The order of today's reading has run well, that the evangelical woman, our mother, should receive from the Lord the leaven through which today this temple of such great holiness should be raised up and grow into a mass. For thus the Lord began: 'To what shall I liken the kingdom of God? It is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, until the whole was leavened' (Luke xiii).
The good Lord, Christ the lover of his own, repeats the likenesses of his kingdom, varies his comparisons, which he does not take from hidden things, nor seizes from heavenly things, but draws forth from daily use, sets forth from common intercourse, that it may reach every kind of man — which shall profit all — according to that word of the prophet: 'Hear these things, all you nations; give ear, all you that inhabit the world, both those born of earth and the sons of men, rich and poor together' (Ps. xlviii). If he were to bring forth into the midst anything of the hiddenness of the Godhead, anything of the royal secret, anything of the inner chambers of the rich, this the poor man would not know, mediocrity would not grasp it, simplicity would not have it known:
but now he speaks of what is known to the rich, familiar to the poor, common to all by the very necessity of life itself, because man is sought in the calling of God, and no person is distinguished in his calling. But let us take up again the likeness that was read. 'To what,' he says, 'shall I liken the kingdom of God?' By speaking thus he keeps his hearers' minds in suspense, and renders them stunned with utter amazement as to what could be compared to the kingdom of God, to the divine empire; and while they wander in mind through many and great things, the Lord of heaven finds and forms the model of his kingdom in the dwelling of a poor woman, in the hand of a bread-baking woman, saying: 'It is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, until the whole was leavened.'
Before, he compared his kingdom to a grain of mustard; now he makes it like leaven. Before, he recalled that a man received the grain of mustard; now he asserts that a woman received the leaven. Before, he said that the man sowed the tiny seed for the growth of a great tree; now he makes plain that the woman hid the small leaven for the advancement of the whole mass. Truly, as the apostle Paul said: 'Neither is the man without the woman, nor the woman without the man, in the Lord' (1 Cor. xi).
A varied likeness leads the different sexes to one kingdom, and the Christian calling does not separate the man from the woman, whom God joins, nature associates, and by a wondrous likeness renders alike; their bearing makes them similar, their form composes them, and God brings it about that, as it were, one man is two and two are one, the one being another self to the other in the conjugal bond; lest there be either a singleness left destitute, or a joining confused. But why does the Lord produce these likenesses of his kingdom through man and woman? Why does he form so great a majesty by such lowly, such unequal examples? Brethren, a precious mystery lies hidden in this lowliness, as the Apostle says: 'This is a great mystery, but I speak in Christ and in the Church' (Eph. v).
By these comparisons the chief business of the human race is transacted; through man and woman the cause of the world, handled through the ages, is brought to its end: Adam the first man, and the first woman Eve, from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. iii), are led to the fervour of the evangelical mustard, that the eyes which the alluring tree, by opening, had closed, the mustard-tree, by the eye-salve of its grain and by its very sharpness, while it closes might open; that the mouth which the taste of the poisonous tree had infected, the healing tree might heal by the fiery savour of its taste; and that this tree by its fiery nourishment might kindle the conscience with all the ardour of its way of life, which that other tree had already made cold with all its chill.
Nor here does nakedness either act shamefully or is confounded, where pardon covers the whole man, and the clothing of faith makes him warm: but this is bestowed by the grain of mustard, which the man received, upon the woman. But what is conferred upon man by the leaven which the woman received, let us more carefully investigate. 'The kingdom of God,' he says, 'is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of flour.' The matter is drawn from everyday use: the man sows the mustard-tree in the field, at home the woman prepares the leaven and makes loaves for nourishment, because labour awaits the man out of doors, while domestic care confines the woman within.
Hence it is that Sarah, barren and aged, out of this preparation of leaven, and out of three measures, offers three loaves baked in ashes to the Lord's hospitality and sets them before him in mystic service (Gen. xviii), that the barrenness of the world, wholly shut up in old age, might place in three measures — that is, in the equality of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit — the leaven of faith, and set before her Lord three loaves in the confession of the Trinity; and for this gift might be made wholly fruitful unto the offspring of a Christian progeny. But let us return to what was proposed. The woman received from God the leaven of faith, who had received from the devil the leaven of faithlessness;
she hid it in three measures, that is, in the three ages of men, which are from Adam to Noah, from Noah to Moses, from Moses to Christ; so that the woman who had corrupted the whole mass of the human race with the leaven of death in Adam, might restore whole the mass of our flesh with the leaven of resurrection in Christ; that the woman who had made the bread of groaning and of sweat, might bake the bread of life and of salvation; and might be the true mother of all the living through Christ, she who in Adam was the mother of all the dead. For on this account Christ willed to be born, that as through Eve death came to all, so through Mary life might return to all.
This Mary fulfils the type of this leaven, presents its likeness, seals its figure, when from on high she receives the leaven of the Word, and mingles the human flesh in the womb of the Virgin — nay rather, in the womb of the Virgin she mingled the whole heavenly leaven into the mass. But what allegorical sense abides in this likeness, let us now bring forth. The woman who received the leaven is the Church; the leaven which she received is the sacrament of heavenly doctrine; the three measures in which she is said to have hidden the leaven are the Law, the Prophets, and the Gospels, where the divine meaning is mystically hidden and concealed in the word, so as not to lie hidden from the faithful, but to lie hidden from the unfaithful. And in that he said, 'Until the whole was leavened,' this is what the Apostle says: 'We know in part, and we prophesy in part:'
'but when that which is perfect shall come, then those things which are in part shall cease' (1 Cor. xiii). In the mingling, knowledge is now divine: it sprinkles the understanding, lifts up the hearts, increases the wits, and in the manner of teachings widens, rouses, and spreads the increase to heavenly wisdom — the whole is leavened. When? At the coming of Christ.