All who lift up the hard labors of works and console their straits, prove that a chant has been given to us naturally for the solace of toil. Hence sailors overcome the perils of the sea by song; hence they draw immense weights by the relief of songs; hence a resounding voice makes travelers surmount steep hills; hence a song, going before the very warriors, urges them to undergo the bitterness of battles. And not to dwell on many things, whatever is of hard work, of toil, a sweet chant conquers and accomplishes.
So let us too, brethren, join divine canticles to the fast of Lent, that the heavenly symphony may temper and lighten the weight of abstinence, blessed David calling us to this, who, while with his pipe he soothed the beloved flock and delighted it in the pastures, learned by song to overcome the hardness of battles, by song availed to call the nations, to bring back the Jews, to put the demon to flight, to summon the sons of God to the obedience of the Father on high, as his melody, well inviting, has sung. 'Bring to the Lord,' he says, 'O sons of God' (Ps. 28:1). Do you think he so addresses the heavenly powers? Or does he fit men into sons of God? And does he lift earthly flesh up to a heavenly nature? 'Bring to the Lord, O sons of God.'
Men, brethren, men does this prophet here name, whom elsewhere he thus sings as sons of God: 'I have said, You are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High' (Ps. 81:6). We have heard, brethren, whither the divine condescension has borne us, whither the fatherhood on high has exalted us: let us believe ourselves sons of God, let us answer to our lineage; let us live for heaven; let us reflect the Father by likeness, lest we lose by vices what we have obtained by grace. 'Bring to the Lord, O sons of God.' You see that the heavenly Father perceives love by gifts, affection by what is given, proves charity by presents. And indeed, brethren, he knows not that he is a son, he lacks a heart, he denies his nature, he is ungrateful to the Father, who does not appease the Author of his life by services, does not win Him by worship, does not honor Him with gifts. 'Bring to the Lord, O sons of God.'
Let us see what that is which the prophet here admonishes and exhorts us to bring to so great a Father. 'Bring to the Lord, O sons of God, bring to the Lord the sons of rams.' This is the whole of what he requires, what he seeks. Is he admonishing that the offspring of sheep, the base progeny of an earthly flock, the young strewn along the road, the seed poured out over the fields, should be offered as a divine progeny to the divine Father? Or perhaps does God, the Creator of all, now require Judaic victims, bloody sacrifices, bleating victims beneath the knives? And where is that which He says: 'I will not take calves out of your house, nor he-goats out of your flocks, for all the beasts of the woods are Mine, the cattle on the mountains, and the oxen. I know all the fowls of the air, and the beauty of the field is with Me. If I should be hungry, I would not tell you:
for the world is Mine, and the fullness thereof' (Ps. 49:9-12). And if He rejected these things, what sons of rams does He demand to be brought to Him? He speaks to Abraham: 'Take your beloved son, and you shall offer him to Me for a holocaust' (Gen. 22). A ram Abraham, ripe unto innocence, aged unto faith, perfect unto the victim, ready for the holocaust, was bringing his son, the son of a ram: nay rather, he was immolating himself in his son.
He sanctified his mind, he gladdened his faith, that he might be at once both victim and pontiff, priest and sacrifice. There the whole passion was the father's, where the son was being immolated; the son, unknowing, was set forth, the son, unaware, was fitted with bonds, that he might take away from the passion of martyrs, the prize from the father's pain, and from the father's conflict snatch a crown. At length the father's right hand was stayed, the father's sword was withdrawn, because the son's death was not sought, but the father's charity was being tested: nor was the son's blood demanded, where the whole victim consisted in the father's love, as the Scripture says: 'Now I know that you love God, because you have not spared your only-begotten son for My sake' (Gen. 22:12).
We have said that Abraham is a ram, that we might prove Isaac the son of a ram: as if it were shining forth what sons of rams the prophet wills us to offer to the Lord. 'Bring to the Lord the sons of rams.' Sons of the fathers, of the patriarchs, of the prophets, of the apostles, of the martyrs, of the confessors, the Christian is now admonished to bring; when the Lord's flock is let loose to the pasture of faith, when the heavenly Shepherd wills His lambs to be brought to the Lord's fold, lest, scattered through the wild places of the nations, they be devoured by the assaults of wolves. But that the divine voice may admonish, let us now speak more plainly. 'Bring to the Lord the sons of rams.' Bring to the Lord those to be baptized, bring those whom faith may conceive, not the flesh; bring those whom the grace of God may beget, not worldly nature;
bring those whom innocence may render lambs, whom the dullness of cattle does not possess: bring, bring those whom either necessity forbids to come of their own accord, or age hinders, or ignorance retards, or vices hold fast, or offenses delay, or expectation deceives, or poverty misleads through shame; lead the willing, drag the unwilling, make for yourselves a reward out of another's necessity: if a master has a catechumen slave, let him bring him, that he may already have him faithful; let a father offer his son, let him not delay, that to him to whom he has furnished the present life, he may also confer the future. Let a husband lead his wife to the faith, lest what is one in the flesh be divided in spirit.
Let a friend draw his friend to salvation, that from divine grace he may prove human charity. Let a citizen lead the stranger, the possessor lead the guest to the table of God, that without his own expense he may be humane out of the divine abundance. Drag the unwilling: let no one say, 'He is unwilling,' for even Abraham, that he might offer his son, bound him (Gen. 22:9); and the angels, that they might snatch Lot from the flames, took him up, drawn out by their hands (Gen. 19:16); and the Lord girded Peter with the power of His help, that he might go to the martyrdom whither he was unwilling, saying: 'Another shall gird you, and lead you whither you will not' (John 21:18). And the heavenly Father not only receives the willing, but draws even the unwilling, the Son saying: 'No one can come to Me, unless the Father who sent Me draw him' (John
6:44). How does he believe himself a Christian, who does not lead the aged and the old to Christ? Or how does he judge his house to be a fold of God, where the pasture-fed offspring, the flock of God, gives no bleating? I beseech and adjure you, dearest brethren, through our Lord, that in this all of you may be watchful, so that in these days no one may be left an exile from the grace of God, no one from the divine regeneration, so that what God is about to confer on others by His grace may increase and overflow unto your joy. We are men living under uncertainty: and we know not what the coming day may bring forth (Prov. 27:1). Let us act, therefore, dearly beloved, lest slaves, lest sons, lest wives, lest parents, forestalled by death, be deprived both of the present life, and not attain to the future.