Sermon 175

SERMO 175

ON THE SAME WORDS OF THE APOSTLE (1 TIM 1:15-16):
"Faithful is the saying and worthy of all acceptance," etc.

The cause of the Incarnation of Christ.

What has been read just now from the holy Gospel, this also the Apostle Paul says, whose words are these: "Faithful is the saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost." There was no reason for Christ the Lord to come, except to save sinners. Remove diseases, remove wounds, and there is no cause for medicine. If a great physician came down from heaven, a great infirm person was lying over the whole world. That infirm person is the human race. But not all have faith. The Lord knows who are His. The Jews were boasting, they were exalting themselves, thinking highly, considering themselves righteous, and moreover accusing the Lord who was gathering sinners. Therefore, those who were boasting and thinking highly were left on the mountains, pertaining to the ninety-nine. What does it mean, they were left on the mountains? They were left in earthly fear. What does it mean, they pertain to the ninety-nine? They are on the left, not on the right. For the ninety-nine are counted on the left; add one, and it transitions to the right. As He says in another place: "The Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost." For all was lost: from when one sinned, where one was, all perished. But one came without sin, who would save from sin. However, by boasting, which is worse, they both were sick and believed themselves to be healthy.

The more dangerous illness of the Jews. The Jews raving at the physician.

Those are more dangerously ill who have lost their mind to fevers. They laugh, and the healthy weep. For the frenzied one laughs; but he is not healthy. Furthermore, one who is of a sound mind weeps for the laughing frenzied one. First, if you propose these two things: What is better, to laugh or to weep? Who would not choose laughter for himself? Finally, because of the wholesome pain of repentance, the Lord placed duty in weeping, benefit in laughter. How so? When he says in the Gospel: Blessed are those who weep, for they will laugh. Therefore, duty is in weeping, the reward of wisdom is in laughing. For he placed laughter for joy, not roaring laughter, but exultation. Therefore, if you propose these two things and ask which of these is better, to laugh or to weep, every person does not want to weep and wants to laugh. But if you add personalities to these emotions and thus propose them with persons: What is better, for a frenzied one to laugh or for a sane one to weep? A person chooses for himself weeping with sanity rather than laughter with madness. So much does mental soundness prevail that it is even chosen with mourning. Therefore, those who thought themselves sane were much more dangerously and desperately ill; and by that very sickness whereby they had lost their minds, they were also striking the physician. It is not enough to say they were striking: I shall tell the whole; not only were they striking, but also killing. However, even when he was being killed, he was a physician: he received blows, and he healed; he endured the frenzied one, nor did he abandon the sick one. He was seized, bound, struck with fists, received blows from a reed, was mocked, insulted, finally heard, condemned, hung on wood, raged against from all sides; and he was a physician.

Christ prepares a remedy for his killers from his blood.

You recognize the frenzied, recognize also the physician. Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. They raged with a lost mind, and by raging they shed the physician's blood; but he even made medicines for the sick from his own blood. For he did not say in vain: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. The Christian prays and is heard; does Christ pray and is not heard? For he who hears with the Father, because he is God, how is he not heard as a man, which he was made for us? Truly, he was heard. They were there, they raged there; they were among those who reproached him and said: Behold, he eats with publicans and sinners. They were in that very people by whom the physician himself was killed, and in his blood even the antidote was prepared for them. For when the Lord not only shed his blood but also expended his very death for the making of the medicine; he rose again to demonstrate the example of resurrection. By his patience, he suffered to teach our patience; and in his resurrection, he demonstrated the reward of patience. Also, as you know and as we all confess, he ascended into heaven, then from him the Holy Spirit was sent, formerly promised. For he had said to his disciples: Stay in the city, until you are clothed with power from on high. Therefore, his promise came, the Holy Spirit came, filled the disciples, they began to speak in the tongues of all nations: a sign of unity proceeded in them. For then one man spoke in all tongues; because the unity of the Church was going to speak in all tongues. Those who heard were astonished. For they knew that they were simple men, of only one language; and they marveled and were amazed that men of one language, or at most two, spoke in the tongues of all nations: they were stunned with amazement, lost their arrogance, turned from mountains into valleys. Now if they are humble, they are valleys; they hold what is poured in, they do not release it. If water comes upon a high place, it runs down and flows away: if water comes to a concave and low place, it is held and stays. They were now such; they were astonished, they marveled, they had lost their cruelty.

The conversion of Christ's murderers.

Finally, when Peter was speaking to them, they were deeply pierced, and what was foretold by the Psalm happened to them: “I turned into affliction, when the thorn was fastened.” What is the thorn? The compunction of repentance. Thus, you also have the very words of Scripture in the Acts of the Apostles: “They were pierced to the heart, and said to the Apostles: What shall we do?” Why did they say: What shall we do? We know what we have done: what shall we do? As far as our deed is concerned, there is despair of salvation: therefore, let there be in your counsel, if it is possible, some hope of health. We know what we have done; tell us what we should do. What is it that we have done? For we did not kill just any man; and we would have done much evil if we had killed any innocent man. We chose a robber, we killed an innocent man; we chose a dead man, we killed the healer; tell us: what shall we do? And Peter: Do penance, and let each one of you be baptized in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; so that you may pass from ninety-nine to one hundred: for when you were ninety-nine, you did not consider penance necessary for yourselves, and you even insulted the Lord who gathers sinners and wants to make them penitents. Now therefore, pierced, because you have recognized your sin, do penance, and let each one of you be baptized in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; be baptized in His name whom you killed without a crime: and your sins will be forgiven you. They were brought back to hope: they grieved, they moaned, they were converted, they were healed. They themselves were those about whom it was said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

Christ loves sinners so that they may not be sinners.

Therefore, each one of you, beloved, when you hear that the Lord Jesus Christ did not come for the righteous, but for sinners, do not love to be a sinner; lest he say in his heart: If I am righteous, Christ does not love me; if I am a sinner, He loves me: because He came for sinners, not for the righteous. For He answers you: If you have recognized the doctor, why did you not fear the fever? Indeed, the doctor comes to the sick, certainly: but the doctor comes to the sick so that he may not remain always sick. What then do we say? What do we pronounce? What do we define? Does the doctor love the sick or the healthy? He loves what he wishes to make; not what he finds. He comes indeed to the sick, he does not come to the healthy: do not consider it because he comes to one and not to the other; for He loves the healthy more than the sick. For, that you may know that He loves the healthy more than the sick; would he do what he hated?

Paul as the first of sinners.

Therefore, attend to the apostle Paul: "Faithful is the saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the chief." He said: "of whom I am the chief." How was he the chief? Were there not many Jews who were sinners before him? Were there not sinners in the human race before him? Before him, among all people, was no one held by sin? Was not Adam before him, who first sinned and plunged us all into death? What does it mean: "of whom I am the chief"? Unto what has it come, that I am the chief? But even this is not true. Peter was chosen first, Andrew was first, other Apostles were first; you are the last Apostle; how do you say: "of whom I am the chief"? Therefore the last Apostle, the chief sinner. And how, even in this, the chief sinner? Before you, Peter sinned, when he denied the Lord three times. I do not wish to say, because if he had not been found to be a sinner, he would not have passed from the left to the right.

The first of sinners, because worse than all.

What then does it mean: "Of whom I am the first"? Because I am worse than all. Therefore he wanted "the first" to be understood as "worse." Just as among artisans, whosoever wishes to build, what does he say? Who is the foremost builder here? Who is the foremost craftsman? Or if he wishes to be treated: Who is the foremost physician here? Certainly he does not ask who is the oldest, nor who is the most professional; but who is the most skilled. Just as those are the foremost in their craft, so this one is the foremost in iniquity. Why is Paul the foremost in iniquity? Recall Saul, and you will find out. You look at Paul, you forget Saul: you look at the shepherd, you forget the wolf. Is this not the one for whom a single hand was not enough to stone Stephen, and who kept the garments of others? Is he not the one who persecuted the Church everywhere? Is he not the one who had received letters from the chief priests? Because it was not enough for him to persecute the Christians who were in Jerusalem; but he wanted to go to other places, where he found them, and bind them, and bring them for punishment. Is he not the one who, while traveling, breathing threats and murder, was struck from heaven, and heard the voice of the Lord like thunder for his salvation? While he walked, he was cast down; that he might see, he was blinded. Therefore he himself who was the foremost persecutor, no one was more wicked than him.

Paul's conversion.

Listen so that you may understand more. It was the Lord Christ himself speaking to Ananias, already prostrate, now arisen; and he said to him: Go to that village, there you will find Saul of Tarsus in Cilicia, speak to him. Because he has seen a man named Ananias coming to him and baptizing him. He heard the name of Saul, and trembled in the hands of the physician himself. But what is sweeter, from where Saul was called, I believe you remember, and for those who do not remember, I will recount. Saul was that persecutor of David. In David was Christ, in David Christ was prefigured, in Saul was Saul prefigured: as if David from heaven to Saul, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?" Ananias translates to “Sheep”: the shepherd was speaking to the sheep, and the sheep feared the wolf. Such fame of this wolf had gone forth, that the sheep did not consider itself safe, even in the hands of the shepherd. And the Lord to him, as if to a trembling sheep. For when he heard this, he said: Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem, and now it is said he has received letters from the high priests to bind any he finds and bring them bound. Where are you sending me? A sheep to a wolf? But he did not listen to this excuse. For he had already said to a few of his little sheep: Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. If sheep are sent in the midst of wolves, why do you, Ananias, tremble to go to him who is no longer a wolf? You feared the wolf; but your Lord God answers you: I have made a sheep from a wolf; I am making from a sheep a shepherd.

The art of Christ the physician is recommended in the curing of Paul.

How then does Saul, later Paul, rejoice that he has reached the mercy of God, because he was found to be foremost, that is, excellent in sins: And yet I obtained mercy, so that in me Christ Jesus might display the utmost patience, for those who are to believe in him for eternal life; so that all might say to themselves: If Paul was healed, why should I despair? If such a desperate sick person was healed by such a great physician, why should I not apply those hands to my wounds? Why should I not hasten to those hands? For this reason Saul was made an Apostle from a persecutor, so that men might say this. For when a physician comes, he seeks someone there who is hopeless, and he heals him: and if he finds the poorest man, yet he finds the most desperate; he does not seek a reward there, but commends his skill. Therefore, I will say what I began. How then does Saul rejoice that he was taken and healed by Christ, since he was a sinner, nor did he say: Let me remain in sin, because Christ came for me, not for the righteous; so also you, who have heard that Christ came for sinners, do not sleep on a sweet bed; but listen to Paul himself saying: Rise, you who sleep, and rise from the dead, and Christ will illuminate you. Do not love the bed of sin. You turned its whole bed into his illness, it was said before. Rise, be healed, love health, and do not again out of pride go from right hand to left, from valley to mountain, from humility to swelling. When you have become healthy, that is, when you have begun to live righteously, attribute it to God, not to yourself. For you were not made safe by praising yourself; but by pronouncing against yourself. For if you praise yourself out of pride, you will become more grievously sick. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled; and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. Turned to the Lord, etc.