How execrable and abominable this thing is, your holy Charity evidently recognizes. But good Christians desire all their enemies rather to be corrected than to perish, and out of ineffable goodness strive to curse neither them nor others, because of that which is written: Neither shall revilers possess the kingdom of God (1 Cor. 6:10): never to swear; because it is written: A man that swears much shall be filled with iniquity, and the scourge shall not depart from his house (Sir. 23:12). But as for what it says, that the scourge shall not depart from his house, this is to be understood not of an earthly house, but of his soul, which is the temple of God. Let him also strive never to lie; because it is written: The mouth that lies slays the soul (Wisdom 1:11):
and, You will destroy those that speak a lie (Ps. 5:7). Let him strive to hold justice, because of that word: Blessed are they that keep judgement and do justice at all times (Ps. 106:3). Let him hasten with his whole heart to hold chastity; because chastity makes men like unto the angels. All these things, therefore, which I have suggested, are both brief, that they may be held by memory; and so pleasant and sweet, that with God's help they ought to be fulfilled in works. 3. From these there is no excuse. In charity are all good things. Behold, in all these works of true and perfect charity, as has already been said, nothing is done either with the hands or with the feet, that anyone might try to excuse himself through impossibility or infirmity.
For since both cupidity is more bitter than all bitterness, and charity is sweeter than all sweetness; why do men wish to bear the hard and rough yoke of avarice with so great perils and labours, and shake off from their necks the sweet burden of Christ and his easy yoke? Against these things which I have suggested to your Charity, no one will be able to put forth any excuse, however plausible or likely, so as to say that he cannot accomplish them. For it is not said to him: Fast more than you can, watch more than you are able; nor is this laid upon him, that he abstain from wine or from flesh, if the infirmity of his body does not bear this. And if perchance he cannot be perfect, he is not compelled to sell all his goods and give to the poor.
And if he cannot be a virgin, he is not for this pressed so that he is not permitted to take a wife. For in all these things which pertain to the fatigue of the body, no one of the Christians is unwillingly compelled: but let him who can fulfil them do so unto God; while he who cannot fulfil them, let him hold true charity, and in it he will have all things: because without those good works which have been commemorated above, charity suffices for itself; but those good works without charity will be able to profit nothing at all. This whole thing, therefore, I say to you again and again, most beloved brethren, that you may more fully be able to recognize that no one will be able to excuse himself, that he cannot fulfil the precepts of God:
because when he shall have tried to excuse himself in those things wherein the body labours, from those things which consist in the virtue of the soul, and especially from charity, in which all good things are contained, he will be able to allege nothing which he cannot already, with God's help, accomplish. And therefore he who will not hold true charity finds not what he may in truth impute to others, but what he must impute to himself. 4. Without it there is no good. Hold fast, then, most beloved brethren, the sweet and salutary bond of charity, without which the rich man is poor, and with which the poor man is rich. If the rich man has not charity, what has he? If the poor man has charity, what has he not? And since, as blessed John the Evangelist says, Charity is God (1 John 4:16);
what will be able to be lacking to the poor man, if through charity he has been counted worthy to have God? and on the contrary, what will earthly substance profit the rich man, if he has not been counted worthy to have God? Love, then, and hold fast charity, most beloved brethren, without which no one will ever see God. Do not flatter yourselves without charity, even if you should have accomplished the rest of the good works: but fear that which is written: Whosoever shall have kept the whole law, but offend in one point, is become guilty of all (James 2:10). What is this one point, but true and perfect charity; of which the Apostle again said: All the law is fulfilled in you in one word: You shall love your neighbour as yourself (Gal. 5:14)?
So far are all other works without charity of no profit, that the Apostle cries out with a free voice: 'If I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, but have not charity, it profits me nothing' (1 Cor. 13:3). And therefore, since that is true charity which loves all men, whoever knows that he holds even one man in hatred, let him hasten to vomit out the bitterness of gall, that he may deserve to receive within himself the sweetness of charity; for without it neither fastings, nor vigils, nor prayers, nor almsgiving, nor faith and virginity can avail to help any man. And because the Apostle, admonishing us concerning charity, said, 'Rooted and grounded in charity' (Eph.
3:17), and charity is the root of all good things; it is most evident that, just as any tree, however beautiful and pleasant and full of blossoms and fruits, if there be no living root in it, all its beauty withers away, so also any Christian whatsoever, if he show himself to possess the other good works as it were upon his branches, and, presuming upon these without charity, refuse to have the root of charity itself, shall remain barren without any fruits. 5. Praise of charity.
For true charity endures in adversities, is temperate in prosperities, strong in harsh sufferings, cheerful in good works, most safe in temptation, most sweet among true brethren, most patient among false ones, innocent amid snares, groaning amid iniquities, breathing again in truth; chaste in Susanna toward her husband, in Anna after her husband, in Mary apart from a husband; humble in Peter unto obeying, free in Paul unto rebuking, human in Christians unto confessing, divine in Christ unto pardoning. For true charity, dearest brethren, is the soul of all the Scriptures, the power of prophecy, the foundation of knowledge, the fruit of faith, the riches of the poor, the life of the dying.
This, therefore, hold faithfully; this love with your whole heart and with all the strength of your soul; to this cleave continually. For the Lord is sweet, and sweeter than every sweetness. His fellowship has no bitterness, his companionship has no guile. If you are willing to hold it with an undivided heart, he will make you both in this world to fulfill the commandments of God with joy, and in the end to attain to the eternal rewards. Which may he himself deign to grant, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns unto the ages of ages. Amen. SERMON 270. On the love of charity and the hatred of cupidity; and that the kingdom of heaven can be bought not only with two mites, but even with a good will; and on the tribulation of grapes and olives. 1.
Charity and cupidity cannot exist together. The blessed apostle Paul, dearest brethren, that he might commend to us the sweetness of true and perfect charity, set forth to us the bitterness of cupidity; and like a most skilled and spiritual physician he showed what we ought to flee and what to seek. And because cupidity is the root of all evils, and charity is the root of all good things, and both cannot be together, unless the one be torn out by the root, the other cannot be planted. In vain, therefore, does anyone strive to cut off the branches, if he does not endeavor to pull up the root. For thus the same apostle says: 'Cupidity is the root of all evils, which some coveting have made shipwreck of the faith, and have entangled themselves in many sorrows;'
'but you, O man of God, flee these things.' Let us therefore hear the counsel of him in whom Christ the Lord was speaking, and as much as we can let us be zealous to flee the bitterness of avarice, if we wish to attain to the sweetness of charity. What the rich man is to do about his riches. The increase of one's estate is unjustly desired. But when we speak concerning contempt of riches, some rich man answers me: 'I have learned not to hope in the uncertainty of riches; I do not wish to be rich, lest I fall into temptation; but since I am already rich, what am I to do about the things I have already happened to possess?' The Apostle follows: 'Let them readily give, let them share' (1 Tim. 6:10, 11, 18). What is it to share? To make your possession common with him who has not.
If, therefore, you begin to share, you will not be that plunderer and that robber who broods over the necessities of the poor as over goods belonging to another. For you have made your possession common with those who have not, and you give more abundantly, since you have even become a dispenser to the poor. You take some care that sustenance may reach the poor man in safety, and in this you dispense mercy beforehand; and therefore God confers honor upon you, and as it were says to you: 'First, from the common store take what suffices for the needs of your household; what remains, give to Christ.' Prepare yourself to hear: 'Come, blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom which was prepared for you from the beginning of the world: for I was hungry, and you gave me to eat' (Matt. 25:34, 35).
Perhaps you despised some poor or needy man, I know not whom: do not despise Christ, who sits in heaven and yet is in need on earth; he will come with recompense, both eternal life and eternal fire. Thinking on this, therefore, you can even be rich with some hope. But if you still wish to become rich, and are not willing to bestow upon the needy even those things that lie superfluous to you, but wish moreover to increase your estate, perhaps you have some hope even from plunder. Unless perhaps you say this: 'God knows that I do not wish to increase my estate from plunder.' From what do you wish to increase it? By buying. Do you seem innocent to yourself, because you wish to increase by buying? By plunder you are not evil, but by your wish you are evil. If anyone says to you, 'Sell your goods,' you shudder, you are terrified, you count it a curse.
When, therefore, you desire to buy, do you not wish precisely this, that others should sell their goods? For how could you be able to buy, if another were not compelled to sell? 3. Less labor to good than to evil. The price of the kingdom of heaven. It is within reach of all. A good will is charity. And see this, brethren, how much he labors who wishes to strip off clothing, and how without labor is he who wishes to clothe the naked. For if he has, he brings it forth and gives it; if he has not, a good will suffices for him before God. Behold, he does not labor if he has; but if indeed he has not, then, because he has what is very necessary, he is poor in his chest, but rich in conscience; poor in his house, but rich in his soul. Or perhaps you have nothing, because you have a good will?
Hear the angels crying out when the Lord was born: 'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will' (Luke 2:14). At how small a price the kingdom of heaven stands! At how cheap a price so great a possession is offered! For that is offered on earth which you may possess in heaven; that is offered in time which you may possess for eternity. You cannot say: 'I have not the means to buy, because that possession is so great that I cannot find a fitting price.' Is it not worth as much as you are able to have? and that superfluous. How much was it worth to Zacchaeus? Half his estate: for he was rich. 'The half of my goods,' he said, 'I give to the poor' (Luke 19:8). But because he bought first, perhaps you find nothing to buy? For he bought the kingdom of heaven.
Yet he bought, and there is preserved whole for you what you may buy. Do not fear lest a fellow-possessor should straiten you: for what charity possesses is broad enough for all. With two mites a certain widow bought the kingdom of heaven. She cast into the treasury two coins: 'Amen, amen, I say to you, she has cast much more into the house of God than these: for they cast in of their abundance, but she cast in all that she had' (Mark 12:42-44). For because the Lord provided her sustenance, the two coins had already remained over and above the sustenance of her day: therefore she cast them into the house of God, and bought for herself the kingdom of heaven. Behold, what you feared might be costly, and that you might not be sufficient for it, lo, it is worth two coins.
If the price which Zacchaeus gave frightened you, let this price which this widow gave console you. I add still more, dearest ones: it is worth even something cheaper. Cheaper is a cup of cold water; cheaper is a good will alone: for you hear the angels crying, 'On earth peace to men of good will.' Or perhaps we have not well said that a good will is cheaper? Nay rather, it is dearer than all, and he has all who has a good will; because even in the half of his goods, Zacchaeus, had he not a good will, would have given nothing. For a good will, that itself is called charity. And what does the Apostle say? 'If I distribute all my goods to the poor, but have not charity, it profits me nothing' (1 Cor. 13:3). He therefore has all who has a good will.
This is what can suffice, if the rest be lacking; but if this alone be wanting, whatever else is possessed profits nothing. It alone suffices if it be present; all other things profit me nothing, if charity alone be lacking. If you had in your house treasures whereby you might be secure, you would rejoice and exult: you have in your heart a good will, and are you sad? In your chest you might fear a thief; in your heart you hold a good will, and you fear nothing. 4. He who seeks righteousness is threatened with suffering from the wicked. Perhaps someone thinks and says: 'If I begin to give my goods to the poor, and am unwilling to avenge myself on my adversaries for the love of God, and strive to be humble and meek, at once it will be necessary for me to endure the persecutions of evil men.'
You who fear these things, have you not read that 'through many tribulations we must enter into the kingdom of God' (Acts 14:21)? Have you not heard the Scripture saying, 'Son, when you come to the service of God, stand in righteousness and fear, and prepare your soul for temptation' (Sir. 2:1)? It is true that where you set yourself to seek God in truth, it will be necessary for you to endure the wickedness of proud or evil men: because Christ is not so worshipped by them as he is daily preached to them; since whatever they wish, whatever they ask of God, they wish to consume in their luxuries and in their banquets, in spectacles, in trifles, in fornications, in drunkenness. On these they wish to spend that in which they desire to abound;
and then they think that God is good, when he grants them the means by which they may be corrupted. 5. Thereby the Church profits the more. The wicked are the presses in which the grape and the olive are pressed. One must pray for them. But someone says: 'Behold, the times are harsh, and will be harsher.' Through these harsher times the Church profits the more; those profit who hold their heart on high; and those who hold not their heart on high, their heart is thrown into turmoil upon the earth, and they bid their heart change its place, that they too may hold their heart on high, singing with us, 'To you, O Lord, have I lifted up my soul' (Ps. 24:1). To say 'The times are more severe' is like saying that the times are more severe for the olive when its fruit is gathered, because it is put into the press.
For when it hung on the tree, the times seemed glad; and they do not consider that it was full of oil-dregs. There comes as it were a harsher time, there comes the time of the press, there come greater pressures. For through the sins and crimes of the proud, through the avarice and luxury of the wicked, greater pressures are brought upon the human race. For all the wicked and lovers of the world are as it were presses. For just as in the presses both the grape and the olive are pressed, that the wine and oil may be stored in the cellar, so through the wickedness of evil men, those who are good and just are wearied bodily by many tribulations, that their souls, as it were oil and wine, may deserve to be stored away in eternal blessedness.
Do not, therefore, despair of God's mercy or justice, as often as you see yourself wearied by wicked men: but consider that those who persecute you are reckoned before God as the millstones and presses; you, however, as the olive and as the legitimate grape, are compelled for a short time to endure the pressure of evil men; but afterward there shall remain to them reproach without end, while you shall pass over by a happy exchange to the kingdom. And then, freed from all evils, you shall be able to say with the prophet: 'We have passed through fire and water, and you have brought us out into refreshment' (Ps. 65:12). But that you may deserve to attain to that blessedness, pray for those who persecute you; for God is able to convert them to good;
and that those who now seem to be chaff may pass over from tares into wheat, from oil-dregs into oil; and that those who now persecute others through wickedness may themselves afterward suffer persecution for righteousness' sake; and that those who now cruelly wish to seize the goods of others may begin mercifully to bestow their own goods on the poor. And if, at your prayers, divine mercy should grant this according to its custom, you shall receive, God rewarding you, a double reward in eternal blessedness, not only for your own salvation but also for that of others: which may he himself deign to grant, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, God, through all the ages of ages. Amen. SERMON 271. On the love not only of friends, but even of enemies:
and that it can come to pass that those who are enemies may thus be recalled to friendship. 4. Enemies are to be loved. For God loved us, even as enemies. Often in the Gospel, dearest brethren, we have heard the Lord saying, 'Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you' (Matt. 5:44). But why did the Lord say, 'Love your enemies,' except because we were to suffer enemies? But someone says: 'Who can love enemies?' Your God first loved you when you were impious, he who was never impious: but you, even if you are no longer impious, yet you were so once; for when does one become just except out of a sinner, as we have often sung, 'Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven' (Ps. 31:1)?
He did not say, 'Blessed are they who have not committed sins,' but, 'Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven.' For if you seek one who has not committed sin, you will not find him. Whence, then, shall anyone be blessed? If what he did be forgiven, if what he committed be covered. If, therefore, your sin has now been forgiven you, he pursues you who is not yet just. And you, before you were justified, were persecuting others; you had perished, and were found: and he who opposes you shall be found, and shall not persecute. Do not think that you were made such by your own merits; for the grace of God made you such. And considering rightly, you will see that God is powerful, who may make such a one him whom you justly seem to hate. 2. How unjustly the destruction of the wicked is desired.
For you say to yourself as though just: 'Great is the patience of God, which suffers such a man to live.' And would that you said only this: but I fear lest you moreover reproach, saying, 'Why did it please God to spare such men? Why do men do such great evils, and yet live?' So let another say: 'O God, why does this man live who says such things, and reproaches your justice?' For he does not attend to what he himself says, but attends to what another does. He who displeases you perhaps does not reproach, nor pour out these insults against God, as you do. Behold, suppose that God, as you wish, were willing to spare no wicked man: what will he do with you, who cannot be without sin? Do you not attend to where he may find you?
Pray, therefore, that he may spare not only others, but even you. This, then, brethren, all the wicked have as it were their own peculiarity: they do not wish God to spare the wicked, and they do not see what they themselves are, even from this very fact that they so wish. 'But I am just,' you say. If God did not spare you when you were wicked, how would you have attained to righteousness? Or perhaps you wished that God should be patient only up to you, until you should attain to righteousness? Because God stretched out the bridge of his mercy, that you might be able to cross over, do you wish that he should now withdraw it, lest another cross? 3. He who is evil today, perhaps tomorrow will be better to us. Let us therefore love, dearest brethren, our enemies.
Perhaps he who today is your friend is about to commit such sins that he cannot be with you in eternal life: for you know not what tomorrow may bring forth (Prov. 27:1). On the contrary, he who is your enemy will perhaps be so converted to penance that he may deserve to be your fellow-citizen in that heavenly Jerusalem, and perhaps may even be made greater. Let this not seem difficult to you. Let us question the Scriptures, and in them we shall be able to recognize this more evidently. Paul the apostle was first a wicked enemy of the Christians; he seized, he ravaged, he raged. He was there when Stephen the martyr was stoned. His own hands were too few for him; he stoned with the hands of all;
for that they might not be hindered by their own garments, but might hurl the stones with free hands, he kept the garments of all; and thus he was working the crime in the hands of all. See a man made from a persecutor into a preacher by one voice of the Lord. He went before those whom he had hated: for all those Christians whom he pursued were not such as he himself became. For not all those Apostles were such as he himself became. You see that it can come to pass that one who was an enemy today may be not only a friend and brother in grace, but may even go before and become better. 4. The fruit of prayer is the death of the enemy. The man and the sinner are two things. Therefore, my brethren, all those Christians whom Saul persecuted, do you think they did not pray?
Assuredly they did, if they knew Christ, if they were Christians, if they knew that same Lord Jesus to have died for the impious. For he did not die for the faithful, but he died that he might make them faithful. I ask you, brethren, diligently attend: our Lord and Savior, who bestowed his death upon unbelievers, of what sort must that be which he keeps for the faithful? And consider this, that those whom Paul the apostle persecuted well knew the mercy of God, and knew that that Saul the persecutor could become a preacher: and therefore they prayed for him, and were heard. He was persecuting; but they conquered. They rather slew and killed him by praying for him. How? Behold, by one voice the persecutor was laid low.
For he rose up no longer a persecutor, but a preacher: he therefore who was persecuting is dead. Seek the persecutor, and you will no longer find him; because he has risen. Therefore they rather killed him by praying, than he by persecuting. And you also, therefore, brethren, so pray for your enemies, that God may kill them: that is, that he may cut off their malice which is hostile to you. For thus he does not kill what he created, but what they themselves made in you. For 'man' and 'sinner' are two names. In these two names seek what God made, seek what the devil suggested. Man was made by God: sin, at the devil's suggestion, was made by man. Which of these two persecutes you?
For if you live well, no one persecutes you except him who is evil: therefore it is not the man, but the sinner, who pursues you. Pray for the man, that God may extinguish the sinner. For when the sinner is dead, nothing will be against you; nay, he will console you, living, who, dead, persecuted you in your sins. 5. In forgiving is all our hope. The greatest sacrifice is offered to God. It is within reach of all. There are two kinds of almsgiving. The spiritual is superior. Let it not, therefore, be grievous to you, by the mercy of our Lord himself I beseech you, that there is no other hope for us, unless we forgive whatever men have wronged us. Let no one deceive us.
There is no other greater sacrifice that we owe to God, than whatever of good we do even to evil men, yet to men. God says to you: 'I do not grow from you, but you from me; I want a sacrifice which may profit the light: thus there reaches me that which profits you.' You can say to me: 'I have nothing to bestow on the needy, I cannot fast frequently, and I cannot abstain from wine or flesh.' Can you say to me that you cannot have charity? That is the possession which is increased the more, the more it is dispensed. Forgive, therefore, what you were holding, lest against you he hold something, to whom you have nothing to forgive: 'Forgive, and it shall be forgiven you; give, and it shall be given to you' (Luke 6:37, 38).
Know, dearest brethren, that there are two kinds of almsgiving: one of the heart, another of money. The almsgiving of the heart is to forgive when you have been wronged. For to give something to the needy you sometimes seek, and have not: to pardon the one who sins, as much as you will, redounds to you. It may happen that sometimes you do not have gold, silver, clothing, grain, wine, and oil whereby to bestow on the poor: but that you should love all men, and this for others which you yourself wish for, and that you should pardon your enemies, you can never excuse yourself; because if you have not in your storeroom or in your barn what you might be able to give, out of the treasure of your heart you can bring forth what you may bestow.
And since, with all men, a good will suffices, even if it be alone, and the almsgiving of the heart is much greater than the almsgiving of the body; who is there who could put forward even the shadow of an excuse? And attend to this also, brethren, that the almsgiving of charity suffices for itself without earthly substance: but that which is given bodily, if it be not bestowed with a kindly heart, does not suffice at all. And because, as you yourselves see, dearest brethren, for the remission of all sins, if earthly substance be lacking, charity and the love of enemies suffice abundantly and to spare; no excuse concerning this matter will remain to us on the day of judgment, nor will anyone be able to say that he had not the means whereby to redeem his sins. 6.