Peter is sought by Paul, and he is afraid. My little children, hear us, and set yourselves free. Run for your own sakes, and you profit both us and yourselves. Our joy will be shared in common, if we shall see you put on Christ. Let youths and virgins, the elder together with the younger, hasten to grace: our mother, in giving birth, makes no distinction of ages. She herself bore Peter, she herself bore all the Apostles, she herself bore Paul, that from a wolf a lamb might be made. As though newly born was Saul; he grew, and became great. He was baptized by the Mother, enlightened by the Father; and he began to desire to see Peter: and while he greatly longed to see him, all the more did Peter begin to fear. For Peter heard that Saul was seeking him. Fear not, blessed Peter:
for it is not Saul who seeks you, but Paul, the vessel of election, who longs to see you. O holy Peter, bless the Father, and receive the brother; and you have one with whom you can defend the mother. O blessed Peter, you marvel that Saul is converted; such as you are, he too will be, and one Birthday-feast comes forth for you both. He who made Paul out of Saul, the same made Peter out of Simon. One has honored you, one will crown you. He changed the persecutor, he changed also the fisherman; and though you were first and he was later, yet upon both he bestowed one honor. Come, holy Paul, come, follow Peter; but Peter teaching, not Peter fleeing. He fled while he did not yet know you. 2. The prayer of Stephen won Paul's salvation.
For this most blessed Paul, as we heard when the reading from the Acts of the Apostles was recited, was cast down by a heavenly voice. While he raged toward the sheepfolds with wolfish fury, while he persecuted the name of the innocent Lamb that was hateful to him, while he sought to tear apart or harry the flock, he heard a voice sounding on high: Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? Why have you raged in vain against my name, and slain my Martyr? Long ago indeed I ought to have destroyed you; but my Stephen prayed for you. And he said: Who are you, Lord? And the Lord to him: I am, he said, Jesus of Nazareth whom you persecute (Acts ix, 4, 5). The Head cries out from heaven on behalf of the members. The body is disturbed; and from heaven Christ thunders, Saul, he said, Saul, why do you persecute me?
What does it mean that the secret of the roaring sky bellows, and against Paul's savagery the soldiery of heaven complains—unless it be that he who had not believed in the One risen might at least believe in the One seated in heaven? For it is said to Ananias: Go to him, and mark him with my sign: for he shall suffer many things for my name. And he answered: Lord, I have heard from many concerning this man, that he has done many evil things to your saints. The Lord said to him: Go, for he is to me a vessel of election (Ibid., 13, 15). 3. Paul suffers the evils he had inflicted. O blessed Ananias, rightly would you tremble in fear, were He not strong of hand for whom you serve as soldier. For pride is cast down that holiness may be raised up. So Ananias came, baptized Saul, and made him Paul.
He baptized the wolf, and made a lamb: and we began to have as a preacher the one whom we had had as a persecutor. In the end he began to preach the Christ whom before he had resisted; ready to suffer for the One against whom before he had fought. Paul suffers what Saul had done. Saul stoned; Paul was stoned. Saul afflicted Christians with rods; Paul for Christ received five times forty stripes save one. Saul persecuted the Church of God; Paul was let down in a basket. Saul bound; Paul was bound. And while Saul, raging, sought to diminish the number of Christians, he himself was added to the number of confessors. And while he brought death upon others, he himself received death for Christ.
While the ravening wolf entered the folds of the flock, suddenly he himself was made a sheep. Therefore let no one despair on account of the greatness of his crime, or the lowliness of his birth. For the majesty of emperors now, with knees bent low, adores the most blessed Peter the fisherman; and the multitude of the believing Gentiles venerates Paul, once the monstrous persecutor of believers, through our Lord Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns unto ages of ages. Amen. SERMON 205. On the Nativity of the Apostles Peter and Paul, V. 1. The calling of Peter is set forth. Today with special devotion we celebrate the most sacred day of the fisherman and of the persecutor, in the meeting of a twofold festival;
the one by which he escaped the nets of the world, the other by which from a robber he was made a confessor of Christ. Behold, He chooses two, one a fisherman, the other a highwayman. The one He calls from the shore, to the other He cries out from the sky: the one He summons from the sea, the other He terrifies from heaven. For while Peter loosed his line into the strait, Christ cast his nets in the Word. Christ caught, and Peter caught too; Christ a disciple, Peter a little fish: and while Peter encircled the scaly race, he himself fell into the nets. Passing by, it says, Jesus saw two brothers, Simon who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting nets into the sea; for they were fishermen. And Christ said to them: Come, He said, after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men.
And they, leaving their nets, followed him (Matt. iv, 18-20). Peter stood suspended by the shifting of the flood, and amid the dark waters of the restless sea he sought by his craft the sustenance he did not have. He swayed upon the wavering wave, that he might track down his catch. He is borne this way and that with varying step, he stands moving, and is moved standing still. He searches among the blind billows of the sea's growth, and beneath the dark wave pursues the fleeing prey. A prison enclosed by water is cast into the deep, a snare is set and stretched out, a spotted wall is raised beneath the wave, a hidden guard-house is made for the fishes in the sea: and while Peter lies in wait for the flocks of the deep, he himself falls into the nets of the Savior.
The prey came from the robber, the fishing from the fisherman, the captivity from the pirate. Come, He said, after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men. And they, leaving their nets, followed him. For while Peter sought to enclose a fish on his hook, Christ cast the hook of the Word, and caught the fisherman himself. Peter was stretching out the empty net with the winding coil of his line: and while he pursued the ever-teeming offspring of the sea, on the shore he made Christ the Savior his captor. He drew, and was drawn: he exercised violence on the sea, and suffered capture in his mind. O pirate of the water-born creeping creatures, you have abandoned this craft, you have changed from fish to Fish.
(For Christ is that fish which came up alive from the river to Tobias: by whose liver roasted over the coals of the passion the devil was put to flight; and by the bitterness of the gall the blind man was breathed upon, and the world was enlightened.) From fish, I say, to Fish, from net to Church, from sea to fountain, from captor he became a catch. For he left the tossing sea, and began to walk after the Fish. The likeness of his craft inflames the desire of the hearer; so that he who before cast his snare into the sea, now scatters the nets of the Word into the world. For then he brought in fishes; but now with spiritual seines he ensnared men. Section on Paul's conversion.
But Paul, small in stature, yet from small made great, while he was called Saul, terrified by the trumpet of the starry voice, fell struck down in his audacity, that raised up he might sow doctrine in the world. Saul, He said, Saul, why do you persecute me? For Saul went borne on the horses of fury, breathing dread venom from all his breast, and thirsting for the blood of the saints, he was carried through all Judaea by the reins of madness, that he might tear the members of Christ upon the earth. He becomes cruel through a vain religion, and an inquisitor of the innocent. Through the fields of a most wicked rampart he roams; that Judaea, which had already first raged against the Head, might now exercise its cruelty against the body.
For Saul had received power from the chief priests, that he might slay men of our faith, and with wicked hand cut down the sprouting field of the faith. So while Saul carried the deadly sword against the soldiers of Christ, he received a thunderbolt-shaft from heaven; while he assailed, he was struck; while he persecuted the saints of Christ, he was blinded by the violent ray of heavenly light: and he who was raised up by the puffed-up bellows of pride against God, was cast down by the terror of the divine voice: Saul, He said, Saul, why do you persecute me (Acts ix, 2-9)? The Head cries out for the members. The body is disturbed; and Christ thunders in the heavens, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?
What does it mean that the secret of the roaring sky bellows, and against Paul's savagery the province of heaven complains—unless it be that he who had not believed in the One risen might at least believe in the One seated in the heavens: that he who had asserted from the sepulchre a lie about the departed Lord of the Apostles, might receive from heaven the testimony of the Living One? Saul, He said, Saul, why do you persecute me? Suddenly therefore, cast down to the earth by the spear of the divine rebuke, he loses both his savagery and his path; he lays aside his ferocity, and runs into blindness of eyes; he began to have as leaders those whom he had had before as followers. 5. A rebuke against the Jews. Where, Paul, were you running, when you could see? Behold, now wandering astray you seek a place;
and you who persecuted Christ, run blind to a guiding hand. O Saul, ravening wolf, you have devoured: but wait a little while, and, while digesting, you shall be digested. Do you then believe, O Saul, in God—do you show faith to the faithless One? These hands are not wont to be defiled with blood, if you do not see yourself still tormented by them. It was too little for your race that it had crucified Christ; besides, it did not fear to lay hands even against heaven. It pressed flesh upon the gibbet, it set guards at the door of the tomb. Now Christ has ascended to the Father; and still your mother, night, has not lacked her ferocity. O Judaea, drunken with the blood of the Prophets, are you not yet sated? From the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah the rivers of your crime foam; and do they still not sate you?
From the beginning of the world you drink blood, and do you still thirst? The flood of your crime against Christ has not yet dried up; and already the riverbed of your wickedness thirsts? You have but now fastened Christ to the gibbet; and so quickly have you dried up with lust for blood? But behold, cruelty is cast down, that holiness may be raised up: the soldier of the devil falls, that the standard-bearer of Christ may rise. 4. The martyrdom of Peter and Paul. Peter casts his little net into the sea; Paul carries the Lord's banner through the world. And the one fishes for men, and the other marks the Gentiles with the title of Christ. Both run to the palm of martyrdom, and both attain the crown: not indeed at the same course of time, but at the same meeting of the returning year. Peter for Christ is hung head downward on a tree;
Paul for Christ is beheaded by the sword. The one set out to Christ on his own feet, and looking with his eyes to the things above, he led his blessed spirit up to heaven; the other bent his neck to the penalty, and offered the crown of his head to the crown. The cross slays Peter; the sword sacrifices Paul. Two kinds of the sufferings of the Lord and Christ, in two Apostles of Christ. Peter suffers the cross; Paul feels the sword of the Lord's side. The hook of the cross hangs up the fisherman; the sword of the persecutor cuts down the persecutor. Now before the memorial of the fisherman the knees of the emperor are bent. There the gems of the diadem gleam, where the benefits of the fisherman shine. From a fisherman the Lord made the prince of the Apostles;
from a persecutor He made an apostolic confessor. The passion granted them as companions those whom the preaching of the faith had made joined together. Let us therefore venerate the princes of the flock, if we wish to enter the folds of the eternal Shepherd. SERMON 206. On the Nativity of Saint Lawrence, I. 1. Lawrence sets the world afire for martyrdom. Spiritual martyrdom. By fire Lawrence quenches the force of fire. I believe that you know the passion of the most blessed martyr Lawrence, whose birthday we celebrate today; and I do not doubt that your Charity can know how much he endured in the persecution. For so great was the glory of his martyrdom that by his passion he enlightened the whole world. Plainly Lawrence enlightened the world with that light by which he himself was kindled;
and with the flames which he himself endured, he warmed the hearts of all Christians. For who, by this example, would not be willing to burn for Christ together with Lawrence, that he might be crowned by Christ together with Lawrence? Who would not be willing to bear for an hour the fire of Lawrence, that he might not suffer the eternal burning of Gehenna? By the example, therefore, of blessed Lawrence we are stirred to martyrdom, kindled to faith, warmed to devotion. And though the flame of the persecutor is lacking to us, yet the flame of faith is not lacking. We do not indeed burn in body for Christ, but we burn in affection: the persecutor does not set fire under me, but the desire for the Savior supplies me with fire.
That there is a fire of the Savior we read in the Gospel, the same Lord saying, Do you not know that I came to send fire upon the earth? and what will I, but that it be kindled (Luke xii, 49)? Kindled by which fire, Amaus and Cleophas said: Was not our heart burning within us, while he spoke on the way, and opened to us the Scriptures (Id. xxiv, 32)? Kindled therefore also by this fire, blessed Lawrence does not feel the burning of the flames: and while he burns with desire for Christ, he does not burn with the punishment of the persecutor. For insofar as the ardor of faith glows in him, so much does the flame of the torment grow cold. For blessed Lawrence labors in a bodily burning: from one side we are kindled with love of Christ, from the other the flame of the persecutor torments;
but the divine ardor of the Savior quenches the material ardor of the tyrant. For although the limbs are dissolved into ashes, yet the fortitude of faith is not dissolved: it sustains indeed the loss of the body, but acquires the gain of salvation. 2. He suffers a prolonged torment. Not inferior to the three young men. For, brothers, blessed Lawrence is not destroyed by a swift or simple passion. For he who is struck by the sword dies once; he who is plunged into the furnace of flames is freed by a single onslaught: but this man is tortured by a long and manifold punishment; so that death is not lacking to him for torment, yet is lacking for an end. For this penalty, it is said, was appointed for blessed Lawrence by that most savage persecutor,
that, with a mass of burning coals laid out, a slow flame might consume him stretched out over them upon an iron grate; so that it might not so much slay the man by quickly inflaming him, as torture him by long burning: so that when the persecutor saw one side burned through, he would turn the other side to the fires to be burned. We read that Ananias, Azarias, and Misael, the most blessed young men, shut up by the king in the furnace of fire, walked amid the flames of their punishments, and trod under their feet the balls of fire (Dan. iii, 24). Whence blessed Lawrence too is to be preferred with no lesser glory: since they walked in the flames of their punishments; this man even reclines in the very fire of his torment: they trod under the soles of their feet the burnings;
this man quenches it by the spreading out of his sides. They, I say, standing in their punishment with hands raised, prayed to the Lord; this man, however, prostrate in his punishment, entreats the Lord with his whole body. 3. He asks to be burned by a double fire. Again therefore blessed Lawrence is turned face upward on his back, and his loins are burned by the fires: that the prophecy of the Psalm might be fulfilled, which says in the person of Lawrence, Prove me, Lord, and try me; burn my loins and my heart (Ps. xxv, 2). He indeed asks to be burned with a double fire. For if he were speaking of the fire of the world alone, it would suffice to have offered his loins only to be burned by the fires. But the heart is burned by nothing except the flame of Christ: and therefore, to prove his devotion, he asks for a twofold fire for himself;
that, the struggle being had, he might show that in him the love of Christ can do more than the penalty of the tyrant. Let us therefore honor, brothers, blessed Lawrence, who, while by his faith he conquered the flames of the persecutor, showed us through the fire of faith how to overcome the burnings of Gehenna, and by love of Christ not to fear the day of judgment. 4. That we may imitate the martyrs. But we, most beloved brothers, if we wish to come to the fellowship of the holy martyrs, let us think about the imitation of the martyrs. For there ought in us, etc., that in the age to come we may be able to gather the fruit of good things with joy and exultation, our Lord Jesus Christ granting it, who lives and reigns unto ages of ages. Amen. SERMON 207. On the Nativity of Saint Lawrence, II. 1.
What we owe to the martyrs. Lawrence is to be honored for three reasons. Though we admire with worthy honor all the blessed martyrs whom antiquity hands down to us, yet especially ought we to receive with all devotion the triumph of the blessed martyr Lawrence. For I owe a greater affection there, where contemplation compels my belief, than where opinion exhorts my faith. A greater affection, I say, I owe there, where through the things I have seen I am constrained by devotion to believe even those things which I have not seen. For once certain things seemed to me impossible: but I began to believe that they could have happened, while I beheld similar things being done. And therefore the passion of our own time granted us to confer this grace, that it confirmed the faith of the past.
The aforementioned blessed man, therefore, we ought to receive with all devotion: first, because he handed over his precious blood for the Lord's sake; then, because he grants us before our Lord no small privilege, showing what faith ought to be in Christians; thirdly, because he was of so holy a manner of life that he found the crown of martyrdom in a time of peace. 2. Why he was tortured. But when the Gentiles had seen blessed Lawrence contend with such great holiness for the name of Christ, and had seen him refute their manifest errors with reasonable rebuke; then, inebriated with fury, they seized him, and wounded him with most cruel slaughter; then they delivered the body of the blessed man to the flames upon a gridiron.
Truly a blessed body, which the deadly fire or the torments did not change from the faith of Christ; but which holy religion crowned unto the Lord's rest. And the very flame took up the Martyr, not that the fire might change him from his faith, but that it might render him, tested and approved, to his Lord. For by such a burning his blessed inward parts were consecrated, not condemned. To this passion suits what the Apostle says, But he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire (1 Cor. iii, 15). For he was made safe, while by the burning of a venerable confession he was consumed. This is the whole cause of the passion, brothers, on account of which the holy man was condemned, namely, that he exhorted the rest who were like himself.
For that exhortation so prospered that, when he departed from the world, his faith pervaded all the places of that very region. Thus Christ then in his blessed martyr Lawrence suffered persecutions: now there very many of the Christians exult among the peoples. 3. Martyrs must have been martyrs before their martyrdom. What it is to take up the cross. The examples of the holy martyrs ought to suffice us for the progress of our salvation, who, in order to attain the heavenly crown, submitted themselves to all the Lord's commandments, and so bound themselves to all the laws of the Savior, that on account of their former life they merited to come to this glory of martyrdom.
For they did not fulfill the Lord's precept only at that time in which they bore the suffering of confession; but it was necessary that they had first lived according to the Gospel, that they might partake of the sufferings of Christ. It is necessary, I say, that the beginnings should have been good, of which the best end followed; and that they were martyrs not only when they suffered, but were also martyrs of Christ then when they were living. For 'martyr' in Greek is called in Latin 'Witness.' Therefore, as often as by good affections we do the commandment of Christ, so often we bear testimony to Christ. Whence also the cross of the Lord is not only called that which at the time of the passion is constructed by the fixing of wood;
but also that which throughout the whole course of life is fitted together by the virtues of all disciplines. Of which the Savior seems to me to speak: He who wishes to come after me, let him take up his cross, and follow me (Matt. xvi, 24). For were all the martyrs who followed the Lord crucified with the Lord? Were all the virgins, who according to the Apocalypse follow the Lamb of God, crucified in order to follow (Rev. xiv, 4)? Was Paul the apostle crucified, when he said, But far be it from me to glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world (Gal. vi, 14)? He says this, that you may understand the cross to be not the gibbet of wood, but the resolve of life and virtue.
The whole life, therefore, of a Christian man, if he lives according to the Gospel, is a cross and a martyrdom. SERMON 208. On the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Mary. 1. This solemnity is preeminent and now deservedly received. There is present to us, most beloved brothers, a day exceedingly venerable, a day surpassing the solemnities of all the saints. There is present, I say, a renowned day, a most illustrious day, a day on which the Virgin Mary is believed to have migrated from the world. And therefore let all the earth, illumined by the passing of so great a Virgin, sound forth praises with the utmost exultation; for it is exceedingly unworthy that the solemnity of her memory should be among us without the greatest honor, through whom we merited to receive the Author of life:
and it must be judged quite preposterous that, while we celebrate the victories of the holy martyrs, we should not prefer to them the solemnity of her who brought forth to this world the Prince of martyrs. On this day, indeed, the blessed Virgin Mary fittingly proclaims to that heavenly Bridegroom: You have held my right hand; and in your will you have led me, and with glory you have taken me up (Ps. lxxii, 24). Today, I say, she herself also fittingly heard from her Son the Bridegroom and Lord: Now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; arise, my nearest, my bride, my dove, and come (Cant. ii, 11-14). Section: What the Church holds concerning Mary's assumption.
This, therefore, we say, brothers, because, as the Church has already received into custom, on this day the Virgin Mary is handed down to have been assumed to the heavens. But by what order she passed hence to the realms above, no catholic history relates. Not only, moreover, is this same Church of God said to reject the apocrypha, but even to be ignorant of it. And indeed there are certain writings composed without an author's name concerning her assumption; which, as I said, are so guarded against, that they are by no means permitted to be read for confirming the truth of the matter. Hence indeed some are troubled, because her body is neither found on earth, nor is her assumption with the flesh, as is read in the apocrypha, found in catholic history.
To whom it must be said that, if the body of Moses is not found on earth by man—Moses, with whom God spoke face to face—it is a mark of madness to seek that of her through whom the same God of majesty, made incarnate, shone forth upon the earth. For neither is it worthy that anyone should be anxious about the knowledge of her body, whom he does not doubt to have been exalted above the Angels to reign with Christ. It ought to suffice for human knowledge only to confess this woman as truly the Queen of heaven, for the reason that she bore the King of angels. 3. Concerning the manner of her death none of the Latins has written. The true opinion concerning the Assumption. But neither is any one of the writers found among the Latins to have said anything openly about her death.
For that verse of the Gospel which Simeon spoke to the Mother of the Lord, And a sword shall pierce through your own soul also (Luke ii, 35), when Ambrose of blessed memory treated it, he said: Neither history nor letters teach that Mary ended her life by the sword. Hence also Isidore: It is uncertain, he says, through this saying, whether he spoke of the sword of the spirit, or the sword of persecution. But what shall I say concerning these matters of which I speak, when not even he who received her before the Lord's cross into his own keeping—that is, John the evangelist—committed anything to writing about this to be retained by posterity? For none
could have narrated this more faithfully, if God had wished it to be made manifest, than he who indeed took her up to be nourished and did not, contrary to custom, as a son leave his mother. It remains, therefore, that a man should not mendaciously feign as open what God willed to remain hidden. But the true opinion concerning her assumption is proved to be this: that, according to the Apostle, whether in the body or out of the body we know not (2 Cor. xii, 2), we believe her to have been assumed above the Angels. 4. Mary greater than all praise. These things, therefore, being passed over, let us say something in praise of the most sacred Virgin.
But what shall we so small, so slight in action, relate in her praises, since even if the members of us all were turned into tongues, no one would suffice to praise her? For higher than heaven is she of whom we speak; deeper than the abyss is she to whom we strive to give praise. For the God whom all creation cannot contain, she herself carried enclosed in her immaculate womb. For this is she who alone merited to be called mother and bride, she who loosed the harms of the first mother, she who brought redemption to lost man. For the mother of our race brought punishment into the world; the Mother of our Lord brought forth salvation to the world. Eve is the authoress of sin; Mary the authoress of merit. Eve by killing did harm; Mary by giving life did good. She smote; this one healed.