A sermon on the Passion of Christ: He will be given up to the Gentiles, etc.
This eye-salve, with which the soul’s eyes are enlightened, is made up of five
aspects of our Lord’s Passion, like five herbs. They are mentioned in today’s Gospel:
He will be given up to the Gentiles and mocked, beaten and spat upon;
and after they have scourged him they will kill him.
Alas, alas! He who is the liberty of captives is made a prisoner. He who is the Glory of
the angels is mocked. The God of all is scourged. The spotless mirror of the eternal Light
is spat upon [cf. Wisd 7.26]. The Life of mortals is killed. What is there left for us poor
wretches to do but go and die with him? [cf. Jn 11.16] Draw us forth from the mire, Lord
Jesus, with the hook of your Cross; so that we may run, not to your sweetness [cf. Cant
1.3], but to the bitterness of your Passion. Prepare yourself an eye-salve, my soul, and
give yourself to bitter weeping over the death of the Only-begotten [cf. Jer 6.26], over the
Passion of the Crucified! The innocent Lord is betrayed by the disciple, mocked by
Herod, scourged by the Governor, spat on by the Jewish mob and crucified by the
soldiers. We will take these briefly in turn.
He was betrayed by his own disciple.
What will you give me, to betray him? [Mt 26.15]
The shame of it! To set a price on that which is beyond price! Alas! As the verse says,
“He is shown forth; God is sold for a worthless coin.” O Judas, will you sell God, the Son
of God, as if he were a lowly slave, or a dead dog? And will you not even set the price
yourself, but leave it to your customers? What will you give me? What can they give
you? If they gave you Jerusalem, Galilee and Samaria, could they buy Jesus? If they
gave you the heavens and all the angels in them, earth and all mankind, the sea and all
that is in it: could they pay a price worth the Son of God, in whom all the treasures of
wisdom and knowledge lie hid? [Col 2.3] No! Never!
Can the Creator be bought or sold by a creature? And yet you say, What will you give
me, to betray him to you? Tell me: how has he injured you, what harm has he done you,
for you to say, I will betray him to you? What of the humility and voluntary poverty of the
incomparable Son of God? What of his kindness and affection? What of his sweet
preaching and working of miracles? His tears, so loving, shed over Jerusalem and for
the death of Lazarus? What of the privilege that he chose you as an Apostle and familiar
friend? Let the remembrance of these things, and others like them, soften your heart and
inspire you to mercy, so that you do not say, I will betray him to you. Yet how many
Judas Iscariots there are today, ‘hirelings’ according to the meaning of his name, who
sell the Truth for the reward of some small temporal advantage, who sell their neighbour
with the kiss of flattery, and in the end hang themselves in the pit of eternal damnation.
He was mocked by Herod.
Herod with his army set him at nought and mocked him, putting on him a white garment.
[Lk 23.11]
The Son of God was spurned by Herod the Fox (Go, tell that fox, he said [Lk 13.32]) and
his army- he to whom the hosts of angels cry Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Sabaoth,
whom, as Daniel says, a thousand thousand serve, and ten thousand times a hundred
thousand stood before him [cf. Dan 7.10]. He mocked him, putting on him a white
garment. It is in fact the Father who clothes his Son Jesus Christ in the white garment of
his flesh, clean from every spot of sin, taken from the immaculate Virgin. God the Father
glorified him, but Herod despised him. The Father put upon him a white robe, but Herod
seeing him thus clad mocked him. The shame of it! It is the same today. Herod means
‘glory skin-deep’, an image of the hypocrite who takes pride in outward appearance, skindeep; whereas the heavenly King’s daughter (the soul) is all glorious within [cf. Ps
44.14]. He spurns and mocks Jesus. He spurns him when he preaches Christ crucified
but does not bear his wounds in his own heart. He mocks him when he conceals himself
under an outward glory so as to deceive the members of Christ. “The birdcatcher plays a
sweet-sounding pipe, so as to deceive the bird.”5 How many Herodians are taken in by
outward glory, even today!
He was scourged by Pontius Pilate. John tells us that
Pontius Pilate took Jesus and scourged him. [Jn 19.1]
Isaiah says:
When the overflowing scourge shall pass,
you shall be trodden down by it.
Whensoever it shall pass through,
it shall take you away. [Is 28.18-19]
To prevent that scourge which is eternal death and the power of the devil from treading
us down, the God of all, the Son of God, was bound to a pillar like a criminal and cruelly
scourged so that his blood ran down on every side.
What meekness of divine love! What patience of the Father’s kindness! How deep and
unfathomable the secret of the eternal mind! You beheld your only-begotten Son, who is
equal to you, Father, bound to a pillar like a criminal and torn with scourges as if he were
a murderer. How could you restrain yourself? Holy Father, we thank you because by the
bonds and wounds of your beloved Son we have been set free from the bonds of sin and
the scourges of the devil. And yet, the shame of it! Once again Pontius Pilate scourges
Jesus Christ. A weak man pretending to be strong, but full of empty words, he is like a
man who makes a commitment with good intentions, but then returns to his vomit. With
blasphemous mouth and cruel tongue he tears and scourges Christ in his members.
With Satan he goes out from the presence of the Lord [cf Job 2.7], to run down his
former community. He calls this one ‘proud’, and that one ‘greedy’, and to exculpate
himself he passes judgement on others, covering up his own faults by blaming everyone
else.
He was smeared with spittle by the Jews. According to Matthew,
They spat in his face and fell on him with blows, while others slapped him in the face.
[Mt 26.67]
Father, the head of your Son Jesus, before whom the archangels tremble, was struck
with a reed; and the face on which the angels long to gaze was fouled with the spittle of
the Jews. His face was slapped, his beard was pulled, he was struck with blows and his
hair was torn. Yet you, O most Merciful, were silent and still. You would rather that one
person, however dear to you, should be spat on and struck, than that your whole people
should perish. Praise and glory be to you! From the spitting, the smiting and the striking
that your Son suffered, you make for us an antidote to drive the poison from our souls.
Another lesson for us is this. The ‘face of Jesus Christ’ may be understood as the
leaders of the Church, who make God known to us and who represent him. Faithless
Jews (in other words, perverse subordinates) spit on that face whenever they criticize or
speak ill of those leaders. They disobey the Lord who has said:
Do not speak ill of the leader of your people. [cf. Acts 23.5; Ex 22.28]
He was crucified by the soldiers. St John says:
When the soldiers had crucified him, they took his garments. [Jn 19.23]
O all ye that pass by the way, stay your steps and attend,
and see if there be any sorrow like to my sorrow. [Lam 1.12]
His disciples fled, his friends and acquaintances drew back, Peter denied him, the
Synagogue crowned him with thorns, the soldiers crucified him, the Jews mocked and
blasphemed and gave him vinegar and gall to drink. What sorrow is like to my sorrow?
His hands are turned and as of gold, full of hyacinths, [Cant 5.14]
says the Bride in the Canticles, but now they are fixed with nails. His feet, which once he
showed capable of walking on the sea, are fastened to the Cross with nails. His face,
which shone like the sun in its splendour, has become pale as death. His beloved eyes,
to which no creature is invisible, are closed in death. What sorrow is like to my sorrow?
In all this, only the Father stands by to support; and into the Father’s hands he commits
his spirit, saying,
Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. [Lk 23.46]
When he had said this he bowed his headhaving nowhere else to lay his headand gave up his spirit. [Jn 19.30]
But alas, alas! Once more the entire mystical Body of Christ, the Church, is crucified and
killed! In that Body some form the head, others the hands or feet or trunk.
Contemplatives are the head, active religious the hands, holy preachers the feet and all
true Christians the trunk. Every day the soldiers (the demons) crucify that Body with their
evil suggestions as with nails. Jews, pagans and heretics blaspheme and offer the
vinegar and gall of sorrow and persecution to drink. This should not surprise us:
All who wish to live devotedly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. [2Tim 3.12]
How apt are the words, He was betrayed, mocked, scourged, spat on and crucified.
From these five words, as from five most precious herbs, you must make yourself an eyesalve, you Angel of Laodicea. Anoint the eyes of your soul with it, and you will see the
light and hear the words: Receive your sight, your faith has saved you.
Let us pray, then, dear brethren, and ask straightway for devotion of mind; so that our
Lord Jesus Christ, who gave light to the man born blind, to Tobit and to the Angel of
Laodicea, may be pleased to illuminate the eyes of our souls with the faith of his
Incarnation and with the ointment of his Passion. Thus may we be enabled to see the
Son of God himself, the Light of Light, in the splendour of the saints and the brightness
of the angels. May he grant this, who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit,
for ever and ever. Amen.
A sermon for priests, and how they should conceal confession: “Confession should be uninhabitable”; and: Take heed you go not up into the mount.
Truly they are the children of the devil, accursed by the living and true God, cast out from
the Church Triumphant and excommunicate from the Church Militant, to be deposed
from every office and benefice, who (not by word, which would be worse than murder)
even by sign or in any way at all, hidden or open, whether to blame or even to praise,
reveal or manifest a confession. I dare to say that whoever reveals a confession sins
more gravely than the traitor Judas, who sold Jesus Christ the Son of God to the Jews. I
make my confession to a man, but not simply as to a man, but as to God. The Lord says
in Isaiah:
My secret to myself! My secret to myself! [Is 24.16]
and shall not man, born of earth, seal up the secret of confession in the depths of his
heart?
A sermon on the seven vices, and the properties of the ostrich, the ass and the hedgehog: It shall be a habitation of dragons.
‘Fat bulls’ are proud men in their worldly wealth. They have surrounded me (says our
Lord) like the Jews who repeatedly called for me to be crucified. At the hour of death the
demons meet the ‘onocentaur’, the monster combining lust and pride, so as to receive
such sinners as they leave this world, and drag them away with them to eternal
punishment. So it is that those who incited the sin now inflict the torment that punishes it.
A sermon on Christ’s armour and his victory: He put on justice as a breastplate.
his is our Joseph, who was nailed to the cross as in a prison, bound hand and foot
between two thieves. Joseph the son of Jacob would not give into the foul lust of a
harlot. He fled, leaving his cloak in her hands, whereby she had tried to hold him; and so
she accused him to Potiphar her husband, saying that he had tried to seduce her.
Angered, he put him in prison, where the cup-bearer and the baker of the king of Egypt
were held captive. By rightly interpreting their dreams, he gave them a true and certain
prediction of what would happen. The cup-bearer would leave prison for the king’s
palace; the baker would be taken from prison to be hanged on the gallows [cf. Gen 39.7-
20; 40.1-22]. Similarly, Jesus Christ the Son of God would not consent to the faithless
harlot, the Jewish Synagogue, which would have held him by the cloak of legal
observances and the tradition of the elders. They covered themselves with these, as with
a cloak, to appear righteous before men. He, however, cast off the cloak, the rite of legal
observance, and fled; because he was Lord of the Law, not its slave. When the
Synagogue saw itself despised, it accused him to Potiphar. Potiphar means ‘a mouth
inclined to cut up’, and he represents Pilate, who inclined his mouth to cut up Jesus, that
is, to scourge him: I will scourge him and hand him over to you [cf. Mt 27.26; Lk 23.16].
A sermon on the four cursed things, and on the five assemblies and their meaning: By three things the earth is disturbed.
Hagar the slave-girl (her name means ‘solemn’) stands for the Synagogue, which gloried
in the observance of the Law and its solemnities. Sarah (‘a coal’) stands for Holy Church,
set alight by the fire of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. The son of the former, the
Jewish people, is in opposition to the son of the latter, the believing people.
First, a sermon for preachers or prelates: Strengthen yourselves, ye sons of Benjamin.
Strengthen yourselves in the midst of Jerusalem, of the Church Militant, in which is the
vision of peace, the reconciliation of sinners. In the midst, yes, because at the heart of
the Church is charity, which extends to friend and foe alike. The preacher must
strengthen the faithful of the Church to hold on to that ‘midst’. In Thecua- in those who,
whenever they do anything, blow a trumpet before them like the hypocrites [cf. Mt 6.2],
who please themselves in multitudes of nations [Wisd 6.3]- sound the trumpet of
preaching, so that when they hear it they may say, Woe to us, because we have sinned,
Lord [Lam 5.16]. And over Bethacarem, the sterile house of those dried up of the
moisture of grace, sterile of good works, whose minds are not ground that receives the
drops of blood that flow from the body of Christ [cf. Lk 22.44], set up the standard of the
Cross. Preach the Passion of the Son of God, because the season of the Passion is now
here. Proclaim it to the dead, that they may rise up in the death of Jesus Christ, who in
today’s Gospel said to the Jewish crowds, Which of you can convince me of sin?
There are seven points to note in this Gospel:
the innocence of Jesus Christ, who says: Which of you can convince me of sin?
the careful hearing of his words: He that is of God heareth the words of God;
the blasphemy of the Jews: Do not we say that thou art a Samaritan, and has a devil?
the glory of eternal life for those who keep his word:
Amen, amen, I say to you, If any man keep my word, he shall not see death for ever;
the glorification by the Father: It is my Father that glorifieth me;
the rejoicing of Abraham: Abraham, your father, rejoiced that he might see my day;
the deliberate stoning by the Jews, and the hiding of Jesus: They took up stones to cast
at him.
A sermon on Christ’s care for us and his patience amid the blasphemies of the Jews: What seest thou, Jeremiah? and: Woe is me, my mother.
The Jews therefore answered and said to him: Do not we say well that thou art a
Samaritan and hast a devil? Jesus answered: I have not a devil; but I honour my Father.
And you have dishonoured me. But I seek not my own glory; there is one that seeketh
and judgeth. [Jn 8.48-50]
the Samaritans, who had been established by the Assyrians, held to a religion partly of
Jewish origin and partly Gentile [cf. 4(2)Kg 17.24,33,41], and the Jews had no dealings
with them [cf. Jn 4.9], reckoning them as unclean. So when they wished to insult
someone, they called him ‘a Samaritan’. The word means ‘guardian’, because the
Babylonians set them to keep watch on the Jews. This is why they said, Do not we say
well that thou art a Samaritan; and by not denying it he accepted the word, being the
guardian of Israel who neither slumbers nor sleeps [cf. Ps 120.4], and keeps watch over
his flock. So the Lord says to Jeremiah:
What seest thou, Jeremiah? And I said: I see a rod watching (or, according to another
translation, an almond branch). And the Lord said to me: Thou hast seen well, for I will
watch over my word, to perform it. [Jer 1.11]
The rod, strong and green, and a symbol of ruling power, stands for Jesus Christ, who is
the strength of God [1Cor 1.24], planted by the running water of abundant grace [Ps 1.3],
green in that he was free from all sin. He says of himself,
If they do these things in the green wood, what shall be done in the dry? [Lk 23.31]
The Father says to him,
Rule them with a rod of iron, [Ps 2.9]
that is, in unbending justice. This rod watches over his word, to perform it, because what
he preached by his word he showed forth by his actions. Whoever practises what he
preaches ‘watches over his word’.
Alternatively, Christ is called ‘a rod watching’ because, like a thief who stays awake at
night and steals things from the houses of sleepers, using a rod with a hook on it, Christ
with the rod of his humanity and the hook of his holy Cross steals souls from the devil.
So he says,
When I am lifted up from the earth, I shall draw all things to myself [Jn 12.32]
with the hook of the holy Cross.
The Day of the Lord cometh like a thief in the night, [1Thess 5.2]
and,
If thou shalt not watch, I will come to thee as a thief. [Apoc 3.3]
Again, Christ is called a ‘rod of almond’. The centre of an almond is sweet, the shell is
hard and the skin is bitter. “The sweet centre is Christ’s divinity, the hard shell is his soul,
and the bitter skin his flesh which bore the bitterness of the Passion.”3 He keeps watch
over the Father’s word (which he calls his own, because he is one with the Father) to
perform it. So he says, As the Father hath given me commandment, so do I [Jn 14.51].
Therefore I do not have a devil, because I do the commandment of the Father. The false
Jews blasphemed falsely: Thou hast a devil! Jeremiah says, in the person of Christ,
regarding their blasphemy:
Woe is me, my mother! Why hast thou borne me, a man of strife, a man of contention to
all the earth? I have not lent on usury, neither hath any man lent to me on usury; yet all
curse me, saith the Lord. [Jer 15.10-11]
There are two kinds of woe- that of guilt and that of punishment. Christ suffered the woe
of punishment, but not that of guilt. Woe is me, my mother! Why hast thou borne me for
so great a punishment, a man of strife and discord? Strife occurs among groups of
people who, like dogs, are ready to fight over anything. Discord suggests a division
within the heart. There was strife among the Jews over the words of Christ. Like dogs,
they barked and contradicted each other. They were divided in heart: some said He is a
good man; others, No, he just misleads the crowds [cf. Jn 7.12].
I have not lent on usury, neither hath any man lent me on usury. Both lender and
borrower are involved in usury; but Christ did not find any among the Jews to whom he
might advance the capital of his teaching, nor did anyone make him a return, being
unwilling to add to his teaching the interest of good deeds. Indeed, all curse me, saying,
Thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil. Jesus replied, I have not a devil. He denied the
falsehood, but, being patient, he did not return the abuse. I honour my Father, showing
him the honour due to him, attributing everything to him; But you dishonour me. So, in
the person of Christ, Jeremiah says in Lamentations:
I am made a derision to all my people all day long; [Lam 3.14]
and:
He shall give his cheek to him that striketh him, he shall be filled with reproaches. [Lam
3.30]
I do not seek my own glory, as men do who retaliate for insults offered; but I leave it to
my Father. He adds, There is one who seeks and judges. So he says in Jeremiah:
But thou, O Lord of Sabaoth, who judgest justly and triest the reins and the heart, let me
see thy revenge on them. [Jer 11.20]
There are two senses of ‘judgement’: condemnation (in which sense it is said that The
Father judgeth not any man, but hath given all judgement to the Son [Jn 5.22]; and
discernment, of which the Son says in the Introit of today’s Mass:
Judge me, O God, and distinguish my cause from the nation that is not holy. [Ps 42.1]
Accordingly, it is the Father who seeks my glory, and distinguishes it from yours,
because you glory according to the world, whereas I do not- but by that glory which I had
with the Father before the world was made [Jn 8.50], quite different from human glory
that puffs up.
Morally. Thou hast a demon. The Greek daimonion suggests ‘skilled’ or ‘knowing’, and
a daimon is a skilled person. When someone says to you, by way of flattery or praise,
“What an expert you are! What a lot you know!” he is saying, “You have a daimon.” You
should immediately reply with Christ, “I have not a daimon. Of myself, I know nothing; I
have nothing good. But I honour my Father, I attribute everything to him and give him
thanks, from whom comes all wisdom, skill and knowledge. I do not seek my own glory.”
Say with St Bernard4 : “Touch me not, vainglorious word! To him alone is glory due, to
whom we say: Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.” He says
also, “No angel in heaven seeks glory from another angel. Shall man on earth seek to be
praised by man?”
A sermon on the glory and the downfall of our first parent: A plentiful olive-tree.
Amen, amen, I say to you: If any man keep my word, he shall not taste death for ever.
The Jews therefore said: Now we know that thou hast a devil. Abraham is dead, and the
prophets; and thou sayest: If any man keep my word, he shall not taste death for ever.
Art thou greater than our father Abraham, who is dead? And the prophets are dead.
Whom dost thou make thyself? Jesus answered: If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing.
[Jn 8.51-53]
A sermon on the mortification of the just man: The days of his life.
There follows: The Jews therefore said: Now we know that thou hast a devil. What
madness, what insanity! How faithless that devilish people! It is not enough to
blaspheme once, with so horrible and unspeakable an accusation, against an innocent
man free from all sin: you repeat it a second time! Now we know that thou hast a devil.
You blind people! If only you had known, you would not have thought him to have had a
devil, you would have believed him to be the Lord, the Son of God!
A sermon on the glorification of Christ: It is my father that glorifieth.
It is therefore the Father who glorifies me, who you say is your God. This is direct
evidence against those heretics who say that the Law of Moses was given by the God of
Darkness. “The God of the Jews, who gave the Law to Moses, is the Father of Jesus
Christ; therefore the Father of Jesus Christ gave the Law to Moses.”5 And you have not
known him spiritually, since you serve him for earthly reasons; but I know him, because I
am one with him. If I were to say that I do not know him, when I do know him, I would be
like you, a liar: a man who says he does not know, when he does. But I know him and I
keep his word. As Son, he spoke the word of the Father; he himself was the Word of the
Father, speaking to men. He keeps himself, the Godhead within him.
A sermon on the Nativity of the Lord: In that day, a fountain shall come forth.
Abraham, your Father, rejoiced that he might see my day; he saw it and was glad. The
Jews therefore said to him: thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?
Jesus said to them: Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am. [Jn 8.56-58]
A sermon on the four gifts of the glorified body: On the third day he will raise us, and on the properties of the vulture and the crane.
The Jews therefore said to him (thinking only of the age of his body, not considering his
divine nature), Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham? Although
the Lord was thirty- one or, maybe, thirty-two years old, he looked older because of his
hard labour and unceasing preaching. Jesus said to them, Before Abraham was, I am; or
rather, not before Abraham was, but before he came to be, for he was a creature. But
then he said, not, ‘I was made’, but, ‘I am’, because he is the Creator.
A sermon against the ungrateful: Am I become a wilderness to Israel?
They took up stones therefore to cast at him. But Jesus hid himself and went out of the
Temple. [Jn 8.59]
The Jews resorted to stones, that they might stone him who is the Corner Stone, who in
himself joined together the two walls (the Jewish people and the Gentiles) who were
opposed. The Jews imitated their fathers’ malice, and wanted to stone the Lord of the
prophets, just as their fathers had stoned Jeremiah in Egypt. The Lord himself said:
You are the sons of them that killed the prophets. Fill ye up then the measure of you
fathers. [Mt 23.31]
A sermon on the humility, poverty and suffering of Christ: Tell ye the daughter of Sion.
The swaddling-clothes are his garment, and his ‘thigh’ is his flesh. At Nazareth he was
crowned with flesh as with a diadem; at Bethlehem he was wrapped in swaddling clothes
as his purple. These were the first insignia of his reign. At each, the Jews raged, like
people wanting to deprive him of his kingdom. In his Passion he was stripped by them of
his garments, and pierced with nails. There his kingdom was completely fulfilled, for after
crown and purple he lacked only a sceptre; and this he took when he went out, bearing
his cross, to the place called Calvary [cf. Jn 19.17]. Isaiah says: The government was
laid upon his shoulder [Is 9.6], and the Apostle:
We see Jesus, through suffering death, crowned with glory and honour. [cf. Heb 2.9]
A sermon against proud prelates: I will destroy the chariot out of Ephraim.
Our God, the Son of God, whom we have expected, came and saved us in time of
trouble (the devil’s persecution). Like a stranger, a casual labourer, he tilled our land and
watered it with the water of his preaching. He was like a wayfarer travelling light,
unburdened by sin, and as he revealed his ways he showed that he rejoiced like a giant
to run the way [Ps 18.6]. He bowed his head on the Cross as he said, Father, into thy
hands I commend my spirit [Lk 23.46]; and he remained in the tomb three days and
three nights. He is a wanderer (in the Jews’ estimation), because they thought he was
wandering in his wits. He says in John:
I have power to lay down (my life) and I have power to take it up again…
And many of them said: He hath a devil and is mad. Why hear you him? [Jn 10.18,20]
First, a sermon for the preacher, and those to whom he should preach: I was in the city of Joppa.
At that time: When it was late that same day, the first of the week, and the doors were
shut, where the disciples were gathered together, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and
stood in the midst and said to them: Peace be to you. [Jn 20.19]
A sermon against the prosperity of the world: I have not desired the day of man.
Let us say, then: When it was late that same day, etc.
There are five things to note in this first clause: ‘late’, ‘that same day’, ‘the first of the
week’, ‘the doors being shut’, and ‘the disciples being gathered, for fear of the Jews’.
The word ‘day’ is connected, etymologically, with a word for ‘brightness’, and it stands for
the glare of worldly vanity, of which the Lord says in John:
I receive not glory from men. [Jn 5.41]
A sermon on the doors, which are the five senses of the body: And the doors were shut.
Paul means ‘humble’. When humility leaves the heart, the ravening wolves of carnal
desire enter by the doors of the five senses, to devour the flock of pure thoughts. Where
the disciples were gathered together, for fear of the Jews. The disciples are the
affections of reason. They should be gathered together for fear of the Jews, the demons
who would harm them. As it says in Canticles:
Thou art beautiful and comely, daughter of Jerusalem:
terrible as an army set in array. [cf. Cant 6.3]
Mount Olivet is situated about a mile from Jerusalem; a sabbath day’s journey, since it
was not lawful for Jews to travel more than a mile on the sabbath. The upper room is
said to have been on the third floor, representing charity built on faith and hope. We
should go up into this upper room and remain their with the Apostles, and persevere in
one mind in prayer and contemplation and shedding of tears, that we may deserve to
receive the grace of the Holy Spirit. Thus our Lord says in Luke: Stay you in the city till
you be endued with power from on high [Lk 24.49], that is, the Holy Spirit.
A sermon on the three-fold peace, and on charity, and on the nature of elephants: Jesus came.
Note first that in this Gospel ‘Peace be to you’ is said three times, because of the threefold peace which Christ restored: between God and man, reconciling man to God the
Father by his own blood; between angels and men, by taking human nature and raising it
above the choirs of angels; and between man and man, between the Jewish and Gentile
peoples, joining them together in himself, the corner-stone.
A sermon on the Resurrection of the Lord: In that day I will raise up the tabernacle of David.
Isaiah’s words about the wolf with the lamb [Is 65.25] were fulfilled in Saul and Ananias
(whose name means ‘sheep’). The body of a snake is covered with scales, and the Jews
were called snakes- a generation of vipers [Mt 23.33]. Saul followed their unbelief, which
covered the eyes of his heart like a snake’s skin. But when the scales fell from his eyes
by the hand of Ananias, the light he had received in his mind showed in his face also. In
the same way, by the hand of ‘Ananias’ (Jesus Christ, who was led like a sheep to
slaughter) there fell from the eyes of Thomas the scales of doubt, and he received the
sight of faith.
First, a sermon for the preacher: There was given me a reed; and on the three characteristics of a reed, and their significance.
There are four things to note in this Gospel. First, the devoted care of the good
shepherd for his sheep, even giving his life for them if necessary, as it begins: I am the
good shepherd. Second, the flight of the hireling and the attack of the wolf, as it goes on:
The hireling, and he that is not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, etc. Third,
the mutual knowledge of shepherd and sheep: I am the good shepherd and I know mine,
etc. Fourth, the gathering of the Catholic Church from the two peoples, Jewish and
Gentile: And other sheep I have, that are not of this fold, etc.
A sermon on Christ’s care for us, who are his people and the sheep of his pasture: I am the good shepherd.
Our David, humble and meek, feeds us like a good shepherd. He is our Abel, too, who
as Genesis tells was a shepherd, and whom fratricidal Cain (the Jewish people) killed
out of envy. He is the shepherd of whom the Father says in Ezekiel: I will set up one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, even my servant David (i.
e. my son Jesus), and he shall feed them and he shall be their shepherd. [Ezek 34.3]
On the nature of the turtle-dove and what it signifies, and on the two-fold inheritance of Jesus Christ.
The voice of the turtle is groaning and weeping. Christ came down to groan and weep
(for we never hear of him laughing), to teach us to groan and weep. The voice of the
turtle, then, is heard in our land: Do penance! [Mt 3.2]. But when summer drew near, and
the cruel persecution of the Jews grew hot, and the heat of the Passion blazed up, then
he returned to the mountain, his Father, saying: I go to him that sent me; and none of
you asketh me: Whither goest thou? Let us ask Christ by what way he goes to the
Father. He will reply, “By the way of the Cross!” So he himself says in Luke:
Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and so to enter into his glory? [Lk 24.26]
A sermon on patience: These things I have spoken to you that you may not be scandalized.
Because “spears seen beforehand do less injury”7 , the Lord fore-arms his soldiers so
that they may raise the shield of patience against the spears of persecution, and so not
be scandalized when the crisis occurs. These things I have spoken to you that you may
not be scandalized. I, the Word of the Father, from whom you should take an example of
patience, am speaking to you so that you may not be scandalized. Whoever is
scandalized in time of tribulation through the scandal of impatience is separated from
Christ’s disciples. They will put you out of the Synagogues, indeed outside the
Synagogue. St John says:
The Jews had already agreed among themselves that if any man should confess him to
be Christ, he should be put out of the Synagogue. [Jn 9.22]
A sermon on the slavery of the five senses: Abigail arose and made haste.
It is clear that the rich man was Jewish, since his brothers were subject to the Law of
Moses and to the prophets. That is why Abraham calls him ‘son’, and he calls Abraham
‘father’. He who had despised God’s words himself, did not think his followers would
hear them either. Those who despise the words of the Law will find it still harder to fulfil
the precepts of the Redeemer, who rose from the dead, for these precepts are even
more demanding. And if they refuse to obey his words, they will surely refuse to believe
in him. Those who give themselves to the flesh and to the senses will listen neither to
Moses- the prelates of Holy Church- nor to the prophets- her preachers. Worse still, they
will not believe Christ as he rises from the dead. Saul believed Samuel, when he had
been called up by the divining spirit. Shall we not believe Christ, truly rising by the power
of God the Father?
A sermon on the Incarnation of Christ and on his Passion, and on the just man’s way of life; on the three trees which were in paradise, and on the nature and meaning of the cedar and the hyssop: Solomon treated about trees.
Morally. Our Redeemer, coming down from heaven, acquired a people by divine
judgement, while they were still gaping at earthly works. He made salvation in them,
when he converted them to faith. Elijah means ‘the Lord is God’, Saphat is ‘judging’,
Elisha is ‘salvation of my God’. The prophet cast his mantle over him, when the Lord
clothed his people with the catholic faith. So the Apostle says: You who have been
baptized in Christ have put on Christ [Gal 3.27]. He forthwith left the oxen and ran after
Elias, because the choir of the chosen, as soon as they hear the words: Every one of
you that doth not renounce all that he possesseth cannot be my disciple [Lk 14.33], stop
gaping at earthly riches and serving worldly desires, and go to preach the word of life to
others. This is ‘kissing father and mother’, the wish to correct with a word whoever one
can, whether Jew or Gentile.
A sermon on the justice of hypocrites and of true penitents: Unless your justice abound; and: Choose you one bullock.
The justice of the Pharisees a matter of restraining hand rather than heart. The Jews did
not think sin was in the intention, but in the action alone. The justice of the Apostles
abounds in the spirit of counsel and in the grace of God’s mercy, so that it not only holds
back the hand from evil action, but also the mind from evil thoughts. The scribes and
Pharisees (the word means ‘separated’) are hypocrites who, when writing in human
sight, write injustice; yet being ultra-religious, regard themselves as just and look down
on other people [cf. Lk 18.9]. Their justice consists in washing hands and utensils, in
wearing the right garments, in architectural niceties, in a multiplicity of rules and a variety
of regulations. The justice of true penitents consists in spiritual poverty, in fraternal love,
in sighs of sorrow, in afflicting the body, in the sweetness of contemplation, in despising
worldly success, in willingly embracing adversity, and in the intention of persevering to
the end.
An allegorical and a moral sermon on the little city besieged by a king, and on the rest that follows, and what it means: A little city.
And no man afterwards remembered that poor man. Indeed, worse still, they say to him
in Job: Depart from us. We desire not the knowledge of thy ways [Job 21.14]. And yet
worse again, they deny him and cry out with the Jews: Not this man, but Barabbas [Jn
18.40]. Barabbas was a robber, a man put in prison because of the murder and sedition
he had committed in the city [cf. Lk 23.18-19]. This is the devil, who was thrust down to
hell because of his rebellion in heaven. They ask for the release of this robber, and
crucify the Son of God who freed them. So:
Woe to their souls, for evils are rendered to them! [Is 3.9]
An allegorical and a moral sermon on Elisha and the raising of the Sunamite’s son, and the meaning of times.
He walked to and fro, calling both the Jews and the Gentiles to eternal things by faith. He
breathed seven times upon the dead, because he opened the divine treasury and
breathed out the grace of the Sevenfold Spirit upon those lying in the death of sin. And
soon, the child whom the rod of terror could not raise was brought back to life by the
spirit of love.
A theme for the Advent of the Lord: Length of days is in his right hand.
The first path of Jesus Christ was his persecution by the Jews; the second was the
gibbet of the Cross. A path is a lesser way, a by-way. These ways were peacable, that
is, making peace for us. As Isaiah says:
The discipline of our peace was upon him: and by his bruises we are healed. [Is 53.5]
On the three-fold name of Jerusalem, and its meaning: When Jesus drew near.
Note that Jerusalem was formerly called Salem, and the Jews claim that Sem the son of
Noah, whom they call Melchisedech, built it in Syria after the flood, where the kingdom of
Melchisedech was. Afterwards the Jebusites held it, and from them it was called Jebus.
From the joining of these two names, Jebus and Salem, there comes the name
Jerusalem. Later, when it was rebuilt by Solomon, it was called Jerosolyma, short for
Jero-solomonia. Salem means ‘peace’, Jebus means ‘trodden down’, and Jerusalem
‘vision of peace’. By this, the three-fold state of the soul is indicated.
A theme for a sermon against simoniacs: And entering into the temple.
In Acts, when the Jews asked what they should do, they were told, ‘Do penance’ [cf. Ac
2.38]. When Simon Magus asked the same question, he was told, ‘Do penance, that
perhaps God may spare you.’ [cf. Ac 8.22]. Those who change money in the Church are
those who do not even pretend to serve heavenly things, but quite openly serve the
things of earth. They are all cast out from the portion of the saints [cf. Col 1.12], because
they either only pretend to do good, or openly do evil; and they are now scourged with
the cords of sin for their correction. If they are not corrected, they will in the end be
bound by them. Christ casts out the sheep and the oxen, showing his disapproval of their
life and doctrine. He overturns the money and the tables, because in the end the very
things they have loved will be destroyed.
The folly of the devil, and the obedience of Christ: An old man that is a fool.
The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. [Is 53.6]
The Jews, like countrymen with a goad, prodded him to make him go faster. See how
this young child of ours, all alone, pulled the weight that men and angels were unable to
bear; and no one thinks about it, or perceives in his heart. O brother, run, I pray you, and
join yourself to that yoke, and bear it with Jesus, lift it up with Jesus! Isaiah says:
I looked about, and there was none to help;
I sought, and there was none to give aid. [Is 63.5]
A sermon on the Nativity, and on the six wings of the Seraphim: One flew to me.
There follows: And in his hand was a live coal, which he had taken with the tongs off the
altar. The word used means, strictly, a ‘chalk’: a little piece of stone mixed with earth,
easily crushed on account of its smallness. Here it means ‘charcoal’. This ‘chalk’ is the
humanity of Jesus Christ, which because of his humility was mixed with ‘earth’ (sinners),
and crushed by the Jews; yet was a burning coal to us, purging our vices. He held this in
his ‘hand’, the power of his divinity, having taken it with the tongs of a two-fold love from
the altar of the glorious Virgin. Tongs are a smith’s tool, holding the heated metal in an
iron grip. The tongs which smiths use resemble the forceps or tweezers used by tailors,
doctors and barbers to grip threads or hairs.
On the Passion: A bundle of myrrh.
The soul, the Bride of Jesus Christ, beloved Son of God the Father, makes for herself a
bundle of myrrh from the whole life of her beloved. She remembers how he was laid in
the manger, wrapped in swaddling clothes and driven into Egypt, a poor and homeless
exile; how frequently he was hurt by the injuries and blasphemies of the Jews; how he
was betrayed by his disciple, bound by the guards and led before Annas and Caiphas,
tied to a pillar and flogged by Pontius Pilate, crowned with thorns, struck with blows and
smeared with spittle, and crucified between thieves and murderers. From all these
things, gathered into one and firmly tied with the band of devotion, she makes for herself
a bundle of myrrh, that is, of bitterness and sorrow, and she puts it between her breasts,
where the heart is situated. Such a bundle of myrrh should always be upon the Bride’s
heart.
First, the theme for a sermon on the Lord’s Nativity, and on the four seasons of the year, and of the three characteristics of the sun, and the three of the earth and of fire, and their meaning: When the time came that the sun shone out.
The Pharisees being gathered together, Jesus asked them, saying: What think you of
Christ? Whose son is he? They say to him: David’s. He saith to them: How then doth
David in spirit call him Lord, saying: The Lord said to my Lord… [Mt 22.41-44]
In this clause is contained the summit of our faith, our belief that the Lord Jesus Christ is
true God and true man, sitting at the right hand of the Father. We confess him as Lord
and as son of David: Lord, who made everything, including David; whose son he is by
descent according to the flesh. The Jews are not reproved for calling him son of David,
but for not believing him to be son of God. The Son himself says to them: How is it that
David, speaking in the Holy Spirit, not in his own heart, calls him ‘Lord’? He says, The
Lord (that is, the Father) said to my Lord (that is, the Son). The Gloss explains, “This
implies the generation of a son equal to himself. He is not Lord in virtue of being born
from him, but in virtue being always from the Father.” Sit on my right, that is in those
good things that are to be preferred, while (or until) I make your enemies, the
disobedient, a footstool for your feet, subjecting them whether they will or no.
That it is the Father who subjects the enemies betokens the Son’s unity of nature, not his
weakness; for the Son also subjects enemies to the Father, by glorifying the Father upon
the earth. If David calls him Lord, how is he his son? In other words, you think of the
Christ to come as a mere man; so that in David’s lifetime the Christ did not yet exist, nor
was he David’s Lord. Did David lie, then? We speak rather of fathers being, and being
called, lords to their sons, not sons to their fathers. Let us reject the unbelief of the Jews,
and confess with Peter: Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God [Mt 16.16], who
went forth with his Christ for the salvation of his people, as Habakkuk says [cf. Hab 3.13].
A theme on the three wedding garments, which are concordant to the three weddings: When the king went in.
The lamb, more than all other animals, recognises its mother; thus it represents Jesus
Christ who, when hanging on the Cross, recognised his Mother among thousands of
Jews, and commended her, a Virgin, to a virgin. The marriage of the Lamb is come,
namely the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, and so his wife, Holy Church, or any faithful soul,
should prepare herself by faith and clothe herself in fine linen, chastity which glitters as
to conscience, white as to the body. How can anyone attend the marriage of the Son of
God and the blessed Virgin, who is not clad in the fine linen of chastity? How can he
enter the church, join the gathering of the faithful, presume to be present at the making
of the lord’s Body, if he knows he lacks the glittering white linen of inward and outward
chastity? To him, the king says ironically, Friend, how camest thou in hither not having
on a wedding garment? [Mt 22.12] The Son of the blessed Virgin delights exceedingly in
the cleanness of chastity.
A theme on the day of judgement: I looked, and thrones were placed.
Let us say, then: The kingdom of heaven is likened to a king, who would take an
account of his servants. [Mt 18.23]
This man who is a king is Jesus Christ, man in his humanity, king in his divinity; man in
his nativity, king in his passion, wherein he had the regalia proper to a king: crown,
purple and sceptre. He had a crown of thorns, a purple robe and a reed as sceptre in his
hand, when, bowing the knee before him, they mocked him, saying: Hail, king of the
Jews [Mt 27.29]. There is a concordance to this in Daniel:
I beheld therefore in the vision of the night,
and lo, one like the son of man came with the clouds of heaven.
And he came even to the Ancient of days. [Dan 7.13]
On mercy, and the three properties of vinegar: Because he is merciful.
Again, if he is merciful to others, God will be merciful to him. The pitiless Jews did
not act like this when they offered Christ, thirsting on the cross, not a cup of cold water
but vinegar mixed with gall; and when he had tasted, he would not drink [cf. Mt 27.34],
because though he tasted the bitterness of the punishment due to our guilt, he did not
take into himself the guilt itself. Today, false Christians do the same thing to Jesus
Christ, showing themselves worse than the Jews; and therefore they will find no mercy in
the time of trouble.
On the Passion of Christ: She touched the hem.
Regarding this skirt, it says in Zechariah:
Men of all languages… shall take hold the skirt of one that is a Jew, saying:
We will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you. [Zech 8.23]
For the body of a dead person: Behold, at my rebuke; and: The fishers also shall mourn.
The Jews raged against Jesus but could not overthrow him, steadfast in his Passion.
Turn yourself to this wall, then, O sinner, because your soul is restrained by weakness.
Turn yourself by heartfelt contrition and true confession, which you should make with
many tears and with the intention of persevering to the end. In this way, penitent, you will
make your petitions known to God. He will add to the days of your penance years of
glory; he will deliver you from the hand of the king of the Assyrians, the devil and his
ministers; and he will protect and defend the city, your soul and body.
On the life of the preacher or prelate, and on the Passion of Jesus Christ: A voice crying in the wilderness.
The earthen vessel is the humanity of Christ, taken from the virgin earth, which he broke
in his Passion. This was to the terror of the demons, the ‘tall of stature’ who were cut
down from their power. The ‘lofty’ (the proud Jews) were humbled and cast down in
retribution for the Passion of Christ; the ‘thickets of the forest’ (the earthly Jerusalem, socalled from the multitude of its people) were cut down by the iron of Titus and Vespasian;
and ‘Libanus’ (the temple) fell with its high ones (the priests).
On the resurrection of the soul from sin: The hand of the Lord was upon me; and on the nature of sinews.
Only these do not contradict the sign of the Lord’s Passion which they bear upon their
foreheads. Who are the people that sigh and mourn, if not the penitent and the poor in
spirit, who glory in the Cross of Christ, and sigh and mourn for the abominations
committed in the world? Those who are faithless contradict in word and deed. So the
Apostle says:
We preach Christ crucified; unto the Jews indeed a stumbling block, and unto the
Gentiles foolishness. [1Cor 1.23]
Isaiah says:
Woe unto him that gainsayeth his maker, a shard of the earthen pots! [Is 45.9]
First, the theme for a sermon on the penitent soul, how it should put away sin and practise works of penitence, and put on the adornment of virtue: Judith went down into her house.
And she anointed herself with the best myrrh, that is, with mortification of the flesh, so as
to kill the worms of concupiscence. So it says in John that Nicodemus came,
bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pound weight. They (i.e. he and
Joseph) took therefore the body of Jesus and bound it in linen cloths, with the spices, as
the manner of the Jews is to bury. [Jn 19.39-40]
Nicodemus is ‘enclosing judgement’, and he stands for the vehement spirit of contrition,
which shuts up the bodily senses under the judgement of discretion, so that they do not
run about the meadows of captivating pleasure. He bears a mixture of myrrh and aloes,
the mortification of mind and of body, in which is comprised all human perfection, and
this weighs about a hundred pounds. Joseph means ‘application’, and he stands for
confession, which should be applied to the spirit of contrition. These two bury the just
man in the tomb of a new way of life, binding him with the cloths of a clean conscience
and with spices of good repute. This is the way the Jews (true penitents) bury.
How mortal sin is recognised: In each of us.
The Gloss briefly summarises this Gospel thus: “When the Word-made-flesh was leading
the Gentile people through the gates of faith to the heavenly Jerusalem, behold, the
younger Jewish people which was dead through lack of faith was being carried out.
Mother Church owned that people as her own in the world, and accompanied by many
crowds of peoples wept with loving affection and laboured to recall it to life with devout
tears. She obtains this both in the few Jews who are converted at the moment, and the
fullness in the end.” “The bier that is carried out is the human body; the bearers are evil
habits, which drag that body towards death. But Jesus touches the bier when he raises
our frail nature upon the wood of the Cross; then the bearers stand still, because they
are unable to drag to death as they did before. Then Jesus speaks, imparting his saving
counsel, and when he hears the word the dead man returns to life and is restored to his
mother by good deeds.”
On the six waterpots and their significance: There were set there; and on the pupil and the eyelids, and what they signify.
There follows: There were set there six waterpots of stone, according to the manner of
the purifying of the Jews, containing two or three measures apiece. [Jn 2.6]
In Cana of Galilee, the soul which in the zeal of love passes from vice to virtue, there are
six waterpots: contrition, confession, prayer, fasting, almsdeeds and heart-felt
forgiveness of injuries received. These are what purify the Jews (penitents) from all their
sins.
The theme for a sermon on the devil’s strife against the just man, and on the five soldiers who defend him: There appeared to the enemies.
And Jesus, hearing this, marvelled; and said to them that followed him: Amen I say to
you, I have not found so great faith in Israel; [Mt 8.10]
that is to say, in the Israel of his time. He found it in ancient times, in the patriarchs and
prophets; and we also except the blessed Virgin and the disciples, on whom a greater
faith was divinely bestowed.
There follows: And I say to you that many shall come from the east and the west
(that is: the Gentiles, represented by the centurion, will come to the Catholic faith)
and shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven
(that is: they will take their rest with the others to be saved)
but the children of the kingdom (the Jews) shall be cast out into exterior darkness;
there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. [Mt 8.11-12]
Weeping because of the heat, gnashing because of the cold, because, as Job says:
They will pass from the snow waters to excessive heat, [Job 24.19]
for in hell there is unquenchable fire and unbearable cold, and the Lord here implies
these punishments.
It says in the second book of Maccabees that when Judas Maccabaeus and Timotheus
met in battle:
When they were in the heat of the engagement, there appeared to the enemies from
heaven five men upon horses, comely, with golden bridles, conducting the Jews: two of
whom took Maccabaeus between them and covered him on every side with their arms
and kept him safe: but cast darts and fireballs against the enemy, so that they fell down,
being both confounded with blindness and filled with trouble. [2Mac 10.29-30]
Timotheus’ name suggests a well-doer: but he stands for the devil, who seems at the
moment a benefactor to worldlings, but later on will be shown up as a poisoner. Those
whom he incites to sin he will torment with punishment. When he has gathered his army
of vices, he goes to war against Maccabaeus, the just man. And when the battle is hot,
behold from heaven, from heavenly kindness, there appear five men, the five virtues of
humility of mind, chastity of body, love of poverty, excellence in two-fold charity, and the
intention of final perseverance. These ride upon the horses of good-will; (as Solomon
says: The horse is prepared for the day of battle: but the Lord giveth safety. [Prov 21.31])
with the bridles of abstinence and discipline, golden by discretion; so leading the Jews
(penitents). They bring the enemies to an end, the demons and vices, since the entry of
virtue brings about the departure of vice. Humility and chastity protect and defend
Maccabaeus (the just man) from elation of heart and defilement of body.
As the sweet-smelling frankincense in the time of summer.
The double gathering of incense pre-figures the double offering of Christ. His mother first
offered him in the temple, according to the Law of Moses. Secondly, he offered himself
in sacrifice to God the Father for the reconciliation of the human race. In the first offering
he was ‘thus, from theos’, incense offered to God; in the second he was ‘thus, tonsure’,
shorn for our sins. He was ‘sweet-smelling incense in the days of summer’, that is, in the
heat of persecution by the Jews. It is the first offering that concerns us at the moment,
and we shall speak something in praise of the glorious Virgin.
On the same text, on the construction of the tabernacle and on Moses’ bulrush, and their meaning.
She will crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel. [Gen 3.15]
Blessed Mary crushed the ‘head’, the beginning, of the devil’s temptation, when she
made her vow of virginity; he ‘lay in wait for her heel’ when at the last he made her Son
to be caught and crucified by the Jews.
She was closed to the south; whence Luke says:
And the angel being come in said unto her: Hail, full of grace. [Lk 1.28]
THE FESTIVAL SERMONS – SAINT STEPHEN
At that time: Jesus said to the Jewish crowd: Behold, I send to you prophets, etc. [Mt
23.34]
There are two things noted in this Gospel: the persecution of the just and the comparison
of Christ to the mother hen.
[THE PERSECUTION OF THE JUST]
The persecution of the just: Behold, I send, etc. In this first clause we note the moral
lesson, how worldly and carnal people destroy in themselves, or drive away from
themselves, the manifold inspiration of divine grace.
He said therefore to the Jewish crowd. The ‘Jews’, who loved transitory things and
worked only for them, stand for worldly people, devoted to the flesh, who (as is said in
the book of Judges, ch. 12) are unable to pronounce ‘Shibboleth’ (which means ‘ear’ or
‘grain’), but say ‘Sibboleth’ (meaning ‘straw’). They chase after straw, and become straw,
which will be burnt up in the eternal fire.
He says: Behold, I send to you prophets [and wise men and scribes]. Note that in these
three persons, the threefold inspiration of divine grace is implied. The ‘prophets’ are the
fear of judgement and the dread of hell, which the Lord sends to the sinful soul, to
prophesy to it the terrible judge and the avenging fire. So Nahum 1 says:
Who can stand before the face of his indignation?
And who shall resist in the fierceness of his anger?
His indignation is poured out like fire:
and the rocks are melted by him. [Nah 1.6]
And Joel 2:
Before the face thereof a devouring fire, and behind it a burning flame. [Joel 2.3]
The Lord says of these two prophets, in Jeremiah 44:
I sent to you all my servants the prophets, rising early and sending, and saying:
Do not commit this abominable thing which I hate.
But they heard not nor inclined their ear, to turn from their evil ways. [Jer 44.4-5]
The Lord is said to rise early and send prophets, when he mercifully strikes the soul
sleeping in the night of sin, with the fear of judgement and the dread of hell. But the
wretch will not receive the inspiration, nor turn the ear of obedience, so as to be
converted from evil-doing to penitence.
The ‘wise men’ are those divine inspirations which order our thoughts, weigh our words,
adorn our deeds, put our lives together and arrange everything in the right way. He who
walks with these wise men, becomes wise himself. Ecclesiasticus 8 says of them:
Despise not the discourse of the wise, and acquaint thyself with their proverbs;
learn of them doctrine and understanding. [cf. Ecclus 8.9-10]
Glorious is their school, happy their teaching, praiseworthy their discipline; which instruct
our behaviour and destroy vices.
The ‘scribes’ are the devotions of the mind, which write in the book of memory the
uncleanness of our conception, the lowliness of our birth, the malice of our wickedness,
the misery of our pilgrimage, the brevity of time and the remembrance of death. Read
this scripture of truth. Study this book. In it, as Ezekiel 2 says, are ‘lamentations, a song,
and woe’ [Ezek 2.9]; lamentations over the uncleanness of conception and lowliness of
birth; a sad song about the malice of wickedness and the misery of pilgrimage; and woe
concerning the brevity of time and the remembrance of death. See how the merciful and
kind Lord daily sends to you prophets to strike you with sorrow, wise men to guide your
behaviour, and scribes to record in your memory the state of your life.
But let us listen to how much evil the ungrateful Jews (that is, the lovers of the world)
return for these benefits:
And some of them you will put to death and crucify;
and some you will scourge in your Synagogues. [Mt 23.34]
Relate each term to each: they kill the prophets, crucify the wise men, and scourge the
scribes. The proud and vainglorious oppose the prophets, the gluttonous and lustful the
wise men, and the avaricious and usurers the scribes. Pride and vainglory kill in man the
terror of judgement and the dread of hell: so that today Stephen says to the Jews in Acts
7:
You stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears (pride and vainglory which are
unwilling to understand or even hear, except for what pleases them), you always resist
the Holy Ghost, as your fathers did. Which of the prophets have not your fathers
persecuted? And they have slain those who foretold of the coming of the Just One. [Ac
7.51-52]
And so they kill them in themselves, because they foretell the coming to judgement.
The gluttonous and lustful crucify and afflict the wise men; for they are corrupt in thought,
lascivious in word, dissolute in deed, and loose in morals. They say, in Wisdom 2:
Let us fill ourselves with costly wine and ointments:
and let not the flower of the time pass by us.
Let us crown ourselves with roses, before they be withered:
let no meadow escape our riot. [Wisd 2.7-8]
The avaricious and usurious scourge the scribes in the Synagogues; that is, in their
consciences wherein is the seat and Synagogue of Satan [cf. Apoc 2.9,13]. The unhappy
wretches pay no attention to the state of their life, its entry and its exit. In its entrance
there is no purse or penny, at its exit only straw and sack-cloth. They are naked as they
enter, and they leave wrapped in a short shroud. Where do they get all their possessions
from? From robbery and fraud. So Habbakuk 2 says:
Woe to him that heapeth together that which is not his own.
How long also doth he load himself with thick clay? [Hab 2.6]
He is like the dung-beetle, which gathers much dung and with great labour makes a
round ball; but in the end a passing ass steps on both beetle and ball, and in a moment
destroys it and all it laboured so long over. In the same way the miser or usurer gathers
long the dung of money, and labours long; but when he lest expects, it the devil chokes
him. And so he gives his soul to the demons, his flesh to worms, and his money to his
family.
There follows: And you will persecute them from city to city [Mt 23.34]. Alas! It is not
enough for the wretches to extinguish or drive out the inspiration of divine grace in
themselves; but they must also persecute and expel it from those about them- children,
wives and so on, as though from city to city! For instance: Suppose the son of a usurer is
struck with fear of the judgement, or of the pains of hell, and resolves to live an honest
life and bewail the misery of this life. If his father gets to hear of it, he persecutes this
grace in him with all his power, and so for his daughter, his wife, his whole family.
That upon you may come all the just blood (the due vengeance for shedding blood)
from the blood of Abel the just (whose name means ‘strife’)
even unto the blood of Zacharias (‘remembrance of the Lord’)
the son of Barachias (‘blessing of the Lord’). [Mt 23.35]
See what evil deeds these murderers perform! They kill in themselves and in their
families the strife of penance and the remembrance of the Lord’s Passion, which was
given as a blessing by God the Father to the whole world.
Whom you killed between the temple and the altar (i.e. in the court of the temple).
Apocalypse 9 says of this:
But the court which is without the temple cast out and measure it not;
because it is given unto the Gentiles (i.e. those who live ‘gently’).[Apoc 11.2]
The temple stands for the Church triumphant, the altar for the Church militant, and the
courtyard for worldly vanity wherein the memory of the Lord’s Passion is killed.
[THE COMPARISON WITH THE MOTHER HEN]
The comparison of Christ to a mother hen: Jerusalem, Jerusalem [Mt 23.37}. He
weeps for men, not stones, with loving concern. Thou that killest the prophets, who
announce the Lord of prophets, and stonest them. It is on account of these words that
this Gospel is read today, when St Stephen was stoned by the Jews. When he argued
with their hardness (‘stiff necked’, he called them), he had to endure the hardness of
stones. Yet, “Patience rejoices in hard things”.1 “Yesterday the Lord was born, today the
servant is stoned; yesterday the king was wrapped in swaddling cloths, today the soldier
puts off his perishable garment; yesterday the Saviour lay in the manger, today Stephen
takes his place in heaven.”2 His name means ‘rule’, or ‘crowned’, or ‘watchman’. He is
our rule by his example: falling on his knees, he prayed for those who stoned him: Lord,
lay not this sin to their charge [Ac 7.59]. He was crowned with his own blood, and gazed
upon the Son of God: I see the heavens opened, and Jesus standing at the right hand of
God [Ac 7.55].
There follows: How often would I have gathered together thy children, as the hen doth
gather her chickens under her wings, and thou wouldest not [Mt 23.37]. It is as though
he said, I wanted it, and you did not want it; and as often as I gathered by my ever
efficacious will, even though you were unwilling, I did so, for you were always ungrateful.
(5b) Alternatively: the Lord rebukes the ungrateful soul: Jerusalem, Jerusalem. This is
interpreted as ‘perfect fear’, (i.e. complete), or ‘he will fear perfectly’. A house is called
‘imperfect’ until it is completed. Note that he says ‘Jerusalem’ twice, because the
unhappy soul, which, as said previously, kills the prophets in it, will fear two things: it
sees above it the angry judge, and beneath it hell gaping and burning; and then it will
fear perfectly. It does not fear now, however, because it is not concerned with those
things that are for its peace.
And stonest them that are sent unto thee, that is, you drive away the inspirations and
visitations of divine grace in hardness of heart. Isaiah 48 says:
I know that thou art stubborn, and thy neck is as an iron sinew, and thy forehead is as
brass. [Is 48.4]
The iron sinew is inflexible pride (Augustine: “To stretch the neck is a sign of pride”)3, the
brass forehead is irreverence (Ezekiel 3: All the house of Israel are of a hard forehead
and an obstinate heart [Ezek 3.7]).
How often would I have gathered together thy children, and thou wouldest not. Note that
man’s justification is perfected by two things: his own deliberation and divine inspiration;
the Creator co-operates with his creature. So he requires our voluntary assent in the
work of our justification, as he says in Isaiah 1:
If you be willing and will hearken to me, you shall eat the good things of the land. [Is 1.9]
When this work is forwarded, it is attributed to free will, as it is said: If my people had
heard me, etc. [Ps 80.14].
If we do altogether nothing in this work, we ask for help in vain, and we falsely call him
our helper. It is one thing to do, and another to help. What is ‘to help’ if not to co-operate
with one who is working? That man understood that he was a helper and a co-operator
in good, who said: Be my helper and deliverer, O Lord, make no delay [Ps 69.6]. Every
day we are asked for his help when we proclaim in daily press: Help us, O God, our
saviour [Ps 78.9]. It is clear then, that this work is perfected by a two things, wherein the
Creator co-operates with his creature.
In this work, then, there is need for our own industry and divine grace. Vainly does one
strive with free will, if one is not supported by divine assistance. Our justification is
brought to perfection by our own resolution and divine inspiration. To will only what is
just, is already to be just. We are rightly called ‘just’ or ‘unjust’ solely from our will,
however much we are helped to either by our work. So do what is yours to do by offering
your will, and God will do what is his by infusing grace.
Note that neither angel, man nor devil can compel the free will, nor will God force it. But,
O soul, he lovingly wishes that you gather your ‘children’ together (your affections, which
are scattered among various worldly vices), so that you may live peaceably together in
your house: you should freely offer yourself in this matter, and will it yourself.
As the hen doth gather her chickens under her wings. Note that the hen is made weak
with the weakness of her chicks. She calls them to food so clamorously that she grows
hoarse; shielding them with her wings, she bristles against the hawk for their sake. In the
same way Christ, the Wisdom of the Father, was made weak for our weakness. Isaiah
53 says:
We desired him; despised and the least (i.e. most abject) of men,
a man of sorrows and acquainted with infirmity. [Is 53.2-3]
Whoever wants to comfort the afflicted must needs fell affection towards he afflicted. It
says in the fourth book of Kings that Eliseus bowed himself upon the child, and the
child’s flesh grew warm [4(2)Kg 4.34]. Eliseus’s bowing is Christ’s Incarnation, from
which we have received the warmth of faith, and recovered life. He called us to the food
of his teaching, crying so loudly that his jaws became hoarse [Ps 68.4].
Note that he who is hoarse has no melody of voice, but sounds rough, and is not willingly
listened to. So today, Christ’s teaching has no flattering melody, it does not soothe
sinners and promise them temporal things. It sounds rough, because it teaches them to
afflict the flesh and despise the world; and so it is not readily listened to. So Job 29
complains:
I called my servant, and he gave me no answer: I entreated him with my own mouth.
My wife hath abhorred my breath, and I entreated the children of my womb. [Job 19.16-
17]
Christ’s ‘wife’ are the clergy, impregnated with his patrimony, who more than anyone
abhor his breath (that is, his preaching), which goes out from his secret place; for, as Job
says, Wisdom is drawn out of secret places [Job 28.18].
Further, to protect us he stretched out his arms like wings upon the Cross, and bristling
with thorns he faced the devil, who schemed to seize us. The crown of thorns was like a
helmet on his head, the Cross like a shield on his arm, the nail like a club in his hand;
and so armed he cast down our enemy. To him, then, be praise and glory for ever and
ever. Amen.
[ALLEGORICAL SERMON]
Thou shalt make a candlestick of beaten work of the finest gold: and the branches, the
cups and the bowls and the lilies going forth from it. Six branches shall come out of the
sides, three out of the one side and three out of the other. [Ex 25.31-32]
Thou shalt make a candlestick, etc. Matthew 5 says:
They do not light a candle and put it under a bushel, but upon a candlestick, that it may
shine to all that are in the house.[Mt 5.15]
The grace of the Holy Spirit, a burning and shining light, was placed upon a candlestick,
namely blessed Stephen; as Zechariah 4 says:
I have looked, and behold a candlestick all of gold, and its lamp upon the top of it. [Zech
4.2]
This lamp, or candle, was not put under a bushel, worldly wealth, but gave light to all
who were in the house, the Church. So Luke says in today’s reading:
Stephen, full of grace and fortitude, did great wonders and signs among the people. [Ac
6.8]
This candlestick was ‘of finest gold’, referring to the gold of his poverty. At that time, as
Genesis 2 says, the gold of that land (Hevilath, meaning ‘bringing forth’), the primitive
Church, was the very finest [Gen 2.12]. But alas! It is turned to rubbish! It was ‘beaten’,
fashioned by hammer-blows. Blessed Stephen was shaped and fashioned by the striking
stones, like hammer-blows, so as to embrace his enemies. So it says:
They stoned Stephen, who cried with a loud voice, saying: Lord, lay not this sin to their
charge. [Ac 7.58-9]
There is a concordance to this in II Kings 21:
They brought forth Naboth the Jezreelite without the city, and stoned him to death, [3(1)
Kg 21.13]
because he would not let his vineyard, the inheritance of his fathers, be turned into a
garden of herbs. Blessed Stephen was stoned in the same way: they cast him out of the
city and stoned him, because he withstood the Jews who wanted to turn the primitive
Church into a herb-garden, for the observance of ceremonies and their traditions.
There follows: Six branches shall come out of the sides, three out of the one side and
three out of the other. The six branches of the candlestick denote six qualities of blessed
Stephen, mentioned in the reading of today’s Mass. These are: faith, as it is said: They
chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit [Ac 6.5], wherein it is noted that
his faith was living and well-formed; grace and fortitude, as is added: Full of grace and
fortitude [Ac 6.8]; wisdom and boldness in preaching: They were not able to resist the
wisdom and the spirit that spoke [Ac 6.10], and again: You stiff-necked and
uncircumcised in heart, etc. [Ac 7.51]; prayer for those stoning him, when he said: Lord,
lay not this sin to their charge. He lived by faith, he grew strong by grace, he resisted by
fortitude, he taught by wisdom, he refuted by boldness of spirit, he aided by prayer.
On these branches were cups, bowls and lilies. The hollowness of a cup represents
humility of heart; the round bowls are care for one’s brother’s needs; the lilies are purity
of body. See the gold candlestick in the tabernacle of the Lord, lighting the table of
proposition, the Church or the faithful soul: Stephen the first martyr, decked with virtues,
garlanded with his blood, triumphant in heaven. May his prayers lead us to eternal joys,
and may he be blessed for ever and ever. Amen.
THE CIRCUMCISION OF THE LORD
Christ’s circumcision: After eight days were completed, that the child should be
circumcised. Note that in this first clause we are taught, anagogically, how every just
person will be circumcised from all corruption in the general resurrection. But “because
you have heard a circumcised word about the circumcised Word, let us speak in a
circumcised way about his circumcision.”1
“Christ was circumcised in the body alone, because he had nothing in the mind that
might be circumcised. For, he did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth [1Pt 2.22].
But neither did he contract sin, for, as Isaiah says: He ascended upon a light cloud [Is
19.1], that is, he assumed flesh free from sin.”2 “Coming into his own, because his own
would not receive him [cf. Jn 1.11] he had to be circumcised, lest the Jews should take
occasion against him and say, ‘You are uncircumcised, you should perish from your
people, because as Genesis says,
The male, whose flesh of his foreskin shall not be circumcised, shall be destroyed out of
his people. [Gen 17.14]
You are a transgressor of the Law, we will not hear you against the Law.’”
He was circumcised, then, for at least three reasons: to fulfil the law- “The mystery of
circumcision had to be observed until the sacrament of Baptism should be substituted;”4
to take away any occasion for the Jews to calumniate him; and “to teach us the
circumcision of the heart. Of this, Romans says:
The circumcision of the heart is in the spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not of men,
but of God. [Rom 2.29]”
Sephora took a very sharp stone. “The Jews assert that the custom of circumcising
with stone knives is derived from this text, or else from Josue at Gilgal. Nevertheless,
where we have the word ‘stone’, the Hebrew has ‘blade’, and ‘a very sharp blade’ means
‘a razor’; and so the Jews circumcise with razors.”18 Whether the Lord’s circumcision
was with a stone or a metal knife, whether it was performed by blessed Mary or by
Joseph, or by relatives of either of them, is not very important and we need waste no
time investigating it. What we know for certain is that he was circumcised today; the
words that are added, she circumcised the foreskin of her son, should be taken as
meaning either that she herself circumcised, or arranged for him to be circumcised by
someone else, according to the Lord’s command.
THE EPIPHANY OF THE LORD
“On the thirteenth day after his birth, that is, today, Behold, there came wise men from
the east to Jerusalem, saying: Where is he that is born king of the Jews? For we have
seen his star [Mt 2.1-2]. They were called ‘Magi’, from the greatness of their knowledge.
Those whom the Greeks call ‘philosophers’, the Persians call ‘Magi’. They came from the
region of the Persians and Chaldeans. It may be that in thirteen days they were able to
cross a vast distance on their dromedaries. The star was perceived by the rest in its
splendour, in one place and in motion. In a splendour which the light of day could not
impair. In a place, because it was not in the firmament with the lesser stars, nor in the
aether with the planets, but it held its way in the air close to the earth. And in motion,
because at first it stood still over Judea and gave the Magi the sign to come to Judea;
and of their own deliberation they came to Jerusalem as the capital of Judea. When they
left that place, at first it went before them with perceptible motion, and when it had
performed its function it soon ceased to be, returning to the pre-existing matter from
which it had been taken.”
Happy state, wherein is the beauty of a peaceful conscience, the confidence of holy
conversation, and the wealth of fraternal charity! Just as the star drew the Magi from the
east to Jerusalem, so divine grace draws sinners from the vanity of the world to
penitence, to seek the new-born king, and seeking to find him, and finding him to adore
him. They say, Where is he who is born king of the Jews? [Mt 2.2]; that is, of those who
confess, of penitents? They seek the King of penitents, born in them, who bids them do
penance. They say, We have seen his star in the east (that is, we have come to know
his grace amid the vanity of the world), and so by him we have come to worship him.
The Gentile race (of which we are children) was torn away from God by the worship of
idols; and so Hosea 4 says of the idolatrous Jews who followed Jeroboam:
Ephraim is a partaker with idols: let him alone, (for) their banquet is separated. [Hos
4.17f]
THE CONVERSION OF SAINT PAUL
After the devil gives his son a wife, he wants him to beget children of her, the
‘grandchildren’ of the devil, meaning vain and dark works, deserving eternal death. In II
Esdras 13, Nehemiah says:
I saw Jews that married Moabite wives: and their children spoke in the speech of Azotus,
and could not speak the Jews’ language. [Neh 13.23-24]
Moab means ‘from the father’, and Azotus ‘blaze’ or ‘fire’. Today, many Christians and
religious take ‘wives’, worldly vanities, begotten of the devil, by who they produce
‘children’ (works) who don’t know how to ‘speak the Jews’ language’ (that is, to praise
God), but only that of Azotus, the blaze of gluttony and lust, and the fire of avarice.
THE CHAIR OF SAINT PETER
He sits, therefore, in the chair, wisest chief among the three. Understand this as
follows, that he himself was one among three, Dismas and Gestas, and the divine power
in the middle. So John says:
They crucified him with two others, one on each side, and Jesus in the middle. [Jn 19.18]
See how he sits, how the prince of angels humbles himself! As if he were a thief, he is
crucified between thieves. And so, regarding his humility, the text continues: He was like
the most tender little worm of the wood.
Note that a worm does three things: it draws itself along with its mouth; it cries loudly
when the wood it is in is burnt; it is soft to the touch, but hard when it bites. So Christ,
when confronting the malice of the Jews, drew himself to the Cross by his own mouth.
“Truth gives birth to hatred.”7 That is why he bore the Cross. It is also written of him that
“The scarab cries from the Cross.”8 The scarab is a little flying animal whose eyes are on
top of its head. So Christ was ‘little’ by his humility, and ‘flying’ by the power of his
divinity, for:
He flew upon the wings of the winds’, [Ps 17.11],
that is, upon the virtues of the angels and saints. The head of Christ is God [1Cor 11.3].
He has eyes on top of his head, because he sees all from the power of his divinity, in
whose sight no creature is invisible [cf. Heb 4.13]. When he was burning on the wood of
the Cross with the fire of the Passion, he cried with a loud voice: Father, into thy hands I
commend my spirit [Lk 23.46]. Again, no-one was more patient or humble than he, when
he was scourged, crowned with thorns, buffeted with blows. No-one will be stronger than
he, when in the judgement, by an irrevocable sentence, he casts the devil with all his
members into hell. May he, who is blessed for ever, deliver us from this! Amen.
THE BEGINNING OF THE FAST
When you fast. Natural History says that the saliva of a man who is fasting has power
against poisonous animals; and so, if a serpent tastes it, it dies. There is, then, great
medicinal power in a fasting man. As long as Adam in Paradise abstained from the
forbidden tree, he remained innocent. See the medicine which kills the serpent-devil, and
restores the paradise which was lost by greed! It is told that Esther humbled her body
with fasts, to put down the proud Aman and restore the grace of king Assuerus to the
Jews [cf. Esth 4]. Fast, then, if you want these two things, namely, victory over the devil
and restoration of lost grace.
THE RESURRECTION OF THE LORD
The Lord will send forth the rod of thy power from Sion. [Ps 109.2]
Through the humanity of Christ, his divinity exercised its power, and it originated ‘from
Sion’, the Jewish people, because salvation is of the Jews [Jn 4.22]. This rod, as it were
dried up, lay in the tomb for three days and three nights; but today it flowered and
brought forth fruit, because he rose again and brought us the fruit of immortality.
SAINT PHILIP AND SAINT JAMES
They do not go through the accursed fields of worldly care, wherein Cain killed Abel
(‘possession’, and ‘struggle’ of penitence); nor do they go through the vineyards of carnal
desire and lust. As it is said, Their vines are of the vineyards of Sodom [Dt 32.32]. They
do not drink from the well of the Samaritan woman, worldly cupidity, of which he who
drinks will thirst again [cf. Jn 4.13]. Rather, they go by the common highway, the beaten
way who says, I am the way. He was ‘common’ in word, ‘beaten’ in his scourging;
‘common’ in the preaching of the Apostles, ‘beaten’ in persecution; ‘common’, because
available to all, ‘beaten’, because trodden underfoot by almost all. The Saracen denies,
the Jew blasphemes, the heretic violates, the false Christian scourges by living badly.
Only the just man walks humbly and faithfully, turning aside neither to the right hand of
prosperity, to grow proud, nor to the left hand of adversity, to be cast down; until, beyond
the border of death he enters the land of promise.
While he was preaching Jesus Christ to a multitude of people in Jerusalem, he was
thrown down from a pinnacle of the temple by the Jews, and being struck on the head
with a fuller’s pole, his brains and blood spattered the ground and he passed away to the
Lord on this day.
THE FINDING OF THE HOLY CROSS
The regeneration of Baptism: There was a man of the Pharisees, by name
Nicodemus, who, believing, asserted that Christ had come from God, because of the
signs which he had seen. He was not reborn, however, and so he came by night, not by
day, because he was not yet enlightened by the heavenly light. Alternatively, he came by
night, perhaps, because being a master in Israel he was embarrassed to learn in public;
or because he was afraid of the Jews. This man, because he had carefully noted the
evident signs, asked more fully about the mysteries of the faith, and so merited to be
taught about the second birth and entry into the kingdom of heaven, about the deity of
Christ and his two-fold birth, about his Passion, Resurrection and Ascension, and many
other matters. Note that Nicodemus, whose name means ‘outflow of earthliness’ is the
type of those who believe perfectly, but do not yet have the light of perfect works, fearing
carnal opinion and actions, such as the attacks of the unbelieving Jews. They have faith
alone, and enjoy converse with Christ, but they do not have the confidence that comes
from good works.
We read in the ‘History of the Greeks’4 that when Adam grew infirm, he sent his son
Seth to seek medicine for him. When he came near Paradise, he told the angel who
stood guard outside about his father’s sickness. He broke off a branch of the tree whose
fruit Adam had eaten against the command, and gave it to Seth, saying, “When this
branch bears fruit, your father will be well.” This seems to be expressed in the Preface5
which says, “That whence death rose, life should rise again.” But when Seth returned, he
found his father dead and buried, and planted the branch at his head, which grew into a
great tree. When (as some say6) a long time afterwards the Queen of Saba came to the
‘house of the Forest’ [cf. 3(1)Kg 7.2], she saw it, and when she had returned home she
wrote to Solomon (having feared to tell him at the time) that she had seen a certain tree
in the house of the Forest, upon which would be hung one for whose death the Jews
would perish and their place and race be destroyed. In fear of this, Solomon hid it in the
deepest bowels of the earth, where afterwards the Probatic pool was made [cf. Jn 5.2].
When Christ’s time drew near, the wood floated up, as though to foretell Christ, and from
then on the water began to be moved by the descent of an angel. On Good Friday, when
the Jews were looking for some wood upon which to nail the Saviour, they found this
wood and took it to Calvary, and crucified Christ upon it. Thus, the tree hath brought
forth its fruit, by which Adam was healed and saved. This wood was hidden again in the
bowels of the earth after the death of Christ, and a long time afterwards it was found, on
this day, by blessed Helena, the mother of Constantine. Therefore today’s festival is
called the Finding of the Holy Cross. And so, the tree hath brought forth its fruit.
THE ASCENSION OF THE LORD
In the hour of his Passion, the Father protected him with the shadow of his powerful
hand, because he gave him coolness against the heat of the Jews’ rage. So it says in
the Psalm:
Thou hast overshadowed my head in the day of battle, [Ps 139.8]
when he fought with hands nailed to the Cross against the powers of the air. He planted
the heavens of his divinity in the earth of our humanity, and founded (that is, firmly
established) the earth of our humanity in heaven.
A bit has two parts, the iron and the strap. The iron is placed in the horse’s mouth, with
the strap it is restrained and led about. Christ in his Passion made a ‘bit’ from the nails
and the strap of his humanity, to subdue and restrain the devil, lest he run wild at his
own will; indeed, so that he should go back by the way he came. He came by Eve, Adam
and the fruit of the forbidden tree. He was sent back, and lost what he had wickedly
stolen, by Mary, Christ and the tree of the Cross; whereby our Jacob passed over this
Jordan and overthrew the devil, and today returned to heaven with two companies.
Jacob divided the people that was with him, into two companies: [cf. Gen 32.7]
the handmaids and their children in the first company, and the free women, Lia and
Rachel, and their children, in the second. [cf. Gen 33.1-2]
These two companies represent the Church, gathered from two peoples: the gentiles
(represented by the handmaids) and the Jewish people (the free women, because of
their knowledge of God and of the law given by him). Christ gained her by much labour
in Mesopotamia (the world), and returning to heaven today bore her with him; because
he took her faith and devotion with him, so that her heart and conversation should not be
in earth but in heaven [cf. Phil 3.20]. May he who is blessed for ever lead us there. Amen.
THE HOLY APOSTLES PETER AND PAUL
There follows: He scorneth the multitude of the city (of Rome), in which he was
beheaded today; so that he might say with Job 31:
If I have been afraid at a very great multitude,
and the contempt of kinsmen hath terrified me. [Job 31.34]
(The ‘kinsmen’ are the Jews). Another translation puts it more clearly:
Nor was I ashamed before a multitude of people, that I would not confess before them.
Source. Documenta Catholica Omnia – Translated into English by Paul Spilsbury. Anthony of Padua, Sermones. From the Critical Latin Edition of the Centro Studi Antoniani, Padova, Italia 1979.