Sermons 90–93

[On the same.] The hesitation of Zacharias the priest has taught us today that we are raised up by the falls of the saints and made firm by the trembling of the saints; for when he does not believe God's promises but examines them, and does not perceive divine works by faith but searches them out by human reason, he pays the penalty of unbelief by a long sentence of silence. He had heard from the angel: “Your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son.” He then answered: “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in her days” (Luke 1:18). As much as long old age had made him lose hope of posterity, had not his long experience of life taught him just as much that nothing is impossible for God? A priest of so many years had read it; the veteran high priest knew that nature, not the author of nature, can be bound by law, and that time can set limits for man but not for its maker. He knew how, from the bodies of Abraham and Sarah, dead with extreme old age and kept by a most famous barrenness from the names of father and mother, Isaac had burst forth to the whole fruitfulness of the stock of Israel (Gen 21); the failure of nature harmed him less than it profited him to be born by the kindness of the author, not of nature. He had learned that to Rebecca (Gen 25) and to Hannah (1 Sam 1), long exhausted and long deprived of nature's support, God had given what barrenness had denied. Taught by so many examples, then, why does he say: “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in her days”? Brothers, human nature is timid enough before God and weak enough before divine powers; it does not find itself in the event such as it reckons itself before the event, and it knows itself poorly enough before it proves itself in deeds and tests itself by examples. It seeks heaven, seeks the heights, searches out the things above, moves heaven, knocks at heaven; but when it has moved heaven, it cannot bear heaven's weight. It aspires to climb the summit of faith, it burns to penetrate heaven by its own strength; but when it begins to walk with human steps in the ways of the sky and looks down at its own nature, it trusts less in what is past than it trembles at a fall. So blessed Peter, when he imitates divine walking over the waters and, a new traveller, treads a soft path with hard steps, begs for help against falling before he rejoices in what was given (Matt 14). So now Zacharias. He had long wept that the devil had power, that death reigned through the guilt of one man, that human beings were born to labours, groans and dangers, that one could wish for children, troubled and mortal as they would be, and yet not obtain them; that one stood amid the battle lines of crimes, was besieged by hosts of vices, was always shaken and battered by the onset of infirmities; that one saw from afar the banners of the virtues, the hope of the law, the freedom of grace, and yet no one could reach there by his own strength; that one willed good and did not do it, hated crimes and did not conquer them; that God ought now to have mercy and ought now to come in this way to the help of captives. So when this high priest was knocking at God's ears with such continual complaint and such lamentation, God, for one asking such loving and just things, took and established from the offspring of his own answer a wonderful proof, by which he might believe that God could give life to the dead and restore salvation to the despairing, if he had given offspring to dead old age and a son to hopeless barrenness, as the gospel word discloses when it says: “Your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son”: the messenger of this redemption, the forerunner of this salvation, who will not hear God by voice, as you do, or bend him by groans; who will not, as you do, seek our support to obtain his request, but, placed in our order and upheld by angelic honour, will hold in his hand God, long desired by all, never known to him, unseen even by the angels, will embrace him in his bosom, will hand him over, now visible to the world, with happy arms, and point him out with most blessed hands, to be seen by human eyes; he will make God known to all, lead the Lord into the fellowship of his little servants, mingle the Judge with the guilty, testify that the censor has taken upon himself the person of the guilty, and so prove that the sentence of human condemnation will cease, when he himself is put on trial, he himself runs to pardon, he who was to hand over the guilty to punishment. That this mystery of immense love may shine out, Zacharias, your son plunges his Lord into the baptism of repentance, washes him for the remission of sins: by which the spring willed to be washed, the examiner to receive pardon, the Judge himself to undergo his own sentence, so as not to condemn the guilty or bring vengeance on the offenders. He ascends the cross, tastes death, suffers burial, enters the underworld, he who willed to be punished so as not to punish, who willed to be loved rather than feared. When Zacharias, brothers, heard that by his prayers he had merited so great a mystery, terrified by the very consideration of the matter and troubled by the weight of the mystery itself, he did not believe that he deserved so much, and he doubted that God would come down to such great things. That is why he says: “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in her days.” That is to say: as human reason does not allow me to have a son, so everlasting majesty does not allow God to be born and to die. So the angel, pardonably, gave the one who did not believe the penalty only of a sign, not of faithlessness: for it is caution to be slow to believe lowly things of God, slower still to think insulting things of God. The angel added, saying: “I am Gabriel,” so that from so great a name and the merit of so great a minister the high priest might weigh faith in the promise and believe what kind of promise it was. “I am Gabriel, who stand before God, and I have been sent to speak to you.” In saying his name he indicates his merit; when he says that he stands there, he says that he was sent; he confesses servitude, lest the privilege of the name hide the service owed. “I am,” he says, “Gabriel, who stand before God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to announce these things to you.” Truly “great is the Lord, and of his wisdom there is no number” (Ps 147:5). He heals the sick man by a wound, he strengthens the wavering by punishment, from the penalty he makes a proof of faith, saying: “And behold, you will be silent and unable to speak”: so that from yourself and in yourself you may obtain the rule of believing, and by an example at home believe that God can do what he promises. For when he wills, he closes the organ of your voice; and when he wills, he can surely open the office of your mouth; and when he wills to make a fruitful woman of a barren one, or a barren one of a fruitful one, he can, when he promises it; when he wills to grant the office of childbearing, and when he wills to deny the services of nature, he prevails. So the angel acted so that the high priest, taught by such a proof, might no longer say, “How shall I know this?”, he who could prove from the evidence of the whole creation that God can do all things, and who, having read that heaven, earth, sea and all that is in them came to be out of nothing, ought to have believed that God could make what he wills out of something and give back to the hopeless what he promises; for he who made everything from what was not does not labour to make whatever he wills from what is. “And the people were waiting for Zacharias and wondered that he delayed in the temple. But Zacharias came out and could not speak to them, and they realized that he had seen a vision in the temple. And he kept making signs to them and remained dumb.” The high priest comes out bearing in his mouth the sign of barrenness, carrying in his breast the figure of conception, so that when the mother bore a son, the son might give the voice, and then the father of the word might utter the mystery, and the one born might give his father pardon before he washed away the ancient crimes of the peoples. And since he who did not believe was silent, rightly does the prophet, because he believed, glory, saying: “I believed, therefore I spoke” (Ps 116:10). Brothers, faith gives the word; unbelief denies the word. So, brothers, if, as I said, the falls of the saints raise us up and the trembling of the blessed makes us firm, let us judge that nothing is ever impossible for God, and let us not inquire how he will do what he promises, for whom to have willed is to have done, and to have promised is to have given.

[On the same.] Those who know how to gather gold from the earth spend all their art and labour where they have found a rich vein; and we, since we know that a heavenly treasure lies hidden in holy Zacharias, let us spend on him all that belongs to our speaking and to your hearing, so that what is sought by common labour may become common gain. “There was,” it says, “in the days of Herod, king of Judea, a priest named Zacharias, of the division of Abijah”; this we have already discussed; “and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron” (Luke 1:5). The evangelist began in this way to show that the nobility of the priestly line had been preserved in the priest's wife. “They were both,” it says, “righteous before God.” Both righteous, because in both there was one righteousness. Both righteous, because their marriage rested not on fondness but on holiness. Both righteous, because, unequal in sex, they were held equal in merits. Both righteous, because, as there was one flesh in the two, so there was one spirit in the two. Let married couples imitate them, so that virtue may join those whom affection joins. “They were,” it says, “both righteous before God.” Both righteous before God. And where is that saying: “No living being will be justified in your sight” (Ps 143:2)? Before men someone may perhaps be thought righteous, because men, as they know the faults of bodies, so they do not know the vices of the mind; but before God, to whom the bars of the breast lie open and from whom the secrets of thoughts are not hidden, who is held innocent and righteous? Is there a man who does not sin in heart, does not offend in thought, does not stumble by doubt, does not fall into the lapse of trembling? Moses doubts (Num 20), Aaron goes astray (Exod 32), Peter denies (Matt 26): and who is righteous? And how were both righteous before God? Before God, but through God. “Both righteous before God”: not by labour but by grace. Hear the Apostle: “Justified freely by his grace” (Rom 3:24). And again: “It is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God; not from works, lest anyone should boast” (Eph 2:8–9). And again: “What do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?” (1 Cor 4:7). So the evangelist reports not what they had of their own but what they received; not what was sought but what was given. “They were,” it says, “both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of God blameless.” He said “walking” to show that they ran in the virtues and did not stand still; that they walked in the way of righteousness and did not sit down; that they did not stop on the journey of the commandments but reached the fullness of the commandments. “Walking in all the commandments and ordinances of God blameless.” Blessed, brothers, are those whom guilt does not strike and crime does not wound; but more blessed are these, whom not even blame touched. “Blameless.” If their childhood, adolescence and youth were blameless, ages in which there is nothing but cause for blame, what was their old age like? If such was the beginning, what was the end? To have climbed the summits of the ordinances and the hills of the commandments without stumbling in anything is the mark of singular grace and unique happiness. “And they had no son,” it says, “because Elizabeth was barren.” He did not say, “They had no sons,” but “They had no son,” because the one who was to be born of such parents would be singular. Hear the Lord saying: “Among those born of women there has not arisen a greater than John the Baptist” (Matt 11:11). “Because Elizabeth was barren.” Barren in body but fruitful in virtues; slow to offspring but not slow to God; closed not to a child but to a time; not denied a child but kept for a mystery. “And both,” it says, “were advanced in their days.” “Advanced”: thus is described the mystery of an old age that has not yet fallen in merits, does not fail with age but advances, and does not feel the losses of the body because it takes on the increases of virtue. Brothers, holy Elizabeth's childbearing was not taken away but deferred, until there had passed the time of the flesh, the passion of the body, the necessity of marriage, the occasion of pleasure, the sense of desire and all that confuses what is human and weighs down and burdens the conscience. For over a long time there was being cleansed the house of the sacrifice, the lodging of holiness, the quarters of Christ's forerunner, the dwelling of an angel, the hall of the Holy Spirit, the temple of God. “Do you not know,” says the Apostle, “that you are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you?” (1 Cor 3:16). Then, when every cause of blame in the body had been stilled and they had become wholly blameless, at once barrenness flees, old age revives, faith conceives, chastity gives birth, and there is born one greater than man, equal to the angels, the trumpet of heaven, the herald of Christ, the Father's secret, the Son's messenger, the standard-bearer of the King on high, the pardon of sins, the correction of the Jews, the calling of the Gentiles, and, to speak properly, the clasp of law and grace, which joined the high priest's double cloak on his holy father's breast. So the evangelist describes the virtues of father and mother, so that the dignity of the offspring might be known from the great merits of the parents, and he might be shown to be greater than man who in his birth exceeded the law of human birth. But if he is to come forth, let John be born now, because the birth of Christ is at hand; let the new morning star rise, because the radiance of the true Sun is already breaking out; let the herald give voice, because the judge is present; let the trumpet sound, because the King is coming; and since God is about to come forth, let the angel now go before. But because a man is not able to tell what is above men, the angel was already telling the virtues of the angel to be born. “The angel said to Zacharias: Do not be afraid, Zacharias; your prayer has been heard; behold, Elizabeth your wife will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John; and he will be your joy and exultation, and many will rejoice at his birth. For he will be great before the Lord; and he will drink no wine or strong drink; and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother's womb; and he will turn many of the sons of Israel to the Lord their God; and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the sons, and the unbelieving to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a perfect people.” Human speech has nothing to do, the preaching of the expositor falls silent, when John's glory is proclaimed by an angel's announcement; virtue resounds, praise is itself praised; and there is nothing a man can add to him on whom God has conferred everything. “He will be filled,” it says, “with the Holy Spirit even from his mother's womb.” You see how John reached heaven before he touched earth, received the divine Spirit before he had a human one, took on divine gifts before bodily limbs, began to live for God before he lived for himself; rather, he lived for God before God lived in him, according to the Apostle's word: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (Gal 2:20). In the sixth month he leaps in his mother's womb and announces that Christ has come into the Virgin's womb. Fervent messenger, who longed to announce before he lived; impatient leader, who reached the King before he reached his body; he seized his arms before his limbs; he sought the battle line before the light; and to conquer the world he lived before nature; without a body of his own he rouses his mother's womb; and since the body was slow, he fulfils the office of evangelist by the spirit alone. What shall I say? John went before himself before he went before Christ. One and the same Holy Spirit fills the hearts of father, mother and son, so that the song of the Lord's birth might resound on one instrument of holiness. Nor is this surprising, brothers: festivity always honours royal births, and sweet harmony gladdens them. And let us too, brothers, glorify the birth of Christ with songs and honour it with gifts, because a Christian is false to the faith if he does not do what a magus did (Matt 2).

[On the same.] The gospel word gradually moves us to higher things and lifts us to the things above. Nor is it surprising, brothers, if a heavenly chariot carried Elijah up to heaven (2 Kgs 2), when every day this four-horse chariot of the Gospels carries and conveys the human race to the kingdom of heaven. See, brothers, it has already brought us near from the childbearing of a barren woman to the childbearing of the Virgin, and from the birth of John to the birth of our Saviour. But let us listen patiently to what still remains about Zacharias the high priest, so that we may reach the cradle of our King by a royal road; for this is why we have climbed into the safe seat of the heavenly chariot, to avoid the anxious and arduous paths of shortcuts. Now it was read: “And it happened that when the days of his service were completed, he went to his house” (Luke 1:23). So a whole tribe served one temple; thousands of priests were in attendance, and for this reason the observance of the priestly office was divided among many, apportioned over periods and distributed by turns, lest either a confused multitude disturb the order of the priesthood, or one man, by serving continually, deny the altar the service due to it. “After this his wife Elizabeth conceived.” They had the right of marriage; leave to beget had been granted to them, in whose time the law was still in its youth and religion still in its infancy. The law, brothers, forbade what was unlawful and did not deny what was lawful; it held within the limits of a gift, it could confer nothing beyond the gift; it ruled nature, it did not raise man above nature. The law, the door of faith, the messenger of grace, the forerunner of the Gospel, the tutor of religion in its infancy, allowed the chastity of marriage in the legal priesthood, so that it might announce the glory of perpetual virtue to come in the high priesthood of grace. So under this indulgence Elizabeth, already dead with years, revives into a holy childbearing; her dry limbs, furrowed with wrinkles, grow green again with vital marrow into a fruitful womb; the very time at which she had ceased is called back into her body; the house of the womb, collapsed through extreme age, is suddenly restored to a new appearance; order is stunned, custom fails, nature itself marvels, and from the preparation of the dwelling the merit and dignity of the guest is made known. Indeed John marvelled enough at being a stranger in the common dwelling, since he learned that, though shut out by time and disowned by nature, he had been received into it by the kindness of the Creator, not of a parent. “And she hid herself five months, saying: Thus the Lord has done to me.” She confesses that the Lord has done all of it, since she saw nothing conferred on her through man. “And she hid herself five months,” because although what she had was a divine gift, it did not belong to her time of life. “She hid herself five months.” An old woman with child blushes, an aged woman is ashamed of a first birth, extreme old age hides a woman about to give birth, lest the laughter at a fruitful old age increase the reproach of barrenness. That an aged and elderly conception is open to laughter Sarah proves, who was very like her in barrenness and age (Gen 18): when at the Lord's promise she learned that childbearing was being restored to her and a son given, when life had almost left her, she herself laughed at her own childbearing; and that a pregnant woman burdened with grey hair could be a laughing-stock to all, she testifies by the very name of her offspring, as Scripture says: “And she called the name of her son Isaac” (Gen 21:3), which, she taught, means laughter, adding: “The Lord has made laughter for me” (Gen 21:6). That is why Elizabeth wishes to hide the sacred mystery, saying: “Thus the Lord has done to me”; so that shame at the conception might now trouble her for as long as the hardship of denied childbearing had afflicted her. The father is silent from punishment, the mother hides from shame. Oh, how great a voice is born of silence! Oh, in what silence is a trumpet begotten that will cry out to the ages! Oh, what a herald the secret of the divine Judge gives! “Thus the Lord has done to me in the days when he looked on me to take away my reproach among men.” The honour of marriage, the dignity of matrimony, is the procreation of sweet children; for it is heavy and sad enough to lack the reward of virginity and not have the comfort of children; to bear the burdens of matrimony and not come to the fruit of matrimony. That is why she rejoices that the reproach of barrenness has been taken away, saying: “Thus the Lord has done to me in the days when he looked on me to take away my reproach among men.” For among men this is reckoned wretched, but before God there is no guilt where there is no fault of the parent, but the judgment of the one who withholds. Certainly, if some bodily infirmity brings this about, the cause is necessity, not will. But now let every sluggish understanding of the flesh be removed, let all the weakness of bodily sense be cast away, let every effort of human ingenuity be shut out; let the eyes of faith lie open, the ears of the heart be unbarred, the step of the mind run and press on, so that we may reach the mystery of the virgin conception and penetrate the sacrament of the virgin birth, with the help of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, born of her, now lives in the heavenly kingdom with God the Father and the Holy Spirit through infinite ages of ages. Amen.

[On the conversion of Magdalene.] A careful hearer perhaps wonders that Christ came to a meal, and to a Pharisee's meal at that. Christ entered the Pharisee's house not to receive Jewish food but to bestow divine mercy; nor did he recline to take cups flavoured with honey and perfumed with flowers, but to drink a penitent's tears from the very springs of her eyes: God hungers for the groans of sinners and thirsts for the tears of the guilty. “A certain Pharisee,” it says, “asked the Lord to eat with him; and entering the Pharisee's house he reclined at table. And behold, a woman who was a sinner in the city, when she learned that the Lord was reclining in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment, and standing behind at his feet, she began to wet his feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment” (Luke 7:36–38). You see that Christ came to the Pharisee's table not to be filled with fleshly food but to show heavenly business in the flesh; not to approve what was set before him by human hands, but what was done behind him by divine power. For we always recognize that Christ exercised divine powers through human acts, since everything he did, even bodily, is shown to be new and beyond the usage of mortals. The Pharisee invites Christ to eat; what does an uninvited woman seek there? A stranger does not burst through the barriers of a house; one not invited does not presume to enter the privacy of a banquet; a dissolute onlooker does not dare to disturb food prepared to relax minds after labour. How is it, then, that this woman, unknown, or rather badly known, laden with grief, full of tears, loud with lament, without the doorkeeper's knowledge, with no one aware of it, the host himself unaware, runs through all the entrances of the house, passes through the whole crowd of servants, flies to the very privacy of the banquet, and turns a house of gladness into a house of lamentation and mourning? Brothers, she came not asked but commanded; she entered as one brought in, not presuming: he himself caused her to be presented to him, he who by heavenly sentence ordered her to be absolved. Then, while the Pharisee, splendid in dress, first on the crescent couch, swelling before the very eyes of Christ, festive, pours himself into feasting to please a man, not God, the woman comes, and comes behind, because a guilty mind stands behind the back to seek pardon, knowing that through guilt it has lost the confidence to face him; she came to make satisfaction to God, not to please a man; she came to offer a banquet of devotion, not of pleasure. So she sets a table of repentance, serves dishes of compunction, brings in the bread of sorrow, tempers the drink with tears in measure, and for the delights of the deity she strikes up the whole symphony of her heart and body: she gives the cry of lament as an organ, plays the lyre with long sighs, fits groans to the pipe; and while she often strikes her breast, accusing her very conscience, she makes cymbals pleasing to God resound; and while she brings such food to the divine eyes, she carries back all the abundance of mercy. “Behold, a woman who was a sinner in the city.” The evangelist heightens the woman's crime to pile up the indulgence of the giver. “A sinner in the city.” She had sinned against the city, because her reputation had touched the reputation of the whole city; and so she had become not only a sinner but the very sin of the city. She knew that the city's sin could be taken away only by him who alone had come to abolish the sin of the world. “And when she learned that the Lord was reclining in the Pharisee's house.” The sinful woman does not dare to come to him standing or sitting: God, when he stands, rebukes; when he sits, judges; when he reclines, he lies down with the prostrate. “When she learned that the Lord was reclining in the Pharisee's house.” She learned that the majesty on high bends down to have mercy; and so she believed that he who had come so readily to the Pharisee's table would be ready to pardon her. “She brought an alabaster flask of ointment.” She brings oil, because she was seeking from the heavenly physician medicine for a deadly wound. “Standing behind at his feet.” One who seeks quick pardon always makes for the feet. And rightly “standing,” because one who has been found worthy to reach Christ's feet can no longer fall. “Standing behind at his feet”: so that, leaning on Christ's footsteps, she might run through the way of life, she who had run along the way of death. “She wet his feet with her tears.” Here the order of things is changed: heaven always gives rain to the earth; see, now the earth waters heaven, or rather the shower of human tears leaps above the heavens and up to the Lord himself, so that, according to the Psalmist, this may be sung also of the waters of weeping: “And let the waters that are above the heavens praise the name of the Lord” (Ps 148:4–5). “She wet his feet with her tears.” Oh, how great is the power in the tears of sinners! They water heaven, wash the earth, extinguish Gehenna, blot out the sentence passed by divine decree against every crime. “And she wiped them with the hair of her head.” She washes the Lord's feet with tears and wipes them with her hair. Poverty has no excuse, and inhumanity will have no pardon, because nature suffices wholly for the service of the Creator. “And she wiped them with the hair of her head.” The wave flowed back onto the sinner's head to cleanse her crimes, so that the woman, from her own spring, might wash away the filth of her sins in a new baptism. “And she wiped them with the hair of her head”: so that, according to the Psalmist, she might turn to holiness by such service the crown of hair (Ps 68:21) in which she had walked in her offences. “And she kissed his feet.” The tears had gone before as intercessors so that devout kisses might follow, because tears are the proof of satisfaction, kisses the signs of reconciliation. “And she anointed them with ointment.” We know from another evangelist that a woman poured oil on the Lord's head (Matt 26:7); so what this woman does is not a soft and fleshly service but a sacrament of the full humanity; because in Christ's head is God, in his feet are those who preach peace. Pray, brothers, that we too may be found worthy to be counted in some measure in the Lord's anointing, and to be anointed with the ointment poured on the Saviour's feet; because, as it is an offering when the ointment is offered, so it is a perfect chrism when it overflows from the Lord's footsteps. Whose type this woman bears, or how great a secret she prefigures, we shall say, God granting, when what follows is explained.