That this festival is more solemn than all festivals, the very novelty signifies. For just as the conversion of so great a people is a new occasion, and the Church's joys are nobler than usual: for the Church celebrates many solemnities throughout the course of the year, in which, although she has her accustomed joys, yet she does not have new ones such as in this. For she rejoices in one way over things ever possessed, in another over great gains newly found. For which reason we too are lifted up with greater joys, because we behold the Church to have suddenly brought forth new peoples; and those whose harshness we once groaned over, over their belief we now rejoice. Therefore the matter of our joy was the occasion of past tribulation. We groaned while we were burdened, while we were reproached;
but those groans brought it about that these, who through unbelief were a burden to us, should become our crown through their conversion. For the Church utters this gratefully in the Psalms, saying: 'In tribulation You have enlarged me' (Psalm 4); and just as Sara, though often coveted by kings, feels no stain of chastity, and makes Abraham rich by reason of her beauty (Genesis 20); for by those very kings Abraham is enriched, by whom Sara is coveted. Fittingly therefore the Catholic Church transfers to the gains of her Bridegroom, that is, of Christ, the nations whom she has perceived to be attracted by the beauty of her own beauty, and through those kingdoms renders her husband rich, by which she had felt herself disquieted;
for thus, while from the beginning she is provoked, or bitten by the teeth of the envious, while she is pressed, she is instructed; and while she is persecuted, she is enlarged. Since by her patience she either overcomes or wins her rivals. For the divine word says to her: 'Many daughters have gathered together riches, but you have surpassed them all' (Proverbs 31). If it is no wonder that heresies are called daughters, yet it is to be noted that they are set in the place of thorns: they are daughters, in that they are begotten of Christian seed; they are thorns, in that they are nourished outside the paradise of God, that is, outside the Catholic Church; and this is proved not by the conjecture of our own understanding, but by the authority of divine Scripture, Solomon saying:
'As the lily among thorns, so is my beloved among the daughters' (Song of Songs 2). Therefore, lest it seem a great thing to you that He has called heresies lilies, He immediately reckons them to be thorns; heresies, I say, are found to dwell either in some corner of the world, or in a single nation. But the Catholic Church, just as she is extended throughout the whole world, so also is she constituted by the fellowship of all nations. Rightly therefore the heresies, in the caverns wherein they lurk, gather in part riches: but the Catholic Church, enriched in the watchtower of the whole world, surpasses the universe. Exult therefore, and rejoice, O Church of God, be glad, and rise up as the one body of Christ, put on strength, and shout with exultation;
since your mournings have been turned into joy, your habit of sadness has been changed into a garment of gladness. Behold, suddenly forgetful of your barrenness and poverty, in one birth you have brought forth countless peoples to your Christ. For by your losses you profit, and by your damage you grow: so great in short is your Bridegroom, by whose command you are governed, that while He suffers you to be plundered for a little, He brings your prey back again to you, and procures your enemies for you. So too the farmer, so the fisherman, while he attends to future gains which he sows, and which he will hereafter gather, does not reckon his losses. Do you therefore now no longer weep, nor mourn, that some have for a time withdrawn from you, whom you behold to have returned to you with great gains.
Exult therefore in the confidence of faith, and by the merit of your Head, be strong in faith; while you now behold those things which you recall were once promised to have been fulfilled. For Truth Himself says in the Gospel: 'It was fitting that Christ should die for the nation, and not only for the nation, but that He might gather together into one the sons of God who were scattered abroad' (John 11). You indeed proclaim in the Psalms, saying to those who hate peace: 'Magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together' (Psalm 33); and again: 'In the gathering together of the peoples into one, and the kingdoms, that they may serve the Lord' (Psalm 102).
Not unaware of how sweet charity is, how delightful unity, you proclaim through the prophetic oracles, through the Gospel pronouncements, through the apostolic teachings nothing but the joining of the nations; you sigh for nothing but the unity of the peoples; you sow abroad nothing but the goods of peace and of charity. Rejoice therefore in the Lord, since you have not been cheated of your desire; for those whom over so long a time, with your groaning as witness and with unceasing prayer, you conceived, now after the ice, after the winter, after the harshness of the cold, after the severity of the snow, you have suddenly brought forth in joy, as it were the gladness of the fields, the harvest, and the glad flowers of spring, or the shoots smiling upon the vine-stocks.
Therefore, brethren, with the whole charity of our soul let us exult in the Lord, and let us shout for joy to God our Saviour. Henceforth, by means of those things that have already been accomplished, let us believe that those things which are still awaited shall truly be fulfilled. For the things foretold, when the Lord said, 'I have other sheep, that are not of this fold, and them also I must bring, that there may be one flock and one shepherd' (John x), behold, we now see to have been fulfilled. For which reason let us not doubt that the whole world is able to believe in Christ and to come together into one Church. For again, with Him Himself bearing witness, we have learned in the Gospel: 'And this Gospel of the kingdom,' He says, 'shall be preached in the whole world, for a testimony to all nations; and then,' He says, 'shall the consummation come' (Matt. xxiv).
If then there yet remains some part of the world, or some barbarous nation, which the faith of Christ has not illumined, let us in no way doubt that it shall surely come to believe and come into the one Church, if we hold that what the Lord said is true. Therefore, brethren, goodness has been set in the place of malice, and truth has met error; so that, whereas pride had separated the nations from union by the diversity of tongues, charity might gather them again, now made one stock, into her bosom; and just as the Lord is the one possessor of the whole world, so too of His possession there should be one heart and one soul: 'Ask of me,' He says, 'and I will give thee the nations for thine inheritance, and the ends of the earth for thy possession' (Psalm ii).
For this reason too, the whole race of mankind was propagated from one man, so that those who proceeded from that one man might be of one mind, might seek and love unity. The natural order therefore demands that those who draw their origin from that one man should hold mutual charity, and that they who are not severed by their natural lineage should not dissent from the truth of the faith. But heresies and divisions flow from the fountain of vices; whence whoever comes to gentleness returns from vice to nature: because, just as it belongs to nature to make a unity out of many, so it belongs to vice to turn aside from the sweetness of brotherhood. Let us therefore be lifted up with our whole mind, in joy;
so that, because the nations had perished through their zeal for strife, Christ might secure for Himself in friendship one Church, in which the concord of charity might lead them back again. Concerning this Church the prophet most surely prophesies, saying: 'My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations' (Isa. lvi); and again: 'It shall come to pass,' he says, 'in the last days, that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be prepared on the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it, and many peoples shall go and shall say: Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob' (Ibid.). For the mountain is Christ, and the house of the God of Jacob is His one Church, to which he declares that both the concourse of the nations and the assembly of the peoples flow together;
Concerning which the prophet again says in another place: 'Arise, be enlightened, O Jerusalem, for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee; and the nations,' he says, 'shall walk in thy light, and kings in the brightness of thy rising. Lift up thine eyes round about, and see: all these are gathered together, and are come to thee; and,' he says, 'the children of strangers shall build up thy walls, and their kings shall minister to thee' (Isa. lx). And that it might be made known what would come upon the nation or people that had fallen away from the communion of the one Church, he continued: 'For the nation and the kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish' (Isa. lx). And in yet another place he likewise says: 'Behold, thou shalt call a nation which thou knewest not;'
'and nations that knew thee not shall run to thee.' For there is one Christ the Lord, whose throughout the whole world is one Church, His holy possession; He therefore is the head, and she the body, of whom it is said at the beginning of Genesis: 'They shall be two in one flesh' (Gen. ii); which the Apostle understands of Christ and of the Church. Since therefore Christ wills to have one Church out of all nations, whoever is a stranger to her, though he be called by the name of Christ, is nevertheless not contained within the framework of Christ's body (Eph. v). For heresy, which spurns the unity of the catholic Church, in that it loves Christ with an adulterous love, holds not the place of a wife but of a concubine. Since indeed Scripture says that the two are in one flesh;
namely Christ and the Church, in which the harlot finds no third place. For 'one is my friend,' says Christ, 'one is my bride, one is the daughter of her that bore her' (Cant. vi). Concerning whom likewise the Church herself declares, saying: 'I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine' (Cant. vii). Let the heresies now seek out by whom they are defiled, or whose brothel they have become: since they have departed from the spotless marriage-bed of Christ; from whom, by how much we know the bond of charity to be precious, by so much let us praise God with this solemn celebration: that the nations, for whom the blood of His Only-begotten was shed, He has not suffered to be devoured by the teeth of the devil outside the one fold.
Let the old lethargic plunderer therefore lament that he has lost his prey, for we see fulfilled what we heard the prophet foretelling (Isa. xlix): 'Surely,' he says, 'this captivity shall be taken away from the strong, and that which had been carried off by the mighty shall be saved'; for the wall of discord which the devil had built, the peace of Christ has destroyed; and the house which by division strove for mutual slaughter is now joined together by Christ, the one corner-stone. Let us all therefore say: 'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will' (Luke ii). For no reward can be set against charity. Hence it is set above all joy, because charity too has been made, which holds the primacy among all the virtues.
It remains, however, that we, all having been made one kingdom with one accord, should approach God with our prayers, both for the stability of the earthly kingdom and for the felicity of the heavenly kingdom; that the kingdom and the nation which has glorified Christ on earth may be glorified by Him not only on earth, but also in heaven. Amen.