Blessed Mark today, when he related that the Lord went about the villages of Galilee, disclosed His unspeakable tenderness toward us. 'And Jesus,' he says, 'went about the villages round about, teaching' (Mark VI). You have heard how He goes about, how His unwearied tenderness seeks you everywhere and for your sake. And He who Himself contains all things, is Himself contained by no creature, enters, and is straitened in your body, confines Himself within your dwellings. He becomes—He whose majesty the daily voice of the faithful attests, crying: 'The heavens and the earth are full of Thy glory'—for your sake He goes about, appears, is seen, and is held in places. Whither does the immovable fullness move; whither does He approach, or whence does He withdraw, He by whom all things are full?
And yet He goes, returns, descends, ascends, and God-man endures the whole, and for your sake, because He loves you exceedingly, cherishes you exceedingly. He takes on appearances, varies forms, exchanges offices: and now He shines fiery for you in the bush (Exod. III), that He may kindle you, cold with faithlessness, with the warmth of faith; now He glows flaming for you, heavenly, in the pillar (Exod. XIII), that, the darkness of your ignorance removed, you may run through the solitudes of this world the way of saving knowledge; now the same is turned for you into a pillar of cloud, that He may temper the burning heats of your souls: now He protects you like an eagle with the wings of wisdom, and provokes you to a heavenly flight, as Moses says:
'As an eagle protects its nest, and hovers over its young, spreading out its wings it took them, and bore them upon its shoulders. The Lord alone was their leader, and there was no strange god with them' (Deut. XXXII, according to the LXX). Now like a hen He brings forth, leads, calls, receives, protects, carries, cherishes, encircles, embraces (Matt. XXIII), and, forgetful of His own flight, for a time unmindful of His own freedom, He dwells in your inner chambers, He is engaged in your dust, that He may nourish, instruct, and train you with homely, familiar, domestic nourishments;
now like a good shepherd He alone seeks the wandering one on the highest mountains, alone finds it, alone lays it upon His own shoulders, and, lest you be assailed any longer by the bites of wolves in earthly pastures, He carries you up and leads you to the heavenly folds (Luke XV). Thus, as we have said, He takes on appearances, varies forms, and that He may change you for the better, He Himself so often changes and exchanges His own offices. And because the enemy had long gone about to plunder and devour, now of necessity Christ goes about to vindicate you, to snatch you away, as the Scripture says: 'Your adversary, like a roaring lion, goes about seeking whom he may devour' (1 Pet. V). 'And He called,' he says, 'the twelve.'
After the long ages of foul night, our eternal day, Christ, shone forth into light with the longed-for splendor of His dawn, who might fittingly fit His twelve hours into His twelve apostles. This day the blessed Psalmist saw in prophetic spirit, when he sang: 'This is the day which the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it' (Ps. CXVII). Whence also the Apostle calls believers sons of light and of faith: 'You are sons of light and of the day' (1 Thess. V). 'And He called the twelve.' This number twelve, by the number four, shows and forms for us a threefold chariot:
by which the whole Trinity is borne and carried throughout the whole world in apostolic courses, that it may vanquish the devil as a gentle warrior, that as a meek victor it may bow down the pride of the world, that as a peace-making combatant it may take away the discords of the nations, that, hell being destroyed—that is, the pit of sin—it may lead the freed captivity of the souls of the human race, long imprisoned, to the glory of its triumph. This chariot of the Trinity the blessed Psalmist saw in prophetic spirit, when he said: 'Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive, thou hast received gifts among men' (Ps. LXVII). This chariot the Lord was preparing for Himself, for His Father, and for the Holy Spirit, when He said: 'Take my yoke upon you, for my yoke is sweet, and my burden is light' (Matt. XI).
The bearer of mercy, the promoter of piety, knows not how to grow weary. That the twelve patriarchs, the twelve distinguished among the tribes (Gen. 49), the twelve springs of the desert (Exod. 15), the twelve stones of the Jordan lifted up from the river-bed (Josh. 4) were prefigured and shaped as an image of the apostolic number, we leave to the searcher of the Law to prove more deeply; for the sequence of the appointed reading strives to make clear to us why He sent the disciples two by two to preach. 'And He began to send them out two by two.' He sent them two by two, lest solitude, left destitute, should either deny Him, as Peter did, or flee, as John did (Mark 14). Human frailty falls quickly when, proudly trusting in itself, it despises its companions and refuses to have a colleague, as Scripture says:
'Woe to him that is alone when he falleth, for he hath not a second to lift him up' (Eccles. 4). But how much one is strengthened by the help of another the same Scripture testifies when it says: 'A brother that is helped by his brother is like a fortified city' (Prov. 18). 'And He began to send them out two by two.' Nor is it any wonder, brethren, if the Trinity, which from the number twelve mounted a threefold chariot, now ascends also a two-horse car; so that by the two heralds the calling of the two peoples might be shown, and the vocation of the nations might shine forth, as the Apostle says: 'Is God the God of the Jews only? Is He not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also' (Rom. 3); and that the prophecy of Isaiah might be fulfilled, who testifies that he saw the rider of a two-horse car, when he hears it said to him: 'What seest thou?'
and he answered, 'I see a rider on a two-horse car' (Isa. 21); whereupon he straightway cries that Babylon is fallen, and all her graven images. Who can doubt, brethren, that Christ rode His saving courses upon these two horses, when he sees that by the apostolic preaching the temples have collapsed, the idols have perished, the lowing of cattle and the sacrificial victims have ceased, and the very altars, together with the smoke of incense, have now for ages wholly vanished? These horses Habakkuk had seen when he cried: 'Thou that ridest upon Thy horses, and Thy riding is salvation' (Hab. 3). 'And He gave them,' it says, 'power over unclean spirits.' This is the mark of divine power;
this is the trophy of a singular triumph, that the plunderer himself is now handed over as a prey of his own prey, the devil who once held captives now made captive by his very own captives, once the binder now bound by those whom he had bound, so that he is subjected to the dominion of those over whose servitude he had once boasted himself glorious. Rightly does he grieve, rightly does he groan, rightly does he gnash his teeth, who sees himself struck down by the sentence of men, by the power of men—he who by long persuasion had for so long falsely made himself out to be God before men.
'And He charged them that they should take nothing for their journey, save a staff only; no scrip, no bread, no money in their purse.' When a man invites laborers to work, he pours out not only the necessities of food, but also a banquet with lavish provision, so that the feast of overflowing kindness may surpass the weight and toil of the work. How inhuman does he deem God who, when invited to His work, comes laden with scrip, bread, and money, and anxious too—so that either wearied or too slow the faithless laborer may come to the work, or perhaps may not be able to come at all! God promises abundant rewards, by so many bonds, by so many witnesses; He pledges a generous wage—and dost thou with impious spirit reckon that He will furnish thee neither bread nor clothing? When thou wast not, He gave thee to be;
and whatever thou hast, O man, He Himself has given; and when thou didst live for thyself and for thy own pleasures, He did not deny thee the necessities of sustenance: to thee then who servest Him with His own powers and His own works, dost thou reckon He will not lavish bread and clothing? This very thing which thou carriest in thy scrip and in thy purse, who gave it thee? Why dost thou come to insult Him with what is His own? He knows that thou art rich. Yield, O man, to thy own riches: thy poverty is wealth enough for thee; lay down the burdens of thy riches, for one laden cannot pass through the narrow way to the work of the Lord's harvest. Come unencumbered, come free to the labor, before, naked and stripped, thou be dragged as a faithless laborer to punishment; because, as it is written, 'Riches do not follow the dying man' (Ps. 48).
Let thy conscience be thy scrip; let thy life be thy bread; that Christ, the true bread, may be in thy life—He who said: 'I am the bread' (John 6). Let thy wage be thy reward, because he securely demands a reward from Christ who, that he might follow Christ, naked despised and faithfully cast away all that he had.