Sermon 385
SERMO 385
This admonition of Saint Augustine shows that there are many degrees in perfect charity and love, useful and very necessary.
The loves of men are some right, some perverse.
Not only in the New, but also in the Old Testament, we are reminded, most beloved brothers, how we ought to hold perfect love. For the Lord Himself said in the Gospel: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Therefore, let us treat somewhat of the love of a man for a man, because there are perverse loves of men. He who loves another perversely, also loves himself perversely; but he who loves himself rightly, also loves another rightly. For instance, there are disgraceful, detestable loves: the loves of adulterers, loves of the corrupt, unclean loves. All human and divine laws detest evil loves. Therefore, remove these illicit ones, let us seek the licit ones.
The degrees of lawful love.
Permitted love begins with marriage; but it is still carnal. You see that it is common with beasts: and those sparrows, who sing, have marriages, and make nests, brood over eggs together, and nourish their young together. This love, which is lawful among humans, you see is still carnal. The second love is for children, but even this is still carnal: for one is not to be praised for loving children, but condemned if one does not love them. For should I greatly praise in a man what I see in a tiger? Serpents love their children, lions and wolves love their children. Do not, therefore, think it a great thing that you love your children: in this love you are still comparable to serpents; if you do not love them, you are surpassed by serpents. I am now speaking of honest loves: for I have excluded those disgraceful ones. Another love, which is for relatives, seems already proper to humans, if it is not just customary. For greater is the love which extends beyond relatives, than that which remains among relatives. He who loves his relatives, still loves his own blood. Let him love others who are not relatives, let him receive a stranger: already this love has greatly expanded. It grows so much that from spouse to children, from children to relatives, from relatives to strangers, from strangers to enemies it reaches. But to reach there, it has many steps.
From the friendship of habit to the friendship of reason.
Therefore, see what I say about friendship. There are friendships—excepting that friendship, which should not even be called friendship, which evil conscience makes: for there are people who commit evil together, and therefore seem joined to each other because they are bound by an evil conscience—so, excepting this nefarious friendship, there is a certain carnal friendship through the habit of living together, chatting, and conversing together, so that a person is saddened when deserted by a friend with whom he is used to talking and having connections. Two people may meet, walk together for three days, and already they do not want to part. And this certain sweetness of friendship is indeed honest: but let us still analyze it, because we seek the degrees of this love; and let us see how far we have progressed to such a friendship as I have mentioned. Therefore, this friendship is of habit, not of reason: animals also have it. Two horses eat together, they miss each other; if one goes ahead the next day, the other hastens, longing as if for its friend; it is hardly managed by the rider, and urges itself forward until it reaches its companion. When it reaches the one who went ahead, it calms down: it was driven by weight, urged by the weight of love; it comes as if to its place, and rests. This friendship of habit is also in animals: let us rise still higher. There is another, higher friendship, not of habit, but of reason, by which we love a person for faith and mutual goodwill in this mortal life. Whatever we find above this is divine. Let a person begin to love God, and he will love nothing in a person but God.
The love of friendship ought to be gratuitous.
For your Charity, first it must be seen how the love of friendship ought to be freely given. You should not have a friend or love him for what he provides to you; if you love him for money or some temporal benefit, you do not love him, but what he provides. A friend must be loved freely, for his own sake, not for anything else. If friendship’s rule urges you to love a human freely, how much more should God be freely loved, who commands you to love humans? Nothing is more delightful than God. For in humans there are things that displease; through friendship, however, you compel yourself to tolerate even those things in humans that displease for the sake of friendship. Therefore, if you should not dissolve a human friendship because of certain things you must tolerate, by what things should God’s friendship be compelled to be dissolved by you? You find nothing more delightful than God: God has no way to offend you, if you do not offend Him; nothing is more beautiful, nothing is sweeter than Him. But you will say to me, “I do not see Him; how shall I love one whom I do not see?” Behold how you learn to love one whom you do not see: I will now show you how you try to see what you cannot see with these eyes. Behold, you love a friend: what do you love in him? You love him freely. But perhaps this friend of yours is an old man: it is possible to have an old friend. What do you love in an old man? His bent body, white hair, wrinkles on his forehead, contracted cheeks? If you see the body, there is nothing more deformed due to old age: and yet you love something, and you do not love the body you see, because it is deformed. From where do you see what you love? If I ask you: Why do you love? you will answer me: He is a faithful man. Therefore, you love faith. If you love faith, with the eyes by which faith is seen, God is seen with those same eyes. Therefore, begin to love God, and you will love humanity for the sake of God.
God is not to be loved for the sake of reward.
Hear the great testimony. The devil is surely the accuser of the saints: and because he does not contend before such a judge whom he can deceive, he cannot speak false accusations against us. He knows before whom he speaks. Therefore, since he cannot speak falsehoods against us, he seeks true things to speak. That is why he tempts, so that he may have something to say. This, therefore, is our adversary, who envies us the kingdom of heaven, who does not want us to be where he himself has been cast down from: "Does Job fear God for nothing?" Hence we are provoked by the adversary so that we may worship God freely, when he, seeking what to accuse us of, thought he had found something significant because he said: "Does Job fear God for nothing?" Not because he had seen his heart, but because he saw his riches. We must be careful not to love God for a reward. For what, will you love God for a reward? What kind of reward is it that God will give you? Whatever else He gives you, it is less than He Himself. You do not worship freely if you worship to receive something from Him. Worship freely, and you will receive Him: for God keeps Himself for you, to enjoy. And if you love what He made, how great is He who made them? If the world is beautiful, how great is the Creator of the world? Therefore, tear your heart from the love of the creature, so that you may adhere to the Creator, and say what is written in the psalm: "But it is good for me to cling to God."
We should adhere to God alone with love; a friend, however, must be loved by us so that he may love God with us.
If, however, you abandon him who made you, and love those things which he made, abandoning the one who made you, you are an adulterer. Thus the epistle of James cries out, calling them adulterers: Adulterers. And why adulterers? Do you ask why? Do you not know, he says, that friendship with this world is enmity with God? Therefore, whoever wants to be a friend of this world becomes an enemy of God. He has expressed what he said: Adulterers. A soul that loves the creature and abandons the Creator is an adulteress. For of his love, nothing is more chaste, nothing more delightful: when you abandon him and embrace this, you become unclean. O soul, to be worthy of his embrace, let go of these things and cling to him freely. For thus the psalm says: But for me, it is good to be near God. In the previous verse, it said: You have destroyed all who are unfaithful to you. And as if to show what unfaithfulness is, it added: But for me, it is good to be near God. I want nothing else but him: to cling to him, that is my good, that is my free good; therefore it is also called grace, because it is freely given. When you begin to love God freely, there is security: because you love a friend freely, and you love him so that he may love God with you. Consider, indeed, ordinary friendship itself, from which we began, through which we have progressed; consider it. A husband loves his wife, and a wife her husband; without a doubt both want the other to be safe and happy. He wants her to be healthy, he wants her to be happy. He loves her because he himself wants to be healthy and happy: what he wants for himself, he also wants for her. He loves his children: who wouldn't want his children to be safe? He loves his friend: who doesn't want to have him safe? So much so that if something happens to him, he is anxious, he is sad, he is distressed, he runs to prevent it: when it happens, he weeps. What, then, does he want? To have him safe. Therefore, whoever loves, wishes to have safe that which he loves, if he understands what true safety is, he begins to love it in himself, and is compelled to love the same true safety also in his friend.
Salvation in this world should be used, eternal salvation should be loved.
If you seek God with fleshly eyes, see the three boys delivered from the fire; if you seek God with faith, see the Maccabees crowned in the fire. Therefore, that salvation is to be loved, this to be used: for this indeed is necessary for use, for it will pass away. For it is not true health, brothers, what the doctors say. We are comforted in some way: for perpetual sickness is in this frailty of flesh. For do you think a man is sick only when he has a fever, and is healthy when he is hungry? Healthy he is said to be. Do you want to see how much evil hunger is? Leave him without food for seven days, he will die; but because you apply daily food, he lives. However, the medicine for hunger is food; the medicine for thirst is drink; the medicine for fatigue is sleep; the medicine for sitting is walking; the medicine for walking is sitting; the medicine for weariness is rest; the medicine for rest is vigilance. And see how weak the human body is: this very aid, which I mentioned, if he persists in it, fails. You sought help from food for hunger: behold the help of food: you eat, you are refreshed; if you are refreshed too much, you are defeated too much. You sought help from drink for thirst: by drinking much you are choked, who were gripped by thirst. You were tired by walking, you want to sit: sit perpetually, see if you do not get weary. Therefore, whatever he takes up to drive away something else, if he persists in it, he fails.
True salvation is eternal life; for this reason, anyone is to be loved so that they may hold true salvation with us.
What, therefore, is this salvation, brothers, that is transient, fragile, perishable, vain? Truly, as it is written: "What is your life? It is a vapor that appears for a little while." He who loves his life in this world will lose it. But he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. What is eternal life? True salvation. And if you see your friend, whom you loved in this world so that he might be safe, because you now desire such a salvation that is eternal, you love your friend toward that very salvation; and whatever you wish to do for your friend, you wish to do so that he may hold to that salvation with you. For you love righteousness, you want him to be righteous: you love to be under God, you want him to be under God: you love eternal life, you want him to reign with you there forever. You see your enemy persecuting you: it is iniquity that persecutes you. You should be angry with mercy for him: he is fevered in his soul. Therefore, just as a friend of this world, loving according to the world, wants to expel the fever from his friend, whom he similarly loves as himself for present safety, so you, whoever you love, love for eternal life: when you find anger, indignation, hatred, iniquity, strive to expel the disease of the soul, just as a worldly friend does with bodily disease. Love for this purpose, so that you may do what you are, and love will be perfected in you. If you find this, love your spouse for this, love your child for this, love your relative for this, love your neighbor for this, love a stranger for this, love an enemy for this, and love will be perfected in you. If this happens, you conquer the world, and the prince of this world is driven out. For you have heard what the Lord says: "The prince of this world has been driven out"; because he was about to suffer, and through his suffering he would bring about love in humans. No one has greater love than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. Therefore, to be loved, he loved first; so that in his name no one would fear to die, he died for all. Therefore, to build love in the hearts of men, he sent the devil away. Where to? Out of the hearts of men. Greed sends him in, love drives him out.
Emptied of all evils, let us strive to be filled with abundant goods.
But we, brothers, reflecting with great diligence on the aforementioned degrees of charity, let us not repay the Lord evil for good. And because He, coming, bound the strong man, that is, the devil, and took us all, who were his vessels, away from his power, emptied of all evils through His grace, let us strive to be filled with abundant goods, fearing what the Lord Himself said: When the unclean spirit goes out of a man, it walks through dry places seeking rest, and finds none; after this, returning and finding the house from which it had gone out empty, it brings with it seven spirits worse than itself; and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Therefore, lest we also suffer such a thing, as much as we can, let us strive to introduce virtues in place of vices, so that we may reach God's mercy.