Sermon 229A

SERMON 229/A

Treatise on the Holy Sunday of Easter

The mystery of the body of Christ is the sacrament of unity.

You who have been regenerated into new life, for which reason you are called infants; you especially who see in this way, understand what these things mean, as we promised you, listen. Listen also, you the faithful, who are accustomed to see; it is good to remember, lest forgetting creep in. What you see on the Lord's table, as far as the appearance of those things is concerned, you are also accustomed to see on your own tables; it is the same appearance, but not the same essence. For you are the same persons you were; for indeed you have not brought new faces to us. And yet you are new; old in the appearance of the body, new by the grace of holiness, just as this is new. Indeed, as you see, it is still bread and wine; sanctification is added, and that bread will be the body of Christ, and that wine will be the blood of Christ. This the name of Christ accomplishes, this the grace of Christ accomplishes, so that the same thing that was seen is still seen, and yet it does not have the same power as it had. For before, if it was eaten, it would fill the stomach; now when it is eaten, it edifies the mind. Just as when you were baptized, moreover, before you were baptized, on the day of Sabbath, we spoke to you about the sacrament of the font in which you were to be dipped, and we said to you, which I believe you have not forgotten, that baptism had or has this power, which is the burial with Christ, as the Apostle says: For we are buried with Christ by baptism into death, that just as He was raised from the dead, so we also might walk in newness of life; so now also, not from our heart, nor from our presumption, nor from human arguments, but from the authority of the Apostle, it is necessary to commend and explain to you what it is that you have received or are going to receive. Behold, briefly hear the Apostle, or rather Christ through the Apostle, about the sacrament of the Lord's table that he says: We, being many, are one bread and one body. Behold, that is all, I said it briefly; but weigh the words, do not count them. If you count the words, it is brief; if you weigh them, it is great. One bread, he said. However many loaves may be placed there, one bread; however many loaves there may be on the altars of Christ today throughout the whole world, one bread it is. But what does this mean: one bread? He exposed it very briefly: We, being many, are one body. This bread is the body of Christ, about which the Apostle speaks, addressing the Church: Now you are the body of Christ and members thereof. What you receive, you are, by the grace with which you have been redeemed; you sign, when you respond Amen. What you see is the sacrament of unity.

Just as from many grains one bread is made, so from the unity of charity one body of Christ is made.

Now since the Apostle briefly indicated to us what this is, consider it more diligently and see how it is done. How is bread made? It is threshed, ground, and from mixing to baking; in mixing, it is purified, in baking it is firmed. Where is your threshing? This is what you have become: it was in fasts, in observations, in vigils, in exorcisms. You were ground when you were exorcized. Mixing does not happen without water: you were baptized. Baking is troublesome but useful. For what is baking? The fire of temptations, without which this life is not. But how is it useful? The furnace tests the potter's vessel, and tribulation tests just men. But just as from grains individually gathered into one and in a way mixed by blending, one bread is made, so is the one body of Christ made in the harmony of love. But what the body of Christ has in the grains, the blood has in the grapes; for wine also comes out of the press, and what was in many individually flows into one and becomes wine. Therefore, in both the bread and the chalice, there is the mystery of unity.

The words of the preface are explained.

But what you heard at the table of the Lord: "The Lord be with you," we are accustomed to say this also when we greet from the apse, and whenever we pray we say this; because it benefits us that the Lord be always with us, because without Him we are nothing. But what sounded in your ears, see what you say to the altar of God. For we ask and admonish in a certain way, and we say: "Lift up your hearts." Do not put them down: the heart rots in the earth, lift it up to heaven. But where to: "Lift up your hearts?" What do you answer? Where to: "Lift up your hearts?" "We have them with the Lord." For lifting up the heart sometimes is good, sometimes it is bad. How is it bad? In those it is bad of whom it is said: "You cast them down when they were exalted." A lifted-up heart, if it is not with the Lord, is not righteousness, but pride; therefore when we have said: "Lift up your hearts," because a lifted-up heart can still be one of pride, you answer: "We have them with the Lord." Therefore, it is dignity, not elation: and because this dignity is to have our hearts lifted up to the Lord, did we achieve it? Could we do it by our own strength? Did we lift up the earth, which we were, to heaven? By no means: He did it, He deigned, He extended His hand, He offered His grace, He made what was down to be up. Therefore, when we have said: "Lift up your hearts," and you have responded: "We have them with the Lord," do not attribute to yourselves that you have lifted up your hearts, I added: "Let us give thanks to the Lord our God." These are brief mysteries, but great: we say brief, but great in affection. For you say these things quickly and without a book, and without reading, without a long discussion. Remember what you are, and in what you must persevere, so that you may be able to reach the promises of God.