Sermon 346B
Sermon 346/B
On the Pilgrimage of This Life
We are on the way: our homeland is in the heavens.
This life of ours, beloved brothers, is, as the Apostle Paul most clearly teaches, a kind of pilgrimage from the heavenly homeland of the holy Jerusalem, saying: As long as we are in the body, we are away from the Lord. And because every pilgrim certainly has a homeland, for no one is a pilgrim without a homeland, we ought to know what our homeland is, to which we must hasten, disregarding all the temptations and pleasures of this life, and where we may find rest. For God did not wish for us to have true rest anywhere else but in that homeland: for if He also gave rest here, we would not long to return. Therefore, calling this homeland Jerusalem, not the earthly one, which is enslaved with its children, as the same Apostle warns: for that was given to men on earth as a shadow of some significance, though worshiping the one God, yet desiring earthly happiness from Him. But there is another Jerusalem, which he says is in heaven: for Jerusalem above is free, which is the mother of us all. He calls that one our mother, as the metropolis: for metropolis is interpreted as mother city. Therefore, we must hasten to it, and recognize that we are pilgrims, and on the way.
He who loves runs on the path.
Every man who does not yet believe in Christ is not on the way: for he is erring; and he seeks his homeland, but does not know what it is, does not know where it is. What is it that I say, he seeks his homeland? Every soul seeks rest, and seeks happiness; nobody, when asked whether he wants to be happy, responds with any doubt that he wants to be: every man exclaims, he wants to be happy; but how he may go to happiness, and where that happiness may be found, this men do not know: so they err. For no one errs who goes nowhere: going, and not knowing where he may go, all error arises. The Lord calls back to the way; and when we are made believers, believing in Christ, we are not yet in the homeland, but nevertheless we have already begun to walk on the way. Just as, therefore, we, if we remember that we are Christians, exhort and admonish all our dearest who are erring in vain superstitions and heresies, that they come to the way and walk on the way; so also those who are already on the way ought to exhort each other. For no one arrives unless he is on the way: but not everyone who is on the way arrives. Therefore, those who do not yet hold the way are held in greater peril; those, however, who are already on the way ought not to feel secure: lest, retained by the delights of the way itself, they are not so eagerly taken up into that homeland where there is only rest. For our steps on this way are the love of God and neighbor. He who loves, runs: and the more ardently one loves, the more eagerly he runs; but the less one loves, the more sluggishly he moves on the way. Indeed, if he does not love, he has entirely remained on the way; if he desires the world, he has looked back from the way, he has no face towards the homeland. What does it profit that he is on the way, but does not go, indeed, he goes back? What does it profit, that he is a Catholic Christian - for this is to be on the way - and by loving the world while walking on the way, he has looked back? For whence he began, there he returns. But if he is led astray by any snares of the tempting and robbing enemy on this journey from the Catholic Church, either to heresy, or to some rites of the pagans, or to any other superstitions and machinations of the devil, he has already lost the way, returns to error.
The Church is the way, open to all; it is established on the rock.
Therefore, brothers, let us run on this path, because we are Catholic Christians, which is the one Church of God, as foretold in the holy Scriptures. For God did not want it to be hidden, so that no one could make an excuse: it was foretold to exist throughout the world, it has been exhibited to the whole world. Nor should innumerable heresies and schisms disturb us: they would trouble us more if they did not exist, because they too were foretold. All, whether those who remain in the Catholic Church or those who are outside the Catholic Church, bear witness to the Gospel. What is it that I say? They give testimony that all things said in the Gospel are true. How was the Church of God foretold to exist among the nations? One Church, established on the rock, which the gates of hell shall not overcome. The gate of hell is the beginning of sin: for the wages of sin are death, and death certainly belongs to hell. But what is the beginning of sin? Let Scripture be questioned. It says, “Pride is the beginning of all sin”; and if pride is the beginning of sin, then pride is the gate of hell. Now, therefore, consider what has given birth to all heresies: you will find no other mother than pride. For when men greatly regard themselves and call themselves holy, wishing to draw crowds to themselves and away from Christ, they have fostered useful heresies and useful schisms only through pride. But because from all those heresies and schisms, that is, the children of pride, the Catholic Church is not overcome, therefore it was foretold: “And the gates of hell shall not overcome it.”
How the snares of the devil are to be overcome.
Therefore, brothers, as I began to say, we are on the way: let us run with love and charity, forgetting temporal things. This way seeks the strong and does not want the lazy. Abundant are the robberies of temptations: the devil lies in wait at every throat, everywhere he tries to enter and possess; and whom he possesses, he calls back from the way or delays him: but he calls back, and makes him not advance or even deviate, so that he is entangled in errors and schisms of heresy, and is led to some kinds of superstitions. He tempts either through fear or greed; but first through greed, through some promises and offers, or through the seductions of pleasures. When he finds a man has despised these things and as it were has closed the door of greed against him, he begins to tempt through the door of fear; so that if you no longer wished to acquire anything in this world, and therefore closed the door of greed, you have not yet closed the door of fear, if you fear to lose what you have acquired. Therefore be strong in faith: let no one seduce you into deceit through any promise, let no one drive you into deceit through any threat. Whatever the world promises you, the kingdom of heaven is greater; whatever the world threatens you with, hell is greater. Therefore, if you wish to escape all fears, fear the eternal punishments which God threatens. Do you want to trample on all desires of concupiscence? Desire eternal life, which God promises. Thus you close to the devil, thus you open to Christ.