Hemmed in by these straits, whither shall I betake myself, except to the holy footprints of charity? And I entreat her, that she may grant me to say something worthy of herself, which may both supply my ministry and satisfy your longing. 2. The four virtues of charity. They are not without one another. Nor is anyone holy without them. Among the other virtues of that same charity which the apostle Paul commemorates—that Charity envieth not, dealeth not perversely, is not provoked, is not puffed up, thinketh no evil, and the rest—at the last he briefly comprehends its four virtues, saying: It beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things; charity never falleth away.
From these four virtues of holy charity, then, it is fitting to speak to your Holiness, and it delights us first to consider how, like the four cardinal points containing the world, it possesses the whole earth. Let us seek, therefore, if it please you, some examples of the saints—namely, of those who were possessed by these virtues of holy charity; and let us assign to each single one these single virtues, so that we may know that all are in all: since everyone who piously bears, rightly believes; and everyone who rightly believes, hopes for something; and he who hopes, endures, lest he fall from hope. But now let us see who these are, whose faith, insofar as we are aided from above, we may be able to attain. The virtue of charity which beareth all things shone forth in holy Noah;
that which believeth all things, in holy Abraham; that which hopeth all things, in our fathers, that is, in the people of Israel, whence our Lord himself arose; that which endureth all things, in our very Head, our Lord Jesus Christ, who is true charity, which never falls. Nor let your Charity reckon the other saints strangers to these virtues; understand that they have been thus passed over on account of the brevity of time and the sermon undertaken, yet so that you may most certainly know that all are in Christ, and Christ is in all. 3. The first virtue of charity: to bear all things. But now let us see how holy Noah possessed, or rather was possessed by, the virtue of charity which beareth all things.
God foretold to him that, as the iniquity of men increased, he would destroy the world by a flood. At once, being warned, he fled to the wood, and after the sight of pleasant fields, he shut himself up in the narrow confines of the ark; he bears the roaring of the sky, the sound of the waters, the crash of the storm-clouds; and after all these things, he who is wont to rejoice in the fellowship of men becomes in a certain manner the companion of serpents and wild beasts. Nor does this man take fright that the beasts are with him in the ark: nay, there wildness acknowledges its order, because humanity has recognized itself; and they obey the man who commands, because they recognize that the man has obeyed a higher Lord. It was shown in Noah what Adam lost by despising what had been forbidden;
and it was demonstrated that men can even have dominion over beasts, if they subject themselves in obedience to the Creator. This holy man awaits and bears the end of the flood: nor before it is ended is the ark abandoned on account of the beasts (Genesis 6-8). The good man bears the wicked: and until at the end they are separated even in body, remaining within, he is separated in heart, not in body. 4. What must be granted to one who desires this. If you are any soul that desires to possess the virtue of charity which beareth all things, leave the world, flee to the wood of the cross, fear not the tempests and whirlwinds of this flood: you will not be drowned if you are borne by the wood; he who deigned to create knows how to govern, only let there be present the virtue of charity which beareth all things.
Let nothing tear you from the solidity of the ark. Remain good, and bear the wicked: for it is better that, placed within, you bear the wicked for the sake of the good, than that, going forth and perishing, you both abandon the good and perish with the wicked. If therefore there are beasts with you—that is, there are with you in the Church those who teach depravity, who hold false opinions, heretics or schismatics, or even wicked Catholics themselves, seeking after the manner of beasts to devour souls—let them be borne until the end of the age, as until the end of the flood. Though they roar, though they gnash their teeth and strive to break the very ark, be not dismayed: when the flood is ended, the empty and thorny forest shall snatch them away, while the fertile earth receives you:
after the end of the age, the impious shall be snatched away to the outer darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth; but the land of the living receives the pious (Matthew 25:30, 46). For holy Noah himself also, after the end of the flood, offered a sacrifice to God; but of clean animals, not of unclean (Genesis 8:20). For both clean and unclean animals were able to swim together in the ark, but the wicked did not attain to the sacrifice of God. 5. The second virtue of charity: to believe all things. It shines forth in Abraham, when he leaves all things. He does not doubt concerning his son. But now let us at length pass on from here, that we may be able to examine the rest. Let that holy Abraham come forth into the midst;
and let him teach us by his own example to possess the virtue of charity which believeth all things—he who did not hesitate at one calling to leave his fatherland, his home, his household. All things are left behind, that obedience may be rendered to the Lord who commands. 'Go forth,' says God also, 'out of thy house, and out of thy kindred, and come into whatsoever land I shall show thee' (Genesis 12:1): nor did this holy man consider within himself or say, 'Whither shall I go? To whom shall I entrust myself? Into what land shall I journey?' but as soon as he hears, he rises, runs, hastens, hurries. He does not see the promised land; yet by believing he firmly holds it.
He walks by a straight path, nor did he turn aside anywhere with wandering steps than where he ought: for he who was sending him to an unknown land did not himself, who was sending him, forsake him. Nor did He deceive him: the reward is rendered to the believer. He arrives at the land, is enlarged, is multiplied: from poor he becomes rich, from lowborn powerful, he is enriched with all good things; and in him is fulfilled what the Lord promised in the Gospel to his disciples, saying: 'If anyone leave house, or field, or parents for my name's sake, he shall receive a hundredfold even in this life, and in the age to come everlasting life' (Matthew 19:29). Still further is the reward of this faith heaped up, and a son is promised to the old man. Present is the virtue of charity which believeth all things.
He hears, exults, loves more, receives a son from a barren wife, whom barrenness and age had already left destitute of the hope of bearing, and in that son he most firmly holds the blessing of all nations promised (Genesis 18:10). 6. He offers his son in sacrifice. He becomes the Friend of God. What makes friends. But charity still tests him, and having tested him, commends him, and shows to posterity how he preferred nothing to God. The Lord calls him from heaven, saying: 'Abraham! Abraham!' And he, like an obedient servant, says, 'Here am I.' And the Lord:
'Take thy son, that one whom thou lovest, Isaac, and go into the high land, and thou shalt offer him for a holocaust upon one of the mountains which I shall tell thee.' Nor indeed is the faithful servant troubled or broken even by this command: for present to him is the virtue of charity which believeth all things. He rises, sets out for home, saddles the she-ass, cuts the wood, takes the sword and the fire, brings the boy along with him, and proceeds to the place. Then Isaac, being made attentive, questions his father, saying: 'Father.' And he: 'What is it, my son?' And the son: 'Behold,' he says, 'the fire and the wood: where is the sheep which thou art to sacrifice for the holocaust?' And the father answered: 'God will provide for himself a sheep for the sacrifice, my son.' Here I see a great and mighty mystery.
Abraham bore one thing in his heart, but promised another to his son: yet neither did what he promised deceive his son, nor did any weakness change his heart from its purpose. Why say more? He goes on his way, sees the place from afar, and stationing his servants there, utters to them such words, saying: 'Stay here with the ass: but I and the boy will go as far as yonder, and when we have worshipped, we will return to you.' O holy Abraham, and what is this that you say, when something else is to be done by you concerning the boy? Do you perchance deceive either yourself or your own men?
'No,' he says, 'but what I prophetically either say or do, the virtue of charity abiding in me, which believeth all things, both does and says it. For I hear it speaking to my heart within, without the noise of a voice, and saying to me: Although indeed, believing that he will rise again, with full and perfect vow you lead the boy to be sacrificed, your son in this very sacrifice is not consumed, because resurrection is reserved for the Son of God.' Rightly, commemorating the faith of this man Abraham, the apostle James says: 'Abraham believed God, and it was reputed to him unto justice, and he was called the friend of God' (James 2:23). Friends, as we know, the joining of minds makes: whence a certain wise man of this world said, 'To will the same and to be unwilling of the same, this at last is firm friendship' (Sallust, Catiline...
chapter 12). Therefore, as we know, the joining of minds makes friends. Do you wish to know how this holy man joined his mind to God, so that he was called His friend? For just as God the Father spared not his only Son, but delivered him up for us all (Romans 8:32), so this man too spared not his only son, but when commanded that he be sacrificed, offered him with devoted heart to Him who had given him. 7. Isaac a type of the suffering Christ. But let us see what follows. For it delights us, with the help of the Lord our God, to render to you the full account of this history.
After the servants were left behind and the father came with his son to the place of sacrifice, he builds the altar, lays out the wood, binds his son's hands, places him on the altar upon the wood, lays aside the human signs of a father's tenderness, and puts on the dreadful constancy of a priest; he draws the sword to slay his son. What do you see, brethren? We perceive nothing human here, because we recognize all as divine. But that son too, who a little before was asking for the sheep, under a mighty silence perceives such things being done in himself: and he is found so patient, as though he were already that One who, like a sheep, was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb before its shearer, without voice, so he opened not his mouth (Isaiah...
53:7). O, do you too, holy Isaac, disclose to us the so great secret of this silence. A little before you perceived nothing being done to you, and you were asking your father for the ram: but now you are bound with hands, placed upon the altar, in a certain manner hung upon the wood; and now you are silent. 'I am silent,' he says. Speak; tell why, I beseech you, that we may know. 'Do you wish to know,' he says, 'why I am now silent? Because I bear the figure of Him who lays down his soul by will, not by necessity' (John 10:17-18). In this so great and mystical sacrament of faith, both holy Abraham appeared as one tested, and the son was for the present delivered, in whom Christ was foreannounced (Genesis 22). 8. From the follower of the charity that believeth all things, what God requires.
If you are any soul that desires to follow the footsteps of the faith of our father Abraham, go forth out of your land and out of your kindred, forsake your people and the house of your father—that is, faithfully renounce the devil, his pomps and his angels; and follow the straight way, which may lead you to the land in which you may grow rich and be exalted, and become a companion of Abraham. But when you have done all these things, if the virtue of charity which believeth all things is in you, it will still test you; and having tested, will crown you. It requires of you the sacrifice of your beloved. What does it require of you? What was said to Abraham: 'Give me your only beloved'; to you Wisdom says, 'Give me, my son, thy heart' (Proverbs 23:26). He is the only beloved. Why do you fear to offer your heart?
Offer the sacrifice, the contrition of your heart, to the Lord your God; and say to Him with the prophet: 'Thou wilt not delight in holocausts. A sacrifice to God is a troubled spirit; a contrite and humbled heart, O God, thou wilt not despise' (Psalm 51:18-19). Fear nothing when such a sacrifice is offered: both it will be acceptable to God, and what you offer will remain whole. 9. The third virtue: to hope all things. Does it please you to inspect another virtue of charity, that which hopeth all things? This we are known to have assigned above to the people of Israel and to our fathers. For the voice of that virtue is in that prophetic verse: 'In thee have our fathers hoped; they hoped, and thou didst deliver them' (Psalm 22:5).
And they themselves are commanded to flee out of Egypt; a land flowing with milk and honey is promised them (Exodus 3:8). They pass through the Red Sea, they come to the desert: the hope of charity was leading them, that they might first learn to love God freely. To these too the reward of faith is rendered: for He cannot but render it, who by giving deigns to make himself a debtor. After the desert they sucked honey from the rock, they ate the bread of heaven (Exodus 14-16); they were not deprived of their desire, which they hoped for, and they received also the land of promise. 10. The exercises of this virtue. Let the soul arise which is grasped by the virtue of this charity, and let it flee out of Egypt—that is, out of the desire of this age—let it proceed to the Red Sea, namely the Baptism of Christ;
therefore red, because empurpled with the blood of Christ. Let the enemies pursue—sins with their author the devil, like the Egyptians with their king Pharaoh; let them rage, let them follow those who flee: why do you fear? They rage only as far as the water. You will enter: they too will enter after you: but the water turned for them will be unto destruction, for you it will avail unto salvation; it will overwhelm them, it will wash you; it will condemn them, it will free you. After these things you will receive honey from the rock, wherewith you may satisfy your thirst; for the Rock was Christ (1 Corinthians 10:4), from whose precepts, as from fountains of sweetness, you will be satisfied. You will also taste bread, namely of Him who said: 'I am the living bread who came down from heaven' (John 6:51):
you will taste, and see how sweet is the Lord (Psalm 34:9). And the bread—if in you excels the virtue of Charity which hopeth all things, you must needs pass through the desert; that is, use this world as though not using it (1 Corinthians 7:31), so that on this way you may know yourself to be a pilgrim, if you desire to enter the land of promise. This is the land of which the prophet sings and says: 'I believe I shall see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living' (Psalm 27:13). 11. The fourth: to endure all things. How much Christ endured. The last virtue of charity remains, which endureth all things, and never falls. This we know to belong to our very Head, the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore in the last place, since Christ is the end of the Law (Romans 10:4).
But how much He himself endured for us, I think your Charity cannot be ignorant. Nevertheless I will say something thereof, if only I may say something worthily of so great a matter. First this, that God became man, that the Word was made flesh (John 1:14); that he did many good things, and suffered evil things; that he raised the dead, and died; that he bore that singular patience toward the devil the tempter, the disciple the betrayer; that he bore Judas himself as a thief before he showed him to be a betrayer, and before the experience of the bonds, the cross, and death, denied not the kiss of peace to his deceitful lips. But in his very death, how much did he endure? He bore the flames of hatreds, the tongues that were ministers of a most wicked heart.
The Jews cried out, 'Crucify, crucify!' (Luke 23:21): so that the Jews might remain guilty, the innocent Son of God was crucified by them. He is led to the cross, is buffeted, He who is the true palm of victory. He is crowned with thorns, He who came to shatter the thorns of sins. He is bound, He who looses those in fetters. He is hung upon the wood, He who raises up the fallen (Psalm 145:7-8). The fountain of life is given vinegar to drink, discipline is beaten, salvation is wounded, life dies: death slays life for a time, that for ever death might be slain by life. 12. The Jews conquered in the death of Christ. How they serve Christ.
Why did the Jews here exult in this death of Christ as though victors, and while they feared to lose an earthly and perishable kingdom, did not hesitate to slay the King of heaven and earth? But neither, as they supposed, did they stand forth as victors. For if they conquered, how did they lose the kingdom? How until now have they remained slaves? For this indeed is the reason, that by them Christ was slain. The chief priests of the Jews said among themselves, as the evangelist narrates: 'You see,' they say, 'that the whole world has gone after him; if we let him live, the Romans will come and take away from us our place and kingdom' (John 11:47-48). And they slew Christ; and they lost both place and kingdom. What did it profit you, O mad Jews, that you committed so great a crime?
Because you were unwilling, as was fitting, to serve Christ the Lord, did you therefore escape His dominion? While kings serve Him, kings whom you serve, you have become wicked slaves of the good slaves of Christ. Through them He crushes your obstinacy, through them He scatters your counsels, through them He requites your crimes upon your own heads. But the Lord himself, whom you slew, desired you to be not slaves but free, when he said: 'If the Son shall make you free, then shall you be truly free' (John 8:36). But you not only repudiated the Lord God the King, and that very true liberty, but even, desiring to kill Him, you cried out: 'We have no king but Caesar alone' (John 19:15).
But do not even in this glory, that you slew Christ; rather it was done away with you, and you knew it not. Hear the Lord himself speaking through the prophet: 'I slept, and took my sleep' (Psalm 3:6), calling the death inflicted by you a sleep. For what kind of death could a three-day one be, especially of Him who through the same prophet says in another place: 'Shall not he that sleepeth rise again?' (Psalm 41:9). 'I,' he says, 'slept': I who have the power of laying down my soul. I slept; not because you raged, not because you were mad: I fulfilled what I willed: you remained in wickedness. 13. The powers of charity.
What exacted such great things from our God, brethren, for our redemption and salvation, except the charity which never falls? O charity, how great are the powers you have, which brought God down from heaven! O dear holiness, O holy and true charity, who are as great on earth as you will be in the heavens? You who avail so much in this struggle of mortality still anxious—how much shall you avail in that perfect peace, secure? 14. The imitation of Christ's patience. Awake therefore, every Christian soul, and if in you excels the virtue of charity which endureth all things, imitate the footsteps of your Lord. 'For Christ,' says the apostle Peter, 'suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow his footsteps' (1 Peter 2:21).
And if He for your sake descended from the heavenly seat to earthly things, do you for your own sake flee earthly things, seek the heavenly. If the world is sweet, sweeter is Christ; if the world is bitter, Christ endured all things for you. The Saviour himself has been made a way for you: rise, walk; you have the means, do not be sluggish. But perhaps you ask, 'Whither?' For you see the way, and you ask whither this very way leads? It leads to truth and to life. If you love truth, if you love life, and desire to come to truth and to life, do not stray from the way. 'I see,' you say, 'the way, and I desire to walk: but it is bitter, it is rough; for narrow and strait is the way that leadeth unto life' (Matthew 7:14). Christ passed over it, and is it still rough?
The Head has passed over, and the members hesitate? But Christ, you say, is God and man; I however am man. So many thousands of martyrs have passed over; and is it still rough for you? Old men have passed over, young men have passed over, boys have passed over, girls have passed over; they have made trodden for you the way you feared. Walk therefore the way, walk secure. For what do you fear on this way? Death? And do you fear death, you who run to life? If you are good, you run well on this way: death will be to you a gate, which presents you, not which takes away life. Walk therefore the way: nay rather, let Him who for your sake was made the way, lead you through himself to himself. For He himself is the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6). Say therefore to your God, O faithful and pious soul;
say, say, securely say, and with the prophet truthfully cry out: 'Lead me, O Lord, in thy way, and I will walk in thy truth' (Psalm 86:11). Then shall I come to thee securely, if unto the end I be not forsaken by thy grace. These things, most beloved brethren, which by the gift of charity itself have been spoken to your Holiness, let them so cleave to your hearts and minds, that this same charity may find in you the fruit of work, not the leaves of praise. SERMON 108. Again on the words of the Apostle, 1 Corinthians chapter 13, verse 1: 'If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not charity, it profits me nothing,' etc. On the love of God and neighbor, of friends and enemies. 1. Charity brings it about that those separated in body are together.
How much your Charity longs for us, most beloved brethren, I recognize from my own feelings. And although you may wish continually to see my humble self, yet I, if it could be done, would wish more frequently that both your desires and mine be satisfied from the sight of you. But we must patiently bear what, by the necessity of the times, we cannot fulfill. But although through many necessities we cannot see one another bodily, yet in charity and holy love we are always equally together. For this reason bodily separation does no harm, where there is a true and sincere joining of minds. For charity itself is true, which is wont to couple and join spiritually those separated bodily.
For two who love one another with holy love, even if one be in the East, the other in the West, are so joined by charity gluing them together, that they are never separated from one another. Hear the Apostle speaking the praise of true and whole charity. For thus he says: 'If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not charity, it profits me nothing,' etc. And after a little he added, saying: 'Charity is patient, is kind,' and the rest. And although Paul the apostle, full of the Holy Spirit, sufficiently proclaimed its praises; yet because holy charity is a sweet and wholesome bond of minds, let even us little ones, according to our small measure, inquire concerning it as much as we can.
2. The good use of riches is to be learned from charity. Charity is oil. Charity is a good steward. Great are the riches of charity, dearly beloved, without which the rich man is poor, and with which the poor man is rich. For a rich man, if he have not charity, what has he? However great a substance, without charity, is empty and void. Charity, even if it have nothing of earthly goods, is full. Hence however abundant riches anyone may have, if charity be not in him, he will be able to do nothing good from them, because without the true mother and mistress of the heavenly virtues he by no means knows what he ought to do, and when or how much he ought to give.
And therefore, as much as he can, let each one labor to have charity, to have light, to have oil. Charity is compared to oil. For as oil is known to be above all liquids; so charity is proved more sublime than all virtues. For if anyone possess infinite riches, and have not charity, he is just as if he had many lamps and many torches not lacking fatness. A lamp or torch kindled without oil can smoke, can stink, but cannot have light: so also he who has riches without charity can burn with wrath, smoke with pride, stink with avarice: without charity he can by no means have light.
If charity be in you, however great a substance you may have, it knows what it ought to do with it. It itself knows best to whom and how much it should hold out, what it should bestow, what it should reserve. It itself understands how much it should lay up for the soul in heaven, and how much it should reserve for the body in the world. It is a good enough steward, brethren; it well knows to gather in summer what it may have in winter; that is, it knows to provide through almsgiving in this age what it may find in the age to come. Have charity, brethren; for without it whatever else of good there be in a man, will be able to be nothing. 3. True charity, which embraces enemies. Charity the root of good works. But have also true charity, brethren. What is true charity?
That which loves every man as itself. It is true charity which reaches not only to friends, but even to enemies themselves. Let no one deceive himself, brethren. Whoever has not this charity will not be able to see God, nor will he be worthy to hear: 'Come, ye blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom.' Surely you see that in the Gospel reading the Lord named nothing else of all the virtues, but almsgiving alone, which works with charity. He was silent about the branches, he named only the root, saying thus: 'Come, ye blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom; for I was hungry, and you gave me to eat' (Matthew 25:34-35). And again the Lord himself:
'But yet give alms, and behold all things are clean unto you' (Luke 11:41). Every man who wishes to have charity in the age to come, let him make it his patroness in this world, so that he may find it favorable unto eternity. For as a tree, however beautiful and fruitful it be, cannot live without a root: so any good works whatever will not be able to persevere without charity. For it is of this that the Apostle says: 'Rooted and grounded in charity' (Ephesians 3:17). 4. Charity always sweet. Let us therefore have such charity, brethren, that we may be able to love all men with our whole heart. If you thus love the whole human race as yourself, there remains no door whereby sin may enter into you.