In themselves divine things are always sufficient unto themselves; yet for this reason they are frequently intimated to men by human examples, because heavenly providence attends not to what it might itself say, but to what the hearer is able to grasp. Thus a spring at first bursts forth through the slender passages of its veins, and creeps gradually along narrow rivulets, until with worthy increase it breaks forth into the full breadth of rivers and pours itself out in strength. And, to speak to you of ourselves: when a little one is born, nature soon prepares for it a fitting nourishment, changing food into drink, and by the long infusion of milk it composes the mouth still numb and the sluggish inner passages for the use of more solid fare. So the Lord raises and forms us to receive divine things by homely examples, saying:
Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go to him at midnight, and shall say to him: Friend, lend me three loaves, because a friend of mine has come off his journey to me, and I have nothing to set before him; and he from within should answer, Trouble me not, for the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give thee? I say to you, if he shall not rise and give him because he is his friend, yet on account of his importunity he will rise, and give him as many as he needs (Luke 11). O how willing to give is he who suffers himself to be so disturbed, so roused! O how he wishes it to seem a matter of necessity, which is within his own power! O how eager was this one to run to meet him that knocks, who thus
placed the very chamber of his own secret retreat at the door! O how unwilling was he to refuse, who showed to himself, even while refusing, in what manner it might be wrung from him! O how the Lord was not merely at the door, but was himself the door! I am, he says, the door (John 10)—he who alone and first, while the servants slept, came to meet the need of the one knocking. O how loving, how merciful is he who both proves and shapes by examples what he teaches by commandments! When thou dost alms, he says, sound not a trumpet. And again: Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth (Matt. 6). Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go to him at midnight?
It was too little that night should veil him who was showing mercy, and that the importunity of the one asking should conceal the bounty of the giver, unless, to crown the mercy that was to be hidden, sleep too were reckoned in. In this kindly account he sets forth a twofold aspect of necessity, of the one asking and of the one sleeping, so that need might compel the guest to ask, and sleep compel the other to give: seeing that he says he will therefore give to him in time, in that he seems not so much to meet his friend as to run back to his sleep; and that he might be allowed rather to sleep than be pleased to give to one so asking. What more? Behold, for the one knocking, sleep proved a greater advocate than sound. Nor do I think it idle that he thus opens and thus marks out the hour of asking, saying: Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go to him at midnight?
As though it were not at the first, and the second, and the third hour of the night, when sweet slumber first pours itself into the bodies of sleepers and glides, whole and pleasant, into the inward parts wearied by the day's toil, that the importunity of one disturbing them is troublesome and harsh. But this is the hour that displays the devout and continual resolve of one who watches through the night; this is the hour when the soul, burning between past labors and those to come—yet burning for divine things—indulges nothing to the body, nothing to rest: but before it has finished the works of the day just past, it already begins and anticipates those of the day to come. This hour is fully effective for obtaining. Knowing this, the prophet declares that this very time was the time of his supplication, singing: At midnight I rose to give praise to thee (Ps. 118).
At this hour the heavenly Bridegroom always meets those who are watching, he who says: At midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh (Matt. 25). He could not fail to obtain what he willed, who, that he might receive his guest and refresh him, denied all rest to himself. Or how should he not answer one thus asking, thus knocking, who confesses that he himself is received in the guest, when he says: I was a guest, and you took me in (Matt. 25)? I judge that the one knocking said this, or perhaps put it otherwise: I have done what thou commandedst; render what thou didst promise. I believed thee when thou saidst: Be not solicitous for the morrow (Matt. 6). Wherefore for yesterday's guest I have nothing left to set before him:
if I, having thus much, am troublesome to thee, how much more troublesome to me was he, having nothing? And yet I could not excuse myself to him, because I strove to obey thee. Here the modesty due to one who commands labors more than that due to one who has nothing. A guest is in the house, and thou art sleeping—nay, thou art sleeping who dost not sleep. I have received a guest; unless thou give bread, it is thou who hast denied bread to the guest. Deservedly did this gospel money-lender bestow upon one who thus knocked, who thus asked, as many loaves as he needed. What of those who lay themselves not in a bed, but in the very tomb? who deliver themselves not to sleep, but to death? whom the cock does not rouse, the morning star does not waken, the sun itself does not recall and lead forth into the light?
These men have lost both the time for supplication, and the reward of the guest, and the very works of the day. We are grieved, brethren, when at dawn we stand before the Lord, and do not see our own children with us. He at the middle of the night thus knocked, in whose house a guest had come. I ask thee, why dost thou not watch, at least at dawn, thou who hast a guest in the house? What that man rendered to grace, do thou render at least to sloth; what he rendered to kindness, do thou render at least to necessity—thou who art a lover of sleep more than of thyself. Surely, that thou who sleepest unto death mayst be able to watch unto life, hearken to what follows: And I say to you, he says, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you. For every one that asketh, receiveth; and he that seeketh, findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
But thou sayest: Granted that I can ask, how shall I be able to knock at the heavenly secret? In what manner? By repeating prayers, and awaiting the judgment of the Bountiful One, most patiently enduring the delays of the Giver; for whoever, when he has once knocked, is straightway indignant if he be not heard, is no humble petitioner, but an imperious exactor. Hear the prophet saying: Wait for the Lord, do manfully, and let thy heart take courage (Ps. 26). And if again he shall defer it to the future, do thou patiently wait for thy Lord. But when thou wouldst know what thou oughtest to seek: there are riches in the bosom of the poor, and the kingdom of heaven is within thee. The kingdom of heaven is within you, saith the Lord (Luke 17).
But who is the friend who sleeps, and who is the friend who comes off the journey, and who are the children who sleep, and who is this one who knocks, and why under a fixed number he asks for three loaves only—when I shall have asked, sought, knocked, and as a persevering troubler shall have deserved to receive, I will not deny to you the friends of my Lord. But you say to me: Behold, a friend of thy Lord has come to thee; this one is wont to give, not to receive; this satchel, then, the eager shepherd has filled from the abundance of his own provision for the journey, that he might taste of the paltry preparation of our poverty; nor did he suffer me, at the unseasonable hour of night, to seek guests elsewhere for him—he who is most rich in what he had. Nor is it any wonder, brethren: the rich man always wishes to give to the poor when he turns aside to lodge.
This friend of the gospel abides ever at the door; in this man's chamber that gospel bountiful giver perseveres with his children—he in whose heart the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit always make and establish their dwelling. What more? He is a Father: from him to ask, in him to seek, through him to knock—this I have believed; and therefore not as an incautious promiser did I assert that I would give myself to you.