Sermon 224
SERMO 224
ON THE DAY OF EASTER
The baptized are mingled with the people of God; let them choose whom they may imitate.
On this day, baptized in Christ and regenerated into the whole people of God, with the solemn celebration of the sacraments, you should mix. Let us address them, and you in them and they in you. Behold, you have become members of Christ. If you consider what you have become, all your bones will say: Lord, who is like you? For this dignity cannot be fittingly thought of. Does not every word and thought fail regarding the gratuitous grace that has come to you, without preceding merits? And thus it is called grace because it was freely given. What grace? That you might be members of Christ, the Son of God, and also his brothers. If he is the only one, how are you brothers, unless he is the only one by nature, you are brothers by grace? Therefore, since you are members of Christ, I admonish you. Let those to whom you will be mixed hear me. Today I fear for you, not so much from pagans, not so much from Jews, not so much from heretics, but from bad Catholics. Choose among the people of God those whom you should imitate. For if you wish to imitate the crowd, you will not be among the few who walk the narrow path. Abstain from plundering, fraud, and perjury. Let the abyss of drunkenness be repelled from you. Fear fornications as you would death, not the death that separates the soul from the body, but where the soul will burn forever with the body.
The Devil persuades that the sins of incontinence are trivial.
I know the devil plays his part, and does not cease to speak in the hearts of those he draws to his side by seducing them. I know that to fornicators and adulterers who are not satisfied with their spouses, the devil says in their hearts: "Fleshly sins are not great." Against this, against the devil's whispering we must hold Christ's incantation. Because the enemy deceives Christians through the allure of flesh, making what is grave seem light to them, but by lying, not by doing it truthfully. What use is it that Satan makes light what Christ shows to be grave? What use is it that a great weight of misfortune is lightly measured on the scales of falsehood? What use is it that the devil tells you something is light which God tells you is grave? Will you not find what God told you to be grave, and will the enemy who promised you be far from you? Does the devil do something new? He tells faithful Christians: "What you do is nothing: you sin in your flesh. For you do not sin in spirit. It is easily erased, easily forgiven." What great thing does he do? It is the same trick he used in paradise: "You will not die." God had said: On the day you eat it, you will die. The enemy came and said: "Why, because God told you: You will die? You will not die, but when you eat it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like gods." God's threat was dismissed, the devil's promise was heard. God's threat was found to be true, and the devil's deception false. But what did it profit, I ask you, what did it profit that the woman said: The serpent led me, and the man himself said: The woman you gave to be with me handed it to me and I ate? Did the excuse prevail and was damnation not followed?
The incontinent are rebuked so that they may not delay conversion.
Therefore I say to you, my brothers, my sons. You who have wives, know nothing else. You who do not have wives, and want to take one, keep yourself pure for them, just as you wish them to come to you pure. Those of you who have promised celibacy, do not look back. Behold, I have said to you. I have freed myself. The Lord has made me a steward, not an enforcer. And yet where we can, where it is granted, where it is permitted, where we know, we correct, we rebuke, we anathematize, we excommunicate. And yet we do not correct. Because neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but it is God who gives the increase. And now because I speak to you, because I frighten you, because I warn you, it is necessary for God to hear me, and to do something silently in your hearts. I speak briefly, and this I commend to you. I frighten the faithful, and I build you up. You are the members of Christ, do not listen to me, listen to the Apostle: Taking therefore the members of Christ, should I make them the members of a prostitute? Someone might say: But she is not a prostitute, she is my concubine. Do you have a wife, who says this? I do. Therefore, whether you want it or not, she is a prostitute. Go, and say that the bishop has wronged you, if you have a wife, and another woman sleeps with you. Whoever she is, she is a prostitute. But perhaps she keeps faith with you, and knows no one but you, and does not plan to know another. Therefore, if she is chaste, why do you fornicate? If she has one, why do you have two? It is not permitted, it is not permitted, it is not permitted. They go into Gehenna. Or at least I am free from this. Or at least let me say what is true. Let those who are such correct themselves while they live. Suddenly death comes, and there is no one to be corrected. When the last hour comes is unknown. When it is said tomorrow, tomorrow, it becomes a raven: it goes, and does not return. But you listen to me, baptized ones; you listen to me, infants; you listen to me, regenerated through Christ. I beseech you by the altar you have approached, by the sacraments you have received, by the name that has been invoked upon you, by the future judgment of the living and the dead, I beseech, adjure, and bind you by the name of Christ; do not imitate them, unless you know those who are faithful to be such. Amen.