Sermon 229E

Sermon 229/E For the Day of the Holy Pentecost Indeed, that Spirit was promised by the Lord, and He was given on the day of Pentecost. He filled all who were sitting there. Then, suddenly, they began to speak in tongues of all the peoples: such was the power which the Holy Spirit bestowed upon them. For they were all speaking, but those who listened were thinking only one man was speaking in their own language. What wonder, this transforming action! That unity of the disciples into one Spirit was accomplished at the time when the Holy Spirit came, tongues divided to each, but the love which joins together was not divided. For the Holy Spirit binds together those whom He inhabits in harmony and peace.

Treatise on the Second Day of Easter

Christ brought us his good things and patiently endured our evils.

The passion and resurrection of the Lord show us two lives: one which we endure, the other which we desire. For He is able to give us that life, who deigned to endure this life for us. This shows how much He loves us, and He wanted us to believe, because He will give us His own good things, who wished to have our bad things in common with us. We were born, and He was born; because we are going to die, He died. These two things we knew in our own life, the beginning and the end, being born and dying; by being born to begin labors, by dying to go to uncertainties. We knew these two things, being born and dying: this abounds in our region. Our region is the earth; the region of angels, heaven. Therefore our Lord came to this region from another region; to the region of death, from the region of life; to the region of labor, from the region of happiness. He came bringing His good things to us, and patiently endured our bad things. He secretly carried His good things, openly endured our bad things; He appeared as a man, God was hidden; infirmity appeared, majesty was hidden; flesh appeared, the Word was hidden. The flesh suffered: where was the Word when the flesh suffered? The Word did not remain silent, because it was teaching us patience. Behold, the Lord Christ rose on the third day; where is the insult of the Jews? Where is the insult of those tumultuous and mad Jewish leaders and those slaying the healer? Recall, beloved, what you heard when His passion was read. If He is the Son of God, let Him come down from the cross, and we will believe in Him. If He is the Son of God, He will save Him. He heard these things and remained silent; He was praying for those who said these things, and did not reveal Himself. For in another Gospel it is written that He cried out for them and said: Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing. He saw there His future followers, He saw those who would immediately believe in Him, for them He wanted forgiveness. Our head hung on the cross, but He recognized His members on earth.

In the washing of regeneration, all sins are completely forgiven.

When the book of the Acts of the Apostles was read, there you already heard how, when those who had gathered were marveling at the Apostles and those who were with them speaking in the languages of all the nations which they had not learned, inspired and taught by the Holy Spirit which they had received, amazed by the miracle, Peter the Apostle spoke to them, and explained to them that they indeed had acted in ignorance by committing the evil deed of killing the Lord; but God had fulfilled His plan so that innocent blood was shed for the whole world, and the sins of all believers were erased; for He is the one who died, in whom sin could not be found. The bond of our sins was held, the devil had the bond against us; he possessed those whom he had deceived, he had those whom he had conquered. We were all debtors, as everyone is born with an inherited debt; blood without sin was shed, and erased the bond of sin. Therefore, those who believed while Peter was speaking in the Acts of the Apostles, troubled, said: What shall we do, brothers? tell us. For they despaired that such a great sin could be forgiven for them. And it was said to them: Repent, and let each one of you be baptized in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and your sins will be forgiven. Which sins? All of them. How many are all? And this so great, that you killed Christ. For what more wicked thing could you have done, than killing your Creator who was created for you? What graver thing could a madman do, than that the doctor was killed by him? Yet even this is forgiven, it was said to them: all is forgiven. You raged, and shed innocent blood; believe, and drink what you have shed. Therefore, they were there, who, in despair, said: What shall we do? and heard that by believing in Him whom they had killed, they could receive pardon for such a great crime. They were there, He saw them; He saw them before His cross, whom He foresaw before the foundation of the world. For them He said: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do; they were killing the doctor; the doctor made a medicine for the killers out of His own blood. Great mercy and glory; what was not forgiven to them, when it was forgiven to them that they killed Christ? Therefore, dearest ones, no one should doubt that in the washing of regeneration all sins, both small and great, are completely forgiven; for it is a great example and proof. No sin is graver than killing Christ; when even this is forgiven, what could be left unforgiven in a baptized believer?

The resurrection of Christ is the sacrament of new life.

But let us consider the resurrection of Christ, dearest ones; because just as His passion signified our old life, so His resurrection is the sacrament of new life. Therefore, the Apostle says: We were buried with Christ through baptism into death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead, we too might walk in newness of life. You have believed, you have been baptized; the old life has died, it has been killed on the cross, it has been buried in baptism. The old has been buried, in which you lived badly; let the new rise. Live well: live in such a way that you may live; live in such a way that, when you die, you do not die. Consider, dearest ones, what the Lord said in the Gospel to the man He healed: Behold, you have been made well; do not sin anymore, lest something worse happen to you. We had been confined by that sentence and reduced to great straits; but His mercy never forsakes us. He gave prayer to the baptized, because here one cannot live without sin, so that we say daily: Forgive us our debts. They are debts: that general caution, and we do not cease to become debtors. We say from where we are forgiven daily; but we should not rest secure in crimes, in wicked deeds, in sins. Sins should not be friendly to us; we have vomited them out; let us hate them; let us not return to our vomit like a dog. And if they creep in, let them creep in unwillingly, not with desire or eager seeking; for whoever wishes to have friendships with sins will be an enemy to Him who came to destroy sins, since He had no sin. My brothers, consider what I say: a friend of disease is an enemy to the doctor. If you were sick in body, and a doctor came to you because of his profession, tell me what he would want by coming to you; what would he want but to heal you? Therefore, since he would be a friend to you, it is necessary that he be an enemy to the fever; for if he loved your fever, he would not love you. Therefore, he hates your fever; he entered your house against it, climbed into your room against it, approached your bed against it, touched your vein against it, gave you commands against it, composed and applied medicines against it; everything against it, everything for you. Therefore, if he does everything against the fever, everything for you, you alone will be against yourself by loving the fever. You will answer me, I know, you will answer me and say: Who loves a fever? I know too, a sick person does not love a fever, but loves what the fever asks for. What did the doctor say when he entered you, armed with skill against your fever? He says to you, for example: Do not drink cold things. You heard from the doctor, the enemy of your fever, to not drink cold things. When the doctor has left, the fever says: Drink cold things. When the fever tells you, you should say: that fever causes this burning. Silent conversation speaks to you, it induces dryness in the throat, it makes cold things pleasurable; remember what the doctor said, do not drink. But with the doctor absent, the fever is present. What did the doctor say? Do you want to overcome it? Do not yield to it. If you join the doctor against the fever, you will be two; if you consent to the fever, the doctor is conquered, but to the sick man's harm, not the doctor's. However, let it not be that Christ the doctor is conquered in those whom He foresaw and predestined; because He called them, and those He called, He also justified; and those He justified, He also glorified. Let vices be repressed, let desires be curbed, let the devil and his angels be tormented by envy. If God is for us, who can be against us?

Christ is both the food and wages for his laborers.

But what Christ demonstrated by the resurrection of his body, begin to act spiritually by living well. But that very thing, that is, the very property, the very truth, the very incorruptibility of the flesh, do not hope for it now; it is the reward of faith, the reward is given at the end of the day. Now let us work in the vineyard; let us wait for the end of the day; for he who has hired us to work does not abandon us, lest we fail. He feeds the worker laboring, who prepares to give him the reward at the end of the day; so now the Lord feeds us laboring in this age, not only with the food of the stomach, but also with the food of the mind. If he did not feed us, I would not speak; because he feeds by the word, we are doing this, who preach him to your minds, not to your stomachs. You receive while hungry, you praise while feasting; what is it that you cry out, if no food reaches your minds? But what are we? His ministers, his servants; we do not bring forth our own, but from his cellar we dispense to you. From there we also live, for we are fellow servants. And what do we serve you: his bread, or the bread itself? Whoever hired a man to work in his vineyard might give him bread, not himself. Christ gives himself to his workers; he offers himself in the bread, he preserves himself as the reward. It is not for us to say: If we eat him now, what will we have at the end? We eat, but he does not end; he refreshes the hungry, but he does not diminish. He now feeds those working, for whom the full reward remains. For what better will we receive than himself? If he had something better than himself, he would give it: but nothing is better than God, and Christ is God. Consider: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God; he was in the beginning with God. Who grasps this? Who gathers it? Who gazes upon it? Who contemplates it? Who thinks worthily of it? No one. The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us. To this he calls you, so that you may labor as a worker. The Word became flesh. He calls you himself: your praise will be the Word, the Lord will be your reward.