Sermons 138

Dearly beloved brethren, he who granted you to believe himself taught you also to pray, and fitted the whole form of asking into few words, because when the Son asks the Father, prayers labor not to be many. For as necessity compels the child to ask, so charity urges the Begetter to give. The Father therefore, who gives freely, shows not so much that he may be asked, as what may be asked; that the Son may please by asking things just, who could displease by asking foolish things. Hear the Father, and believe now that you are sons, that you may be able without hesitation to obtain what you ask. What faith avails, what trust can do, how great confession is, is today shown in us. Behold, the threefold confession of the Trinity has raised you from earthly servitude into heavenly offspring:

behold, the faith which confessed God to be Father has today acquired for you God as Father; behold, the voice which confessed the Son of God has adopted you as sons of God; behold, the belief which proclaimed God the Spirit has changed you from the mortal substance of flesh into the vital substance of the Spirit. Who is found worthy to be the maintainer of so great a tenderness? God the Father deigns to have men as heirs; God the Son does not disdain little servants as coheirs; God the Spirit takes up flesh in the heights as a consort in the jurisdiction of divinity, as the Apostle proves when he says: 'Know you not that we shall judge angels?'

Call therefore upon the Lord as Father, and believe yourselves already, though not yet born, to be nevertheless designated sons, and give diligence that yours may be the heavenly life, that yours may be divine ways, and that the whole form of the Godhead may be set forth in you as into the Son: because the heavenly Father enriches with divine gifts the sons who answer to their lineage, but the degenerate he recalls to penal servitude. 'Our Father, who art in heaven.' Conscience would sink under such servants, the earthly condition would be dissolved, unless the authority of the Father himself, the Spirit of the Son himself, roused us to this cry. 'God,' it says, 'hath sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father.' The mind grows weary, the flesh fails for divine things, unless God himself fulfil what he bids to be done, who bids it.

When did mortality ever dare to call upon the Father, save only now, when men on earth are animated by supernal power? 'Our Father, who art in heaven.' O man, what hast thou in common with earthly things, who confessest that thy kin is in heaven? Therefore show forth the heavenly life in thine earthly dwelling, for if earthly thought carry on anything in itself, thou hast brought a stain upon heaven, an injury upon the heavenly lineage. 'Hallowed be thy name.' We do not ask that God hallow thy name, which by its own holiness saves and hallows the whole creation. Brethren, this is the name at which the supernal powers tremble, which they receive in dread servitude; this is the name that puts demons to flight; this is the only name that absolves souls held captive by the devil's savagery;

this is the name that gives salvation to a lost world. But we ask that the name of God be hallowed in us by our conduct. For when we do well the name of God is blessed, when we do ill it is blasphemed. Hear the Apostle saying: 'The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles.' We ask therefore, we ask, that as much as the name of God is holy, so much may we merit holiness in our ways. 'Thy kingdom come.' We now pray that the kingdom of Christ may come, as though it had not always so been. And where is that kingdom of God? It is within us. It is within us by faith, but we supplicate that it may come indeed.

Brethren, when the devil, by the manifold kind of his wickednesses and by the many-sided art of deceiving, disturbs the face of things, confounds the senses and morals of men, rages, storms among sacrilegious idols, deceives by auguries, lies by divination, beguiles by signs, mocks by arts, occupies with spectacles, besieges with vices, wounds with sins, gashes with crimes, casts down by despair, he prolongs the kingdom of Christ and keeps it absent from us. We ask therefore that the time may come when, the author of so great an evil perishing, the whole world, the whole creation, may reign wholly for Christ alone, may triumph unto glory, and that what follows may come to pass: 'as in heaven, so also on earth.'

Let the one will of the Lord be earth, heaven, life, God; let time be eternity, our homeland be rest, our wealth be innocence, our honor be immortality, our fury be chastity, and God be all in all. He added: 'Give us this day our daily bread.' After the Fatherhood of God, after the holiness of the divine Name, after the kingdom of heaven, we are bidden to ask for daily bread. Christ is not subject to forgetfulness; Christ does not command things contrary to His own precepts. He Himself says: 'Do not be anxious about what you shall eat, or what you shall drink' (Matthew 6:31).

But because there is a Bread which came down from heaven, which was ground in the mill of the Law and of grace, which was made ready in the flour of the cross, which was baked in the passion of the cross, which was leavened by the great sacrament of piety, which lifted the raising of the dough out of the tomb, which, glowing with the heat of its own divinity, itself scorched the oven of hell, which is borne daily to the table of the Church as heavenly food, which is broken for the remission of sins, which nourishes those who eat it and feeds them unto everlasting life — this Bread we ask to be given us daily, until we come to enjoy it fully on that perpetual day. 'And forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.'

O man, the power of pardon lies within you, its indulgence is in you, you have been made the author of your own remission. In vain do you ask pardon, you who scorn to grant indulgence to another. O man, you have made yourself the very measure of mercy: as much mercy as you seek, so much extend. 'And lead us not into temptation.' Temptation, brethren, is a thing deceptive in appearance, which prospers amid adversities and hides adversity amid prosperity, and by treacherous falls leads human ignorance astray. We ask, therefore, that we may not fall into the pits of temptations under the impulse of sin. Now the Lord is said to 'lead into' temptation those rushing toward crimes when He abandons them. 'But deliver us from evil.' Here 'evil' designates the author of evil, that is, the devil. We ask therefore for one thing:

that by this gift we may be free from all evils together with the evil author. 'Our Father who art in heaven.' Let no one who cries out that he is a son wonder that he still abides in the garb of servitude. Today you have been marked out for the divine race; you should know that you have obtained, not yet the reality, but the ready hope. Hear the Apostle: 'By hope we are saved; but hope that is seen is not hope; for what a man sees, why does he hope for? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience' (Romans 8:24). Today is the day of adoption, today is the time of promise. Hear, believe, wait: believe your creditor, who trusted you His debtor; wait a little while until He come, who long bore with you that you might come. Grant Him a delay — but to the Promiser, who has already forgiven you whatever was owed.

Why do you grow weary in the hope of God? Live by faith. The farmer would never sow, panting with toil, if he did not in due season hope for the fruit of his labor; the traveler would not undergo the toil of a long journey, unless he believed he would reach his destination; the sailor would not enter the uncertain deep, if he did not weigh the perils against the gains that follow; the soldier would not spend all the seasons of his youth amid dangers, if he did not hope for the abundant honors of old age; the son would not endure the years of his father's rule, if he did not hope to be heir of his father's estate. Do you likewise, if now you believe yourself a son of God, according to the prophet: 'Wait, act manfully, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord' (Psalm 26/27:14).

Wait, that as heir of God you may attain it by the faith of expectation and by the virtue of patience. Hear the Apostle: 'We are the sons of God, but it does not yet appear what we shall be. When it appears, we shall be like Him' (1 John 3:2). And again: 'Our life is hidden with Christ: when Christ your life shall appear, then you also shall appear with Him in glory' (Colossians 3:3-4). Brethren, blessed are the sons of God, for they shall possess the inheritance of all things, and they shall not see the times of mourning at the passing of the Father,