Sermon 105

SERMO 105

ON THE WORDS OF THE GOSPEL LUKE 11: 5-13: "And he said to them, 'Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, 'Friend, lend me three loaves, for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him'; and he will answer from within, 'Do not bother me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything'? I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his impudence he will rise and give him whatever he needs. And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!'"
"Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go to"
In the middle of the night, etc.

To ask from God, Christ encourages by similitudes.

We have heard our Lord exhorting us, the heavenly teacher and most faithful counselor, the same exhorter, to ask, and the giver when we ask. We have heard him in the Gospel urging us to ask insistently, and to knock even to the point of shamelessness. For he showed us, for example: If one of you had a friend, from whom he asked for three loaves at night, because a friend had come to him from a journey, and he had nothing to set before him, but he answered that he had already gone to bed, with his servants, and should not be disturbed by his pleas, but the other insisted by knocking and persevering, and not deterred by shame, but forced by necessity to persist: he would rise, if not for friendship's sake, certainly for his shameless persistence, and give him as many as he wanted. How many did he want? He wanted no more than three. In this manner, the Lord added an exhortation and entirely urged us to ask, to seek, to knock, until we receive what we ask, what we seek, what we knock for, employing an example in reverse: just as that judge who neither feared God nor respected men, and yet when a certain widow kept petitioning him every day, being overcome by annoyance, gave what he couldn't give benevolently against his will. But our Lord Jesus Christ, the petitioner among us, with God as the giver, certainly would not so urge us to ask unless he wished to give. Let human sloth be abashed: he wishes to give more than we wish to receive; he wishes to have mercy more than we wish to be delivered from misery; and certainly, if we are not delivered, we will remain miserable. For he exhorts for our sake.

A friend coming from the road must be refreshed.

Let us stay awake, and believe the one urging us, obey the one promising, and rejoice in the one giving. For perhaps a friend may sometimes come to us from the journey, and we do not find anything to set before him; and we have suffered need, and we have received both for ourselves and for him. For it cannot happen that someone has not at some time suffered a friend asking something which he could not answer: and then he finds that he does not have, when he is forced to give. A friend comes to you from the journey, that is, from the life of this world, in which all pass through as if strangers, and no one remains as if an owner; but it is said to every man: Refreshed, pass on; continue your journey, give place to the one coming after. Or perhaps from the evil way, that is, from the evil life, some friend of yours, weary and not finding the truth, which he would be blessed to hear and perceive, but tired with every desire and poverty of the world, comes to you, as to a Christian, and says: Give me the reason, make me a Christian. And he asks something which perhaps you, in the simplicity of faith, did not know: and there is nothing from which you can refresh the hungry, and being reminded, you find yourself lacking; and when you wish to teach, you are forced to learn: and while you are ashamed that the one who asked did not find in you what he was seeking, you are compelled to seek, so that you may deserve to find.

A friend is interrupted at midnight in order to give three loaves of bread.

And where might you seek? Where, if not in the Lord's Books? Perhaps what he asked is placed in the book, but it is obscure. Perhaps the Apostle said this in his Epistle. He spoke in such a way that you can read it, but you cannot understand it: you are not permitted to pass by. For the questioner presses on; you are not allowed to ask Paul himself, or Peter, or any Prophet. For that family already rests with their Lord, and the ignorance of this world is strong, that is, it is the middle of the night, and a hungry friend presses on. Perhaps simple faith sufficed for you, but it does not suffice for him. Should he be deserted? Should he be cast out of the house?

To the willing, one must knock to give to God.

Therefore to the Lord Himself, to Him with whom the household rests, knock by praying, ask, insist. Not as that friend in the parable, beaten by weariness, will he rise and give. He wants to give: you who are knocking have not yet received; knock, he wants to give. And what He wants to give, He delays, so that you may desire more what is delayed, lest what is given too quickly becomes cheap.

What the three loaves given are.

But when you have reached the three loaves, that is, the food and understanding of the Trinity, you have both what to live by and what to nourish by. Do not be afraid of the stranger coming from the road, but by receiving, make the citizen into a kinsman: and do not fear lest you run out. That bread will not be exhausted, but it will end your need. It is bread, and bread, and bread: God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. Eternal Father, co-eternal Son, co-eternal Holy Spirit. Unchangeable Father, unchangeable Son, unchangeable Holy Spirit. Creator and Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit. Shepherd and giver of life, and Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit. Eternal food and bread, and Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit. Learn, and teach; live, and nourish. The God who gives to you gives nothing better than Himself to you. Greedy one, what else were you seeking? Or if you ask for something else, what will suffice for you, for whom God does not suffice?

Faith, hope, charity, gifts of God.

But it is necessary for you to have charity, to have faith, to have hope: so that what is given to you can be sweet. And these three things are themselves, faith, hope, charity. And these same are the gifts of God. For we received faith from Him: As God, he says, has allotted to each a measure of faith. And we received hope from Him, to whom it is said: In whom you gave me hope. And we received charity from Him, of whom it is said: The charity of God is poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. But these same three are somewhat different; yet they are all gifts of God. For these three remain, faith, hope, charity: but the greatest of these is charity. In those loaves, no bread is said to be greater than the others: but simply three loaves were asked for and given.

Three things signified again in the same way.

Behold, another three: Who among you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or who among you, if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If then you, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good gifts to those who ask Him? Let us then again consider these three things, lest there be faith, hope, and love: but the greatest of these is love. So place the three: bread, fish, egg: the greatest of these is bread. Therefore, we correctly understand bread in these three as love. Therefore, he opposed a stone to bread, because hardness is contrary to love. We understand fish as faith. A certain saint has said, and we like to say: A good fish is pious faith. It lives among the waves, and is not broken or dissolved by the waves. It lives among the temptations and storms of this world, pious faith: the world rages, and it remains whole. Observe only the serpent as contrary to faith. For faith is pledged to her, to whom it is said in the Song of Songs: Come from Lebanon, my bride, coming and passing through from the beginning of faith. Therefore, faith is the beginning of espousal. Something is promised by the groom, and it is held by faith in the promise. The Lord, however, opposed the serpent to the fish, the devil to faith. Therefore, the Apostle says to the one espoused: I have espoused you to one husband, to present you as a chaste virgin to Christ: and: I fear lest as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so also your minds may be corrupted from the chastity that is in Christ; that is, in the faith of Christ. For it is said, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. Let not the devil then corrupt faith, let him not devour the fish.

Egg, hope.

Hope remains, which, as it seems to me, is compared to an egg. For hope has not yet reached the thing: and the egg is something, but it is not yet a chick. Therefore, quadrupeds give birth to their offspring, while birds give birth to the hope of their offspring. Therefore, hope urges us to despise the present, to expect the future; forgetting what is behind, with the Apostle we extend towards what is ahead. For thus he says: "But one thing, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." Therefore, nothing is so inimical to hope as looking back, that is, putting hope in those things which slip by and pass away: but in those which are not yet given, but shall someday be given and shall never pass away. But when the world is teeming with temptations, like the sulfurous rain of Sodom, the example of Lot's wife must be feared. For she looked back; and where she looked back, there she remained. She was turned into salt, to season the wise with her example. The Apostle Paul speaks of this hope in this way: "For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience." For who hopes for what he sees? It is an egg. It is an egg, and not yet a chick. And it is covered with a shell: it is not seen, because it is covered: let it be awaited with patience; let it warm, that it may become alive. Pay attention, stretch towards what is ahead, forget what is past. For the things which are seen are temporal. "Not looking at the things which are seen," he says, "but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal." Therefore, stretch your hope to those things which are not seen: wait, endure. Do not look back. Fear the scorpion for your egg. See, because it strikes from the tail, which it has at the back. Therefore, do not let the scorpion kill your egg, this world your hope, so to speak, with its venom, which is contrary, which is of the rear. How much the world speaks to you, how much it makes noise behind your back, so that you look back: that is, so that you put your hope in present things (not even present things; for those which never remain are not to be called present); and that you turn your mind away from what Christ has promised and has not yet given, but will give because he is faithful, and wish to rest in the perishing world.

Disasters and devastations are useful to Christians.

Therefore, God mixes bitterness with earthly happiness, so that another happiness, whose sweetness is not deceptive, may be sought: and from these very bitternesses the world tries to turn you away from what you intend and convert you to the past. From these very bitternesses, from these very tribulations, you murmur, and say: Behold, everything perishes in Christian times. Why do you make noise? God did not promise me that these things would not perish: Christ did not promise me this. The eternal promised the eternal: if I believe, from mortal I shall become eternal. Why do you make noise, O unclean world? Why do you make noise? What are you trying to turn away? You want to hold on to what is perishing: what would you do if it remained? Whom would you not deceive when you are sweet, if you lie about sustenance when you are bitter? If I have hope, if I hold hope, my egg is not struck by the scorpion. I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth. Let the world be happy, let the world be overturned: I will bless the Lord who made the world. I will indeed bless. Whether it is well according to the flesh, or ill according to the flesh: I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth. For if I bless when it is well, and blaspheme when it is ill; I have received the sting of the scorpion, stung I have looked back; which may be far from us. The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away; as it pleased the Lord, so it has been done: blessed be the name of the Lord.

The city and kingdom in the heavens await them eternally.

The city which bore us carnally remains. Thanks be to God. May it also be born spiritually, and may it pass with us to eternity. If the city which bore us carnally does not remain, the one that bore us spiritually remains. The Lord is building Jerusalem. Did He lose His building by sleeping, or did He admit enemies by not guarding it? Unless the Lord guards the city, in vain does the guard keep watch. And which city? He who keeps Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps. What is Israel, if not the seed of Abraham? What is the seed of Abraham, if not Christ? And He says to your seed, which is Christ. And what to us? But you belong to Christ, therefore you are the seed of Abraham, heirs according to the promise. In your seed, He says, all nations will be blessed. The holy city, the faithful city, a city in a foreign land, is founded in heaven. O faithful one, do not corrupt hope, do not lose charity, gird your loins, ascend, light your lamps, wait for the Lord when He comes from the wedding. Why are you afraid, because earthly kingdoms perish? Therefore, a heavenly promise is made to you, so that you do not perish with earthly things. For these things destined to perish have been foretold, entirely foretold. For we cannot deny what has been foretold. The Lord, whom you are waiting for, said to you: Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. Earthly kingdoms undergo changes: He will come of whom it has been said: And of His kingdom there will be no end.

Flatteringly, Vergil predicted an eternal empire for Rome.

Those who have promised this to earthly kingdoms were not led by truth, but lied with flattery. One of their poets introduced Jupiter speaking, and said about the Romans:

I set neither limits to things nor times;

I have given an empire without end.

Truth does not entirely respond in this way. This kingdom, which you have given without end, O you who have given nothing, is it on earth or in heaven? Certainly on earth. And if it were in heaven: Heaven and earth will pass away. Those things which God Himself made will pass away; how much sooner what Romulus established? Perhaps if we wanted to criticize Virgil from here and mock why he said this; partly he would lift us up and say to us: And I know; but what was I to do, who sold words to the Romans, if not by promising something with this flattery that was false? And yet in this I was cautious, when I said: I have given an empire without end, I introduced their Jupiter, who would say this. I did not say the false thing in my own person, but I attributed the false person to Jupiter: just as there was a false god, so there was a lying prophet. For do you wish to know that I knew these things? Elsewhere, when I did not introduce Jupiter the stone speaking, but spoke from my own person, I said:

The Roman affairs and kingdoms doomed to perish.

See that I said kingdoms will perish. I said kingdoms will perish, I did not keep silent. They will perish, the truth has not kept silent: they will promise to last forever, with flattery.

Constancy in bearing adverse things.

Therefore, let us not lose heart, brothers: there will be an end to all earthly kingdoms. Now, if it is the end, God sees. Perhaps it has not yet come, and because of some weakness, or mercy, or misery we wish that it has not yet come: but will it therefore not come? Set your hope in God, desire the eternal, wait for the eternal. You are Christians, brothers, we are Christians. Christ did not descend into the flesh for pleasures: let us rather endure the present than love it: adversity is manifest destruction, the flatteries of prosperity are false. Fear the sea even when it is calm. Let us by no means hear in vain: Lift up your hearts. Why do we set our hearts on the earth when we see that the earth is being overturned? We can only exhort you so that you have something to say, and something to answer for your hope to those who insult and blaspheme the name of Christ. Let no one turn you away from the expectation of things to come by their murmuring. All who blaspheme our Christ because of these adversities are like the tail of a scorpion. Let us place our egg under the wings of that evangelical hen, which cries: Jerusalem, Jerusalem, false and lost, how often have I wanted to gather your children, as a hen gathers her chicks, and you would not? Let it not be said to us: How often have I wanted, and you would not? For that hen is Divine Wisdom: but it took on flesh to be suitable for the chicks. See the hen with rough feathers, wings down, voice broken, and thus fitting its little ones. Therefore, let us place our egg, that is, our hope, under the wings of that hen.

The devastation of Rome was falsely attributed either to the Christian religion or to the extinction of idolatry.

Perhaps you have noticed how a hen crushes a scorpion. May that hen also crush and devour those blasphemers crawling on the ground, coming out of their holes, and stinging maliciously; may she take them into her body and turn them into an egg. Let them not be angry: we seem stirred, but we do not return curses for curses. We are cursed and we bless, we are reviled and we pray. But let no one say of Rome, as they say of me: "Oh, if he would only be silent about Rome," as if I were an insulter and not rather an intercessor for the Lord and your humble exhorter. May it be far from me to insult. May God avert it from my heart and from the pain of my conscience. Did we not have many brothers there? Do we not still have them? Does not a large portion of the pilgrim city of Jerusalem live there? Did they not suffer temporal things there but did not lose eternal ones? Why then do I speak of her, if not to say that it is false what they say about our Christ, that He destroyed Rome, that stone gods and wooden gods protected Rome? Add the price, bronze. Add more, silver and gold: The idols of the nations are silver and gold. It did not say: Stone; it did not say: Wood; it did not say: Pottery; but what they held as great, silver and gold. Yet, even silver and gold have eyes and do not see. Golden gods and wooden gods differ in value: in having eyes and not seeing, they are alike. Behold what kind of guardians learned men entrusted Rome to, having eyes and not seeing. Or if they were able to save Rome, why did they perish first? They say: Rome perished then. Yet they perished. They say, not they themselves perished, but their images. How therefore could those who could not save their own images save your roofs? Alexandria lost such gods long ago. Constantinople, since its founding as a great city by a Christian emperor, lost those false gods long ago: yet it grew, and grows, and remains. It remains as long as God wills. For we do not promise eternity to that city either, because we say this. Carthage remains in the name of Christ, and the heavenly city that was destroyed long ago, because it was not heavenly but earthly.

The overthrow of the idols did not cause the Roman disaster from that point on.

And that which they say is not true, because with the gods having been destroyed, Rome was taken, afflicted. Absolutely it is not true: before the idols themselves were overthrown; and thus the Goths were defeated with Rhadagausus. Remember, brothers, remember: it has not been long, a few years it has been, recall. When all the idols in the city of Rome had been overthrown, Rhadagausus, the king of the Goths, with a huge army, much larger than that of Alaric, came. Rhadagausus was a pagan man: he sacrificed to Jupiter daily. It was being reported everywhere that Rhadagausus would not cease from sacrifices. Then all these [people said]: Behold, we do not sacrifice, he sacrifices, we have to be defeated by the sacrificing one, to whom it is not permitted to sacrifice. God showing that temporal salvation, and the earthly kingdoms are not in these sacrifices, Rhadagausus was defeated in a marvelous way, with the Lord helping. Afterwards the Goths, who did not sacrifice, even if they were not Catholics in Christian faith, yet were enemies of idols; came adverse to idols, and they who took: conquered those presuming upon idols, and still seeking destroyed idols, and still desiring to sacrifice to the lost. But there also were ours, and they were afflicted: but they knew to say: I will bless the Lord at all times. They were afflicted in the earthly kingdom: but they did not lose the kingdom of heaven: rather they became better for that to be achieved through the exercise of tribulations. And if they did not blaspheme in tribulations, as if they came out of the furnace intact vessels, and were filled with the Lord's blessing. But these blasphemers, seeking earthly things, desiring earthly things, placing hope in earthly things, when they lost whether they wanted or not, what will they hold? Where will they remain? Nothing outside, nothing inside: an empty chest, a more empty conscience. Where is the rest? Where is the safety? Where is the hope? Therefore let them come, let them cease to blaspheme, let them learn to worship: scorpions, stinging, are eaten by the hen, turned into the body of the one ingesting; they are exercised on earth, they are crowned in heaven.