough from the tomb; who, to be baked by the heat of his divinity, himself heated the oven of the underworld; who is brought daily to the table of the church as heavenly food; who is broken for the forgiveness of sins; who feeds and nourishes those who eat him to everlasting life: this bread we ask to be given us daily, until we enjoy it to the full in that everlasting day. “And forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.” O man, the power of pardon is with you, the power of indulgence is in you; you have been made the author of your own forgiveness. In vain do you ask pardon, you who scorn to pardon yourself in another. O man, you have become the measure of mercy for yourself; as much mercy as you seek, so much show. “And lead us not into temptation.” Temptation, brothers, is a deceptive appearance, which hides prosperity in adversity and adversity in prosperity, and leads human ignorance into treacherous falls. So we ask that we may not fall, driven by our sins, into the pits of temptations. God is said to lead into temptation when he abandons those who run toward crimes. “But deliver us from evil.” Here by evil he means the author of evil, that is, the devil. So we ask that by this one gift we may be free of all evils when we are free of the author of evil. “Our Father who are in heaven.” Let no one who cries out that he is a son be surprised that he remains in the condition of servitude: today you have been designated for the divine lineage, not promoted to it; know that you have obtained the hope, not the reality. Hear the Apostle: “In hope we have been saved; but hope that is seen is not hope; for what someone sees, why does he hope for it? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience” (Rom 8:24–25). Today is the day of adoption, today is the time of promise: hear, believe, wait. Trust your creditor, who has given credit to you, his debtor; wait a little for him to come, who waited long for you to come; grant him time on his promise, who has already forgiven you whatever you owed. Or why do you grow weary of hope in God, when the whole human race subsists by hope and lives by faith? The farmer would never sow, panting with toil, if he did not hope for the fruit of his labour in due season; the traveller would not undergo the toil of a long journey unless he believed that he would reach his destination; the sailor would not enter the uncertain sea if he did not hope to make up for the perils of the voyage with the gains that follow; the soldier would not spend his whole youth in dangers if he did not hope for the abundant honours of old age; the son would not endure the period of his father's authority if he did not hope to be heir to his father's property. And you too, if you now believe that you are a son of God, according to the prophet: “Wait for the Lord, act manfully, and let your heart be strengthened” (Ps 27:14); wait, so that you may obtain the inheritance of God through faith in waiting and the virtue of patience. Hear the Apostle: “We are sons of God, and it has not yet appeared what we shall be; we know that when he appears we shall be like him” (1 John 3:2). And again: “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). Brothers, blessed are the sons of God, because they will possess the inheritance of all things and will never see a time of mourning over a father's death.