Sermons to the People 76.1–76.8

The Gospel just read about the Lord Christ, who walked on the waters of the sea, and about the apostle Peter, who, walking, faltered through fear, sank through distrust, and rose again through confession, admonishes us to understand that the sea is the present age, and the apostle Peter a type of the one Church. For Peter himself, first in the order of the apostles, readiest in the love of Christ, often answers alone for all. Indeed, when the Lord Jesus Christ asked whom men said he was, and the disciples reported the various opinions of men, and the Lord asked again, saying, “But who do you say that I am?”, Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” One gave the answer for many: unity in the many. Then the Lord said to him: “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona, because flesh and blood has not revealed it to you, but my Father who is in heaven.” Then he added: “And I say to you.” As if he said: Because you said to me, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,” I too say to you, “You are Peter.” For before he was called Simon. This name, that he should be called Peter, was given him by the Lord, and with this figurative meaning, that he should signify the Church. For since Christ is the rock (petra), Peter is the Christian people. For “rock” is the primary name. Therefore Peter is named from the rock, not the rock from Peter; just as Christ is not named from Christian, but Christian from Christ. “You are Peter,” then, he says, “and on this rock”—which you have confessed, on this rock which you have recognized, saying, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”—“I will build my Church”: that is, on myself, the Son of the living God, I will build my Church. I will build you on me, not me on you. For people wanting to be built on men said: “I am of Paul, I of Apollos, I of Cephas,” who is Peter. And others, who did not want to be built on Peter but on the rock, said, “But I am of Christ.” And the apostle Paul, when he saw that he was being chosen and Christ despised, said: “Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?” As not in Paul’s name, so not in Peter’s, but in the name of Christ: so that Peter might be built on the rock, not the rock on Peter. This same Peter, then, called blessed, named from the rock, bearing the figure of the Church, holding the first place in the apostleship, a little while after he had heard that he was blessed, that he was Peter, that he was to be built on the rock, was displeased when he heard of the Lord’s future passion, which the Lord had foretold to his disciples as coming soon. He feared to lose by death him whom he had confessed as the fountain of life. He was troubled, saying: “Far be it from you, Lord; this shall not happen.” Spare yourself, God; I do not want you to die. Peter said to Christ, “I do not want you to die”; but Christ said better, “I want to die for you.” At once, then, he rebukes him whom he had praised a little before; and the one he had called blessed he calls Satan. “Get behind me, Satan,” he says; “you are a stumbling block to me; for you do not savor the things of God, but the things of men.” What does he want to make of us from what we are, he who thus blames us for being men? Do you want to know what he wants to make of us? Hear the psalm: “I said, You are gods, and all sons of the Most High.” But by savoring human things: “But you will die like men.” The same Peter a little before blessed, afterward Satan, in one moment, within a few words! You wonder at the difference of names; consider the difference of causes. Why do you wonder that a little before he was blessed and afterward Satan? Consider the cause why he was blessed: “Because flesh and blood has not revealed it to you, but my Father who is in heaven.” Blessed for this reason, because flesh and blood did not reveal it to you. For if flesh and blood had revealed this to you, it would be from what is yours; but because flesh and blood did not reveal it to you, but my Father who is in heaven, it is from what is mine, not from what is yours. Why from mine? Because “all that the Father has is mine.” See, you have heard the cause why he was blessed, and why he was Peter. But why that which makes us shudder and which we do not want to repeat? Why, except because it was from what is yours? “For you do not savor the things of God, but the things of men.”

Considering this, let us, members of the Church, distinguish what is from God and what is from ourselves. For then we shall not totter; then we shall be founded on the rock, fixed and stable against the winds, the rains, the floods, that is, the temptations of the present age. Yet look at Peter, who was then a figure of us: now he trusts, now he totters; now he confesses the Immortal, now he fears that he may die. So, since the Church of Christ has the strong and also the weak, and can be neither without the strong nor without the weak—whence the apostle Paul says, “We who are strong ought to bear the burdens of the weak”—in Peter’s saying, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,” he signifies the strong; but in his trembling and tottering, and in his not wanting Christ to suffer, fearing death and not recognizing life, he signifies the weak of the Church. So in that one apostle, Peter, first and chief in the order of the apostles, in whom the Church was figured, both kinds had to be signified, the strong and the weak, because without both there is no Church.

Hence, then, is also what was just read: “Lord, if it is you, bid me come to you on the waters.” If it is you, bid me; for I cannot do this in myself, but in you. He recognized what he had from himself and what from him by whose will he believed he could do what no human weakness could. So: “If it is you, bid,” because when you bid, it will be done. What I cannot do by presuming, you can do by bidding. And the Lord said, “Come.” And without any doubt, at the word of him who bade, at the presence of him who sustained, at the presence of him who ruled, Peter without any hesitation leapt into the waters and began to walk. He could do what the Lord could, not in himself, but in the Lord. “For you were once darkness, but now light”—but “in the Lord.” What no one can do in Paul, no one in Peter, no one in any other of the apostles, he can do in the Lord. So Paul, rightly and profitably despising himself and commending Christ, says: “Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?” Not in me, then, but with me; not under me, but under him.

So Peter walked on the waters at the Lord’s command, knowing that he could not have this from himself. By faith he was able to do what human weakness could not. These are the strong of the Church. Pay attention, hear, understand, act. For we must not deal with the strong so that they become weak, but with the weak so that they become strong. But many are kept from strength by presuming on their strength. No one will be strong from God except one who feels himself weak from himself. “A voluntary rain, O God, setting apart for your inheritance.” Why do you run ahead, you who know what I am going to say? Let speed be moderated, so that slowness may keep up. This I have said, and this I say: hear, grasp, do. No one is made strong by God except one who feels himself weak from himself. A voluntary rain, then, as the psalm says, voluntary: not from our merits, but voluntary. “A voluntary rain, then, O God, setting apart for your inheritance; for it was made weak, but you perfected it.” Because you set apart a voluntary rain, not looking at men’s merits but at your grace and mercy. The inheritance itself, then, was made weak, and recognized itself weak in itself, so that it might be strong in you. It would not be strengthened unless it were weakened, so that it might be perfected by you in you.

See a little portion of this inheritance, Paul; see him made weak, who said: “I am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God.” Why, then, are you an apostle? “By the grace of God I am what I am.” “I am not worthy,” but “by the grace of God I am what I am.” Paul was made weak, but you perfected him. Now, since it is by God’s grace that he is what he is, see what follows: “And his grace in me was not in vain, but I labored more than all of them.” Take care lest by presumption you lose what you gained in weakness. Good, good: “I am not worthy to be called an apostle; by his grace I am what I am; and his grace in me was not in vain”: all excellent. But “I labored more than all of them”: you seemed to begin to attribute to yourself what a little before you had given to God. Recognize it, and go on: “Yet not I, but the grace of God with me.” Good, weak one: you will be exalted most strongly, because you are not ungrateful. You are that same Paul, small in yourself, great in the Lord. You are the one who asked the Lord three times that the thorn of the flesh, the angel of Satan by whom you were buffeted, be taken away from you. What was said to you? What did you hear when you asked this? “My grace is sufficient for you; for power is perfected in weakness.” For he was made weak, but you perfected him. So Peter too says, “Bid me come to you on the waters.” I, a man, dare; but it is not a man I ask. Let God made man bid, so that a man may be able to do what a man cannot. “Come,” he says. And he went down and began to walk on the waters; and Peter could, because the Rock had bidden. See what Peter is in the Lord; what is he in himself? “Seeing the strong wind, he was afraid; and when he began to sink, he cried out: Lord, I perish, save me.” He presumed on the Lord, he was able by the Lord; he tottered as a man, he returned to the Lord. “If I said, My foot has slipped”—a psalm speaks; it is the voice of a holy song; and if we recognize it, it is ours too; indeed, if we will, it is ours as well. “If I said, My foot has slipped”: why slipped, except because it was mine? And what follows? “Your mercy, O Lord, helped me.” Not my strength, but your mercy. For did the Lord forsake the one tottering, whom he heard calling on him? Where is that saying, “Who has called upon God and been forsaken by him?” Where also that: “And everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved”? At once stretching out the help of his right hand, he lifted up the sinking man and rebuked the distrustful one: “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” On me you relied, and of me you doubted.

Come, brothers, the sermon must be concluded. Consider the world as the sea: the wind is strong, and the storm great. Each one’s own desire is his storm. You love God: you walk on the sea, and the swelling of the world is under your feet. You love the world: it will swallow you. It knows how to devour its lovers, not to carry them. But when your heart tosses with desire, call upon the divinity of Christ, so that you may conquer your desire. Do you think the wind is contrary only when there is adversity in this world? For when there are wars, when riots, when famine, when pestilence, when a private calamity befalls anyone, even a single person, then the wind is thought adverse, then it is thought that God must be called upon. But when the world smiles with temporal prosperity, it is as if there were no contrary wind. Do not ask the calm of the times about this; ask your own desire. See whether there is calm in you; see whether the wind within is not overturning you: see to this. It takes great virtue to wrestle with prosperity, lest prosperity itself entice, corrupt, and overturn you. It takes great virtue, I say, to wrestle with prosperity; it is great prosperity not to be conquered by prosperity. Learn to trample on the world; remember to trust in Christ. And if your foot has slipped, if you totter, if there are things you do not overcome, if you begin to sink, say: “Lord, I perish, save me.” Say “I perish,” so that you may not perish. For he alone frees you from the death of the flesh who died in the flesh for you. Turning to the Lord, etc.