Sermon 335L
SERMON 335/L
SERMON OF ONE JUST MAN
Why does the Church celebrate the days of the saints with an annual return?
Today we celebrate the memory of the just. Therefore, this sermon is owed to your Charity through our ministry, so that we may speak something from that which we sang with heart and voice with the Lord's consent: "The just will be in eternal memory, he will not fear an evil hearing." For indeed this Psalm was read to remind us to what good purpose this solemnity is held. It is not because the holy Church celebrates with annual return the final days of those just and holy ones who depart from this world that honor is thereby increased for those just ones, but rather, an example is proposed for us to imitate.
We do not consider the righteous dead as dead.
For if we disdain the memory of the righteous, we do not love the righteous, and we count them as dead for the dead, which should be far from us, so that we are not like those Sadducees of whom we heard, when the Gospel was read, that denying the resurrection of the dead, and believing there is no life after this life, proposed to the Lord a question about seven men, who had one woman, succeeding one another in marriage to her. For they troubled the Jews with this question; they will not trouble Christians, because they did not confound Christ, but were rather confounded by Christ. Who then are troubled by such a question? Those who think that the dead rise to live in that world as they do in this world. Therefore, they said: All the brothers have died, and all had one woman, and afterward she also died: in the resurrection whose wife will she be? The Jews were troubled. Why were they troubled? Because they hoped for a carnal life after death. The Jews were troubled, but He whom the Jews killed was not troubled, and therefore Christ solved this question so that Christians would not be troubled by it. Let us therefore listen to our Teacher responding. For He said: You err, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like the angels in heaven. Why then do you expect whose wife she will be, where no one will have a wife? A wife is necessary in human affairs, so that those living may be born from those dying. But there what need is there for a spouse, where there is no need for offspring? For what need is there for children to be born, where parents do not die, where all have one Father whom they cannot bury? Because in the resurrection this is promised to us, that we will be like the angels in heaven, the righteous will be in such eternal memory and will not fear bad news. But in what eternal memory they will be is clear, but from what bad news they will not fear is hidden. It is necessary therefore that we remind you of what you know, not tell you what you do not know. I now remind you and all will recognize from what bad news the righteous will not fear.
The righteous will be in everlasting remembrance.
In eternal memory the just will be, in which eternal memory now the soul of the just lives in rest with the saints, removed and separated from all punishments and the darkness of the wicked; but at the end of the age, with the body received back, no longer mortal but immortal, not natural but spiritual, which is sown in dishonor and will rise in glory, it will be equal to the angels of God and in that eternal memory the just will be. But from what evil hearing will he not fear? And hear this, and act in such a way that you do not fear an evil hearing. For our Lord Jesus Christ says, who cannot deceive, who deceives no one: When the Son of Man comes in his glory, he says, all nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate them as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats: he places the sheep on the right, the goats on the left. He recounts the good deeds of the former, rebukes the evil deeds of the latter. To not make it long, he will say to those who are on his right: Come, blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. In this eternal memory the just will be. What will he say to the left? Go into the eternal fire, which is prepared for the devil and his angels. From this evil hearing the just will not fear. Let us choose, therefore, while we live, where we will be after death. For according to the merits of each, the just judge will give rewards. Let us therefore be vigilant, as far as we can with the same one granting, so that we may have the Son of God himself, who is the judge of all, as an advocate.