As gold lies hidden in the earth, so the divine meaning is concealed in human words: and therefore, as often as the Lord's sayings are opened to us, let the mind be watchful, let the soul be attentive, that the understanding may be able to enter into the secret of heavenly knowledge. Why, then, the Lord began thus today, let us hear. 'Take heed,' He says, 'to yourselves' (Luke 12). What means this novelty of expression? Whither tends this admonition beyond the ordinary? 'Take heed,' He says, 'to yourselves.' He takes heed to himself who does not intrude troublesome, shameless, and curious upon the deeds of others. 'Take heed,' He says, 'to yourselves.' The roving eye, the wanton gaze, the shameless look does not regard its own affairs, but runs to those of others, and hastens down into ruin; blind to its own crimes, it sees clear through to the errors of others;
ignorant of its own evils, it is the accuser and witness of others' evils; lukewarm toward its own guilt, but toward another's, even an innocent man's, it flames up and boils and burns in scrutiny. And, not to be long, as the Lord said: 'The eye that sees not the beam in itself, sees the mote in another' (Matthew 7). Is not the eye the author of transgression? 'And the woman saw,' it says, 'that the tree was good to eat, and pleasant to the eyes to behold' (Genesis 3). The doorway of death, the torch of envy, the furnace of spite, with all the burning of cupidity runs through others' affairs more swiftly than fire runs through dry and earthy stubble. It is God's work that the eye, so open upon the world, is narrowed and confined into the tiny pupil, so that with measure it may see, not envy; may foresee, not seize headlong;
may look forward, not look down in scorn: let the eye be the window of the soul, the mirror of the mind, the light of the body, the leader of the members, not the entrance of vices. But let us return to what was said before. 'Take heed,' He says, 'to yourselves.' He said not 'to you' in the singular, but 'to yourselves,' because whatever a man takes heed to in another, he takes heed to in himself; and as much as he himself sees in another, so much will another see in him, as becomes clear from what follows: 'If thy brother,' He says, 'sin against thee, rebuke him; and if he do penance, forgive him.' Come, O man, at God's command, forgive, forgive sins: be merciful toward offences; be thou the remitter of sins committed against thee; only see that thou do not lose in thyself the badges of divine power; whatever thou dost not remit to another, thou wilt deny to thyself in another.
'If thy brother sin against thee,' He says, 'rebuke him.' Rebuke as a judge, as a brother remit; for charity joined to freedom, and freedom mixed with charity, both restrains terror and raises up the brother. A brother is in a fever when he wounds, he is in a frenzy when he sins against his neighbor, he is beside himself, he is a stranger to his own humanity: whoever does not come to his aid through compassion, whoever does not tend him through patience, does not restore him to health. He is not well, he is sick, he is diseased, he has no bowels of feeling, and shows himself estranged from human sense. Your brother rages; attribute it to sickness; help him as a brother; attribute what is thus done to the fever, and you will not be able to charge the offence to your brother; and prudently you will assign the fault to the infirmity, and to your brother pardon;
so that his health may redound to your glory, and his pardon overflow to your reward. 'If thy brother,' He says, 'sin against thee, rebuke him; if he do penance, forgive him.' Let no one who hears this take to himself the office of censure while remitting it to himself, and by vain presumption fasten the role upon the offending brother, and so think it a hard thing to remit offences. Let a man reckon himself a sinner, and one who will sin: and then he begins to love pardon, not to love vengeance. You hear that you ought to remit, but that it ought to be remitted to you, you do not hear. You too will sin, and against the very man who has sinned against you today: and he will be your judge, who before was guilty toward you, and he will render you pardon, if you gave it:
if you did not give it, either he will deny you pardon, or if he grants it, he will charge you more than he bestows. Remit to the one who sins, remit to the one who repents, so that when you sin, it may be repaid you in pardon, not merely bestowed as a gift. Pardon is always good, but then most sweet when it is owed. He has conquered punishment, forestalled the judge, escaped judgment, who by remitting has provided pardon for himself before he even offended. 'And if seven times,' He says, 'in the day he sin against thee, and seven times in the day be converted to thee, saying, I repent, thou shalt forgive him.' Why does He bind pardon with a limit, straiten it with a number, close it with an end, which He so knocks open through mercy and loosens through grace? What if seven times, what if eight times? Does number conquer grace? Does a reckoning stand against goodness?
and does one fault sentence to punishment the man whom seven pardons have already acquitted for the deeds committed? Far be it. For as blessed is he who remitted seven times, so more blessed is he who remitted seventy times seven. Peter, forgetful of this command, asks the Lord, saying: 'If my brother sin against me, how often shall I forgive him? seven times?' (Matthew 18). The Lord answered: 'Not only seven times, but seventy times seven.' The number prescribed, therefore, does not straiten pardon, but enlarges it, and what it fixes by precept, it leaves without end to free choice; so that if you remit as much as He has commanded, so much shall be to Him of obedience, so much of reward. But the seventh number, which seems a small number, is found most ample in mystery:
for the seventh number, advancing by days, makes the sabbath, which the Lord blessed and set apart for rest, both from His own work and from human labor. The seventh number, running through eight-fold reckonings, so multiplies the weeks sevenfold that it concludes Pentecost, fulfilled for us in the solemnity of the mystery, and then pours out the whole shower of the Holy Spirit upon the harvest of the Church with a heavenly sound. The seventh number, when it hastens through months, consecrates for us the feasts of the seventh month with all the sanctity of fasting (Leviticus 23). The seventh number, when it goes through years, makes the weeks, makes the year that gives rest to the land, and looses all the bonds of brotherly obligation (Deuteronomy 15).
(Deuteronomy 15). The seventh number of years, when it circles round the weeks, brings the fiftieth year, which is called the Jubilee, to the whole fullness of pardon and remission (Leviticus 25); so that servitude may be taken away and liberty return; so that the documents and records of debt-bonds may be broken; so that the debtor may rise again and the debt lie buried; so that the field may return to the poor man, and every contract of the rich man born of covetousness may perish. And if the seventh number, multiplied sevenfold through days, through months, through years, has conferred all of remission and pardon, what the seventh number multiplied seventy times seven can bring, let the Christian estimate and the hearer attend.
Then truly shall cease the contract of credit and of debt, then truly shall all the condition of servitude be abolished, then shall that liberty come without end, then shall the eternal field return, destined to live forever. There shall come, there shall come the true remission then, when even the very necessity of sinning shall be abolished, when, uncleanness perishing, the world truly cleansed shall at last be called clean, when, life returning, there shall be no death, when, Christ reigning, the devil shall at last perish. Pray, brethren, that the Lord may increase our faith, so that we may be able to believe, to see, and to hold these good things. Let now the clear-sighted purity of our eyes be sufficient, that it may be able to gaze upon the brightness of the divine dawning:
for if the whole soundness or purity of our eyes scarcely endures the radiance of the rising sun, how great a sincerity of the inner sight must be prepared, that it may be able to bear the splendor of its rising and radiant Author? 'Now in the sixth month,' it says, 'the angel Gabriel was sent into a city of Galilee whose name was Nazareth, to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph' (Luke 1). Place, time, person the holy evangelist marks out, that the truth of the account may be confirmed by the manifest tokens of the very facts. 'The angel was sent,' it says, 'to a virgin espoused.' To a virgin God sends His winged bearer: for he gives the earnest-pledge and receives the dowry who bears the grace;
he brings back faith and delivers the gifts of virtue, who presently unlooses the pledge of virginal consent. The swift messenger flies over to the bride, that he may fence off and suspend from the human espousal the affection due to God as bridegroom, and may not take away the virgin from Joseph, but restore her to Christ, to whom she was pledged in the womb when she was formed. Christ, therefore, receives His own bride, He does not snatch away another's; nor does He make a separation, when He joins to Himself His whole creature in one body. But let us hear what the angel did: Entering in to her, he says: 'Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.' In this voice there is an offering, an offering of a gift, not a simple office of greeting. 'Hail.' That is, receive grace. Do not tremble, be not anxious concerning nature.
'Full of grace.' Because, while in others there is grace, in thee shall come the whole fullness of grace alike. 'The Lord is with thee.' What means, the Lord is in thee? Because He comes to thee not with the purpose of visiting, but glides into thee by a new mystery of being born. He fitly added: 'Blessed art thou among women.' Because in those in whom the curse punished the womb of Eve, in those same Mary, blessed, now rejoices, is honored, is looked up to. And she is now made truly the mother of the living through grace, who had stood forth as the mother of the dying through nature. 'Who, when she had heard, was troubled at his word.' What is this, that she sees the person, and is troubled at the word? Because the angel had come gentle in appearance, mighty in war, meek in habit, terrible in speech, uttering human things, promising divine.
Wherefore also the virgin, whom his appearance had lightly stirred, his voice troubled exceedingly; and her whom the presence of the one sent had little moved, the authority of the Sender shook with all its weight. And what more? Presently she felt the supreme Judge being received within her, where before she had seen and beheld the heavenly herald. For although by gentle motion, with pious affection, God turned the virgin to Himself as mother, the Lord turned His handmaid to Himself as parent, yet her womb was troubled, her mind shrank back, her very condition was made to tremble, when God, whom the whole creation cannot contain, received Himself wholly within her breast and enclosed the human. 'And the Virgin was pondering,' it says, 'what this salutation might be.' Let your charity observe, as we have said, that the Virgin consented to the salutation not of words, but of things;
and that the voice was not of common courtesy, but the whole force of supernal power. The Virgin ponders, therefore, because to answer quickly is of human facility, but to ponder is of the greatest weight and of a most mature judgment. He little knows how great God is, who does not stand amazed at this Virgin's mind, who does not marvel at her spirit: heaven is awed, the angels tremble, the creation cannot sustain it, nature does not suffice, and one maiden so receives God within the breast of her heart, so takes Him in, so delights Him with her hospitality, that she demands, as the very rent for the house, peace for the earth, glory for the heavens, salvation for the lost, life for the dead, kinship of things earthly with things heavenly, the commerce of God Himself with the flesh; that she may gain, as the wage of her very womb, and may fulfill that word of the prophet: 'Behold, the inheritance of the Lord are children, the reward,
the fruit of the womb' (Psalm 127). But now let the sermon conclude, that concerning the childbearing of the Virgin, God granting and time allowing, we may speak more graciously.