On Mortality

Although in most of you, dearest brothers, the mind is solid, the faith firm, and the soul devoted, not shaken by the mass of the present mortality, but, like a strong and steady rock, it rather breaks the turbulent onslaughts of the world and the violent waves of the age, and is not itself broken, and is not conquered by temptations but proved; yet because I notice that some among the people, whether from weakness of mind, or smallness of faith, or the sweetness of worldly life, or the softness of their sex, or, what is worse, from error about the truth, stand less firmly and do not display the divine and invincible strength of their hearts, the matter was not to be passed over or kept silent. Rather, as far as our modest ability suffices, with full vigor and with a discourse drawn from the Lord's reading, the faint-heartedness of a delicate mind should be checked, so that he who has already begun to be a man of God and of Christ may be held worthy of God and of Christ.

For he who serves as a soldier of God, who, set in the heavenly camp, already hopes for divine things, ought to recognize that we must have no trembling and no disturbance at the storms and whirlwinds of the world, since the Lord foretold that these things would come, instructing and teaching and preparing and strengthening the people of his church with the encouragement of his foreseeing voice for all endurance of things to come. He foretold and prophesied that wars and famines and earthquakes and pestilences would arise in various places; and so that a new and unexpected fear of hostile events might not shake us, he warned beforehand that adversities would increase more and more in the last times. See, the things that were spoken are happening; and since the things foretold are happening, whatever was promised will also follow, as the Lord himself promises and says: “But when you see all these things happening, know that the kingdom of God is near.” The kingdom of God, dearest brothers, has begun to be near; the reward of life and the joy of eternal salvation and everlasting gladness and the possession of paradise, lately lost, are now coming as the world passes away; now heavenly things succeed earthly ones, great things small ones, eternal things perishable ones. What room is there here for anxiety and worry? Who among these things is trembling and sad, except one who lacks hope and faith? For it belongs to one who does not want to go to Christ to fear death; and it belongs to one who does not believe he is beginning to reign with Christ not to want to go to Christ.

It is written: “The righteous lives by faith.” If you are righteous and live by faith, if you truly believe, why, since you are going to be with Christ and are secure in the Lord's promise, do you not embrace being called to Christ and rejoice to be free of the devil? Simeon, that righteous man who was truly righteous, who kept God's commands with full faith, when it had been divinely revealed to him that he would not die before he had seen Christ, and the infant Christ had come into the temple with his mother, recognized in the Spirit that Christ was now born, of whom it had been foretold to him; and when he had seen him he knew that he would soon die. So, glad at his death now near and secure about his approaching summons, he took the child in his hands, and, blessing God, cried out and said: “Now you dismiss your servant, Lord, according to your word, in peace, for my eyes have seen your salvation.” He proved and bore witness, namely, that the servants of God have peace, free and tranquil rest, only then, when, drawn out of these whirlwinds of the world, we reach the harbor of our eternal home and security, when, this death having been accomplished, we come to immortality. For that is our peace, that is faithful tranquility, that is steady, firm, and everlasting security.

For what else is carried on daily in the world but a battle against the devil, a fight against his darts and weapons in constant conflicts? We have an encounter with avarice, with unchastity, with anger, with ambition; a constant and troublesome struggle with the vices of the flesh, with the enticements of the world. The mind of man, besieged and surrounded on every side by the assaults of the devil, scarcely meets each one, scarcely resists. If avarice is laid low, lust springs up; if lust is suppressed, ambition takes its place; if ambition is despised, anger exasperates, pride puffs up, drunkenness invites, envy breaks concord, jealousy cuts off friendship. You are driven to curse, which the divine law forbids; you are compelled to swear, which is not lawful.

So many persecutions the soul suffers daily, by so many dangers the heart is pressed; and is it a delight to stand here long among the devil's swords? We should rather desire and pray to hasten to Christ with the help of a speedier death, as he himself instructs us and says: “Amen, amen, I say to you, that you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice; you will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy.” Who would not wish to be without sorrow? Who would not hasten to come to joy? But when our sorrow will turn into joy the Lord himself declares again, saying: “I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.” Since, then, to see Christ is to rejoice, and there can be no joy for us unless one sees Christ, what blindness of mind or what madness it is to love the afflictions and punishments and tears of the world, and not rather to hasten to the joy that can never be taken away!

But this happens, dearest brothers, because faith is lacking, because no one believes that the things God promises are true, God who is true, whose word to believers is eternal and firm. If a serious and praiseworthy man promised you something, you would trust the one who promised and would not believe you could be cheated or deceived by one you knew to stand by his words and deeds. God speaks with you, and do you waver faithlessly with an unbelieving mind? God promises immortality and eternity to you as you leave this world, and do you doubt? This is not to know God at all; this is to offend Christ, the teacher of believing, by the sin of unbelief; this is, though set in the church, not to have faith in the house of faith.

How much it profits to leave the world Christ himself, the teacher of our salvation and benefit, shows. When his disciples were saddened because he said he would soon go away, he spoke to them, saying: “If you loved me, you would rejoice, because I am going to the Father,” teaching and showing that when dear ones whom we love leave the world, we ought to rejoice rather than grieve. Mindful of this, the blessed apostle Paul sets it down in his letter and says: “To me to live is Christ and to die is gain,” counting it the greatest gain no longer to be held by the snares of the world, no longer to be liable to any sins and vices of the flesh, but, exempt from distressing afflictions and freed from the poisonous jaws of the devil, to set out at Christ's call for the joy of eternal salvation.

But some are troubled that the power of this disease attacks our people equally with the heathen, as if a Christian had believed for this purpose, that, immune from contact with evils, he might happily enjoy the world and the age, and not, having endured all adversities here, be kept for future joy. It troubles some that this mortality is common to us with others. But what in this world is not common to us with others, as long as this flesh, according to the law of our first birth, remains common? As long as we are here in the world, we are joined with the human race by equality of flesh; we are separated by the spirit. So until this corruptible puts on incorruption and this mortal receives immortality, and the Spirit leads us to God the Father, whatever are the disadvantages of the flesh are common to us with the human race. So when the earth is barren with a sterile yield, famine distinguishes no one; so when a city has been taken by an enemy's invasion, captivity lays waste all alike; and when the clear skies withhold rain, there is one drought for all; and when jagged rocks shatter a ship, shipwreck is common to all who sail, without exception; and pain of the eyes and attacks of fever and weakness of all the limbs are common to us with others, as long as this common flesh is borne in the world.

Indeed, if a Christian knows and holds to the condition and law on which he believed, he will know that he must labor in the world more than others, since he has more to struggle with the devil's assaults. Divine Scripture teaches and forewarns, saying: “Son, when you come to the service of God, stand in righteousness and fear, and prepare your soul for temptation”; and again: “In pain endure, and in your humiliation have patience, for gold and silver are tried in the fire.”

So Job, after the loss of his property, after the deaths of his children, grievously afflicted also with sores and worms, was not conquered but proved; showing in his very struggles and pains the patience of a religious mind, he said: “Naked I came out of my mother's womb, naked I shall also go under the earth. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; as it seemed good to the Lord, so it has been done. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” And when his wife also urged him, impatient under the force of pain, to say something against God with a complaining and resentful voice, he answered and said: “You have spoken like one of the foolish women. If we have received good things from the hand of the Lord, shall we not bear evil things?” In all these things that happened to him Job did not sin with his lips before the Lord. Therefore the Lord God bears witness to him, saying: “Have you considered my servant Job? For there is none like him on the earth, a man without complaint, a true worshiper of God.” And Tobias, after magnificent works, after many glorious praises of his mercy, suffering blindness of the eyes, fearing and blessing God in adversity, grew in praise through the very affliction of his body. His wife, too, tried to corrupt him, saying: “Where are your righteous deeds? See what you suffer.” But he, steadfast and firm in the fear of God, and armed by the faith of religion for all endurance of suffering, did not yield in his pain to the temptation of his weak wife, but rather deserved more of God by greater patience; and afterwards the angel Raphael praises him and says: “It is honorable to reveal and confess the works of God. For when you prayed, you and Sarah, I offered the memorial of your prayer before the glory of God; and when you buried the dead in simplicity, and because you did not hesitate to rise and leave your dinner, and went and buried the dead man, I was also sent to test you. And again God sent me to heal you and Sarah your daughter-in-law. For I am Raphael, one of the seven holy angels who stand and go in and out before the glory of God.”

This endurance the righteous have always had; this discipline the apostles held from the Lord's law: not to murmur in adversity, but to accept bravely and patiently whatever happens in the world. For the Jewish people always gave offense in this, that they murmured against God too often, as the Lord God testifies in Numbers, saying: “Let their murmuring cease from me, and they shall not die.” We must not murmur in adversity, dearest brothers, but bear patiently and bravely whatever happens, since it is written: “A sacrifice to God is a troubled spirit; a contrite and humbled heart God does not despise.” In Deuteronomy too the Holy Spirit warns through Moses and says: “The Lord your God will afflict you and send famine upon you, and it will be known in your heart whether you keep his commandments well or not”; and again: “The Lord your God tests you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.”

So Abraham pleased God, because, in order to please God, he neither feared to lose his son nor refused to commit the killing of his child. You who cannot lose a son by the law and lot of mortality, what would you do if you were commanded to kill your son? The fear of God and faith ought to make you ready for all things. Though there be loss of property, though there be constant and bloody torment of the limbs from attacking diseases, though there be the mournful and sad tearing away of wife, of children, of dear ones departing, let these things be for you not stumbling blocks but battles; let them not weaken or break the Christian's faith, but rather show his strength in the struggle, since every injury from present evils is to be despised in confidence of future goods. Unless the battle has come first, there cannot be a victory; when there has been victory in the clash of battle, then the crown is also given to the victors. The helmsman is recognized in the storm; the soldier is proved in the line of battle. It is a soft boasting when there is no danger; when there is struggle in adversity, there is the proof of truth. The tree that is grounded with a deep root is not moved by the winds that bear down on it, and the ship that is made solid with strong joinery is beaten by the waves and not holed; and when the threshing floor treads out the crops, the strong and sturdy grains despise the winds, while the empty chaff is snatched away as the wind carries it.

So also the apostle Paul, after shipwrecks, after scourgings, after many and grievous torments of flesh and body, says he is not harassed but corrected by adversities, so that, while he was more grievously afflicted, he might be more truly proved. “There was given to me,” he says, “a thorn in my flesh, an angel of Satan to buffet me, that I might not be exalted. For this reason I asked the Lord three times that it might leave me, and he said to me: My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” When, therefore, weakness and feebleness and some devastation rage, then our power is made perfect; then faith, if it has stood firm when tested, is crowned, as it is written: “The furnace proves the potter's vessels, and the trial of tribulation proves righteous men.” This, in short, is the difference between us and the others who do not know God: they complain and murmur in adversity, while adversities do not call us away from the truth of virtue and faith, but prove it in pain.

That now the bowels, loosened into a flux, drain the strength of the body; that a fire conceived in the marrow seethes into sores of the throat; that the intestines are shaken by constant vomiting; that the eyes burn with the force of the blood; that in some the feet or other parts of the limbs are cut off by the contagion of diseased putrefaction; that through the losses and injuries of the body, as the sickness breaks out, either the gait is weakened, or the hearing obstructed, or the sight blinded: all this serves as a proof of faith. To meet so many onslaughts of devastation and death with unshaken strength of mind, what greatness of heart that is! What sublimity, to stand upright amid the ruins of the human race, and not to lie prostrate with those who have no hope in God, but rather to rejoice and embrace the gift of the time, so that, while we firmly show forth our faith and, having endured our labor, advance to Christ by the narrow way of Christ, we may receive the reward of his way and of faith, with him as judge! Let him, of course, fear to die who, not reborn of water and the Spirit, is delivered over to the fires of Gehenna. Let him fear to die who is not enrolled under the cross and passion of Christ. Let him fear to die who will pass from this death to the second death. Let him fear to die whom, as he departs from the world, eternal flame will torment with unending punishments. Let him fear to die for whom this is gained by a longer delay: that his torment and groaning are meanwhile postponed.

Many of our people are dying in this mortality; that is, many of our people are being freed from the world. This mortality is a plague to the Jews and the heathen and the enemies of Christ; to the servants of God it is a saving departure. That the righteous die with the unrighteous without any distinction within the human race is no reason for you to think that destruction is common to the evil and the good. The righteous are called to refreshment; the unrighteous are snatched away to punishment. Protection is given more speedily to the faithful, punishment to the faithless. We are improvident and ungrateful, dearest brothers, toward divine benefits, and we do not recognize what is being bestowed on us. See, virgins depart in peace, safe with their glory, not fearing the threats and corruptions and brothels of the coming Antichrist. Boys escape the danger of their slippery age and happily come to the reward of continence and innocence. The delicate matron no longer fears tortures, having gained, by the swiftness of death, escape from the fear of persecution and from the hands and tortures of the executioner. By the terror of the mortality and of the times, the lukewarm are kindled, the slack are braced, the sluggish are roused, deserters are compelled to return, the heathen are forced to believe; the old people of the faithful is called to rest, and a new and plentiful army is gathered for the battle line with stronger strength, to fight without fear of death when the battle comes, since it enters the service in the time of mortality.

Then, dearest brothers, what of this? How fitting it is, how pertinent, how necessary, that this pestilence and plague, which seems horrible and deadly, searches out the righteousness of each and examines the minds of the human race: whether the healthy serve the sick; whether relatives love their kin dutifully; whether masters pity their ailing slaves; whether physicians do not desert the sick who beg them; whether the fierce suppress their violence; whether the greedy quench, at least out of fear of death, the ever insatiable fire of raging avarice; whether the proud bend their necks; whether the wicked soften their boldness; whether the rich, as their dear ones perish and they themselves are about to die without an heir, at least then bestow and give something. Even if this mortality had brought nothing else, it has done this great service to Christians and servants of God: we have begun to seek martyrdom willingly, while we learn not to fear death. These are exercises for us, not funerals: they give the mind the glory of courage; by contempt of death they prepare us for the crown.

But perhaps someone may object and say: “This is what saddens me in the present mortality, that I, who had been ready for confession and had devoted myself with my whole heart and full strength to enduring suffering, am deprived of my martyrdom, since I am forestalled by death.” In the first place, martyrdom is not in your power but in God's graciousness; nor can you say you have lost what you do not know whether you deserve to receive. Then, God is the searcher of the reins and the heart, the observer and knower of hidden things; he sees you and praises and approves you, and he who perceives that courage was ready in you gives a reward for that courage. Had Cain already killed his brother when he offered his gift to God? And yet God in his foresight condemned beforehand the murder conceived in his mind. As there the evil thought and ruinous design were foreseen by the providence of God, so also in the servants of God, in whom confession is intended and martyrdom conceived in the mind, the mind devoted to good is crowned with God as judge. It is one thing for the will to be lacking for martyrdom, another for martyrdom to be lacking to the will. As the Lord finds you when he calls you, so he also judges you, since he himself testifies and says: “And all the churches shall know that I am the searcher of the reins and the heart.” For God seeks not our blood but our faith. For neither Abraham nor Isaac nor Jacob was killed, and yet, honored by the merits of faith and righteousness, they deserved to be first among the patriarchs; and to their banquet is gathered everyone who is found faithful and righteous and praiseworthy.

We ought to remember that we should do not our own will but God's, as the Lord bade us pray daily. How backward and perverse it is that, while we ask that God's will be done, when God summons us and calls us from this world we do not at once obey the command of his will! We struggle and resist, and like obstinate slaves we are brought before the Lord's face with sadness and grief, departing from here by the chain of necessity, not by the obedience of the will; and we want to be honored with heavenly rewards by him to whom we come unwillingly. Why, then, do we pray and ask that the kingdom of heaven may come, if earthly captivity delights us? Why do we ask and demand in frequently repeated prayers that the day of the kingdom may hasten, if our greater desires and stronger wishes are to serve the devil here rather than to reign with Christ?

Finally, so that the signs of divine providence might shine forth more plainly, that the Lord, foreknowing the future, takes counsel for his own toward true salvation: when one of our colleagues and fellow priests, worn out by illness and anxious about approaching death, was praying for a reprieve, there stood by him as he prayed, when he was already nearly dying, a young man venerable in honor and majesty, tall in stature and shining in appearance, such that human sight could scarcely look on him with fleshly eyes as he stood by, except that one about to leave the world could already see such a one. And he, not without a certain indignation of mind and voice, rebuked him and said: “You fear to suffer, you do not want to go out: what shall I do with you?” It was the voice of one rebuking and warning, one who, anxious about persecution but untroubled about the summons, did not consent to the present desire but took counsel for the future. Our brother and colleague, about to die, heard what he was to tell the others. For he who heard when about to die heard it in order to tell it: he heard it not for himself but for us. For what would he learn who was about to depart? He learned it rather for those who remain, so that, when we find that the priest who asked for a reprieve was rebuked, we might know what is best for all.

To us also, the least and last, how often has it been revealed, how frequently and plainly has it been commanded by the graciousness of God, that I should bear witness constantly and preach publicly that our brothers who have been freed from the world by the Lord's summons are not to be mourned, since we know that they are not lost but sent ahead; that in departing they go before us; that, as with travelers and seafarers, they ought to be missed, not lamented; and that dark clothes are not to be put on here when they have already put on white garments there; that no occasion is to be given to the heathen to blame us rightly and justly, because we mourn as extinguished and lost those whom we say are alive with God, and do not prove by the testimony of the heart and breast the faith we utter in speech and voice. We are betrayers of our hope and faith if what we say seems feigned, fictitious, painted over. It profits nothing to display courage in words and destroy the truth in deeds.

Finally, the apostle Paul reproves, rebukes, and blames anyone who is saddened by the departure of his own. “We do not want you to be ignorant, brothers,” he says, “about those who sleep, that you may not be saddened as the others also who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, so also God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.” He says that those are saddened at the departure of their own who have no hope. But we who live in hope, and believe in God, and trust that Christ suffered for us and rose again, abiding in Christ and rising through him and in him, why are we either unwilling ourselves to depart from the world, or mourn and grieve for our own who depart, as if they were lost? Christ himself, our Lord and God, warns us and says: “I am the resurrection. He who believes in me, though he die, will live; and everyone who lives and believes in me will not die forever.” If we believe in Christ, let us have faith in his words and promises, so that, not destined to die forever, we may come with glad security to Christ, with whom we shall always live and reign.

That we die meanwhile is that we pass over through death to immortality; eternal life cannot follow unless it befalls us to depart from here. This is not an exit but a passage, and, the journey of time completed, a crossing over to eternal things. Who would not hasten to better things? Who would not long to be changed and re-formed more quickly into the likeness of Christ and to the dignity of heavenly grace? As the apostle Paul proclaims: “But our citizenship,” he says, “is in heaven, from where we also await the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform the body of our lowliness, conformed to the body of his glory.” Christ the Lord also promises that we shall be such, when, so that we may be with him and rejoice with him in the eternal dwellings and in the heavenly kingdom, he prays to the Father for us, saying: “Father, those whom you have given me I will that where I am they also may be with me and see the glory which you gave me before the world was made.” One who is to come to the throne of Christ, to the glory of the heavenly kingdom, ought not to mourn and lament, but rather, according to the Lord's promise and according to faith in the truth, rejoice in this his departure and transfer.

So, finally, we find that Enoch also, who pleased God, was translated, as divine Scripture testifies and speaks in Genesis: “And Enoch pleased God, and afterwards he was not found, because God translated him.” This was what it was to have pleased in the sight of God: to have deserved to be transferred from this contagion of the world. And through Solomon also the Holy Spirit teaches that those who please God are taken from here earlier and freed more quickly, lest, while they linger too long in this world, they be polluted by the world's contacts: “He was snatched away lest wickedness change his understanding. For his soul was pleasing to God; for this reason he hastened to lead him out from the midst of iniquity.” So also in the Psalms the soul devoted to its God hastens to God with spiritual faith, as it is written: “How beloved are your dwellings, God of powers! My soul longs and hastens to the courts of God.”

It belongs to one whom the world delights to wish to remain long in the world, one whom the age, flattering and deceiving, invites with the enticements of earthly pleasure. Moreover, since the world hates the Christian, why do you love what hates you, and not rather follow Christ, who both redeemed and loves you? John cries out and speaks in his letter, and exhorts us not to love the world by following fleshly desires. “Do not love the world,” he says, “nor the things that are in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him; for all that is in the world is the desire of the flesh and the desire of the eyes and the ambition of the world, which is not from the Father but from the desire of the world. And the world will pass away, and its desire; but he who does the will of God remains forever, as God also remains forever.” Rather, dearest brothers, with sound mind, firm faith, and robust courage, let us be ready for every will of God; shutting out the fear of death, let us think of the immortality that follows. Let us show that we are what we believe, so that we do not mourn the passing of our dear ones, and, when the day of our own summons comes, we come without hesitation and willingly to the Lord as he calls us.

And though this should always have been done by the servants of God, it ought to be done much more now, when the world is already collapsing and besieged by the whirlwinds of hostile evils, so that we, who see that grievous things have already begun and know that more grievous things are imminent, may count it the greatest gain if we depart from here quickly. If the walls of your dwelling were tottering with age, the roof trembling above, and the house, already worn out, already exhausted, its structure sinking with age, threatened imminent collapse, would you not move out with all speed? If, while you were sailing, a turbulent and stormy tempest, with the waves violently stirred up, foretold coming shipwreck, would you not seek the harbor more quickly? See, the world totters and falls, and bears witness to its ruin no longer by the age of things but by their end; and do you not give thanks to God, do you not congratulate yourself that, taken away by an earlier departure, you are delivered from the ruins and shipwrecks and plagues that threaten?

We must consider, dearest brothers, and think again and again that we have renounced the world and are living here meanwhile as guests and strangers. Let us embrace the day that assigns each of us to his own home, which, snatching us from here and releasing us from the snares of the world, restores us to paradise and the kingdom. Who, having been set abroad, would not hurry to return to his homeland? Who, hastening to sail to his own people, would not wish more eagerly for a favorable wind, that he might quickly embrace his dear ones? We count paradise as our homeland; we have already begun to have the patriarchs as our parents. Why do we not hurry and run, so that we may see our homeland and greet our parents? A great number of dear ones await us there, a thronging and abundant crowd of parents, brothers, and children longs for us, already secure of their own safety, still anxious for our salvation. To come to the sight and embrace of these, how great a joy it is for them and for us in common! What delight of the heavenly kingdom is there, without fear of dying and with eternity of living! How supreme and perpetual a happiness! There is the glorious choir of the apostles; there the company of the exulting prophets; there the countless people of the martyrs, crowned for the glory and victory of their contest and suffering; the triumphant virgins who subdued the desire of the flesh and body by the strength of continence; the merciful, rewarded, who did works of righteousness by feeding and giving to the poor, who, keeping the Lord's precepts, transferred their earthly patrimonies to heavenly treasuries. To these, dearest brothers, let us hasten with eager longing; let us pray that it may befall us soon to be with them, soon to come to Christ. May God see this thought of ours; may Christ behold this purpose of mind and faith, he who will give the ampler rewards of his love to those whose desires for him have been greater.