Feria Tertia In Rogationibus

Sermon of the Blessed Avitus, Tuesday of the Rogation Days. (From manuscripts of the Grande Chartreuse.) We read in the history of the Kings that a certain celebrated prophet, with the meager nourishment of a heavenly repast, undertook a very long journey for many days without any support of earthly food; so greatly did the power of the divine benefit prevail in the human body, with its infirmity set aside. This comparison, however, is made in the sermon not as the cause. Thus, therefore, for us also, who are running through a certain annual journey of actions, events, and fears in their diversity, a certain one who comforts us among these things is taken as bread extended from heaven, as it were, by the Rogations: whose strength and wholesomeness not only supplies the lack of past sterility, but also shuts out the danger of famine from our spirit, not in bread alone, but in the living word of God. But if anyone marvels at the Rogations instituted in our age, which the multitude of Churches did not know for so many ages before, it is clear that this person can also detract from the gifts of redemption, which came at the end of the ages when the world’s time was almost consumed. Let him see, whoever he is, what he certainly thinks; let the furious one mock the quality of the remedy, the desperate one be ignorant of it, but the one frequently experienced knows it. But who is this person so completely healthy that he does not need medicine, that he succumbs to no disease of the ailing soul, that he does not burn with desire, or grow pale with avarice, or become livid with envy, or swell with pride, or grow hot with anger, or itch with slander?

If, therefore, anyone among these is conscious of some weariness in himself, he ought to do penance for the whole time, and not refuse the three days. And this, even in full order and digested form, the prophecy which was read, if it be unfolded step by step, suggests, having begun from the beginning of the discourse thus: "You," it says, "I have known out of all the kindreds of the earth" (Amos 3:2). Here at once the Jewish people rush headlong into a kind of plunder, not out of love but ambition, so that they seem to be summoned to the familiarity of divine knowledge before all others. But let the opportunity for clamoring cease here, because rather under the judgment of reason the certain meanings of the causes of the words are to be measured. "I have known you," it did not say "among all," but "out of all the kindreds of the earth." Who, then, are those who are acquired out of all the kindreds of the earth, if not those who, from the universality of nations, are brought together into one, becoming one people from diverse parts of the world, and from many members under Christ the head, one body? To which calling, afterward to be acknowledged and proclaimed, the most blessed Peter, fixed in stupor of mind, saw a certain linen cloth descending from heaven, which, let down with four corners and a swelling fold, contained every kind of animal, with birds and reptiles; and he was admonished that for necessary refreshment he might slaughter whatever he wished. Indeed, he shrank from such an appetite, when such a mode of foods was commanded, through legal observance; but soon the divine word said to him, "What God has purified, do not you call unclean" (Acts 10:15).

And he said, "Truly," he says, "I have found that there is no acceptance of persons with God; but you, to every people and nation that fears God and does his will, are acceptable to him" (Ibid., 34). Then, therefore, you see those who are known from all the families of the earth, namely the prophets and apostles, with what unity they come together. This is indeed what the reading now says: "Shall two walk together, unless it is agreed between them" (Amos 3:5)? But it is agreed between two, Christ and Moses, because the latter wrote about the former. It is agreed between the Law and Grace, because... the former imposed more strictly, so that the latter might more freely relax. It is agreed between truth and prophecy, because the latter gave birth to what the former conceived. Among the Jews these two do not walk together, therefore they do not agree. For between those two Testaments themselves they place certain minutiae. To the one true God one does not go except by one path. Certainly, if for any other reasons it can be by a different path, it cannot be by an opposite one. Among us, however, these two are joined together and agree. Yet in this word of the prophet there is also something that can be taken more personally, if the duality itself which must agree is first in one man, and then in the human race. For our spirit and our body are compacted from the quality of disparate substance. These two cannot run the course of this age at all unless they have consented among themselves, with the law of divine ordinance preserved.

If the spirit is not subject to the flesh, but rather the flesh yields to the mind for restraining lust, then reason leads both together in harmony along the path of the law to the homeland of eternity. But if, while the journey through this world is undertaken, the flesh, with the spirit delaying, has anticipated the soul and, by the license of sin allowed to itself, has blocked the capacity of the way, then that equality of running which is commanded to man by the Creator departs, and the hindered law of the mind begins to perish and the law of the body to be exalted; and no longer do both proceed together, but one lies prostrate and the other oppresses. And what is more to be lamented, these things steal upon not so much the ignorant as they hold sway over the learned. The following discourse teaches this: "The lion," it says, "has roared; who will not fear? The Lord has spoken; who will not prophesy?" (Ibid.). Sin appears far off; why do we not flee? Scripture cries out near at hand; why do we not believe? Who is the roaring lion, if not the one of whom the apostle says, that your adversary the devil, like a roaring lion, goes about seeking to devour you (1 Pet. 1:8)?

Incontinence produces madness, so that the one who sends forth a roar from afar does not lie down in silence; but the one who hears the roar and does not take heed, carrying with him the awareness of the commandment to the beginnings of sin, is immediately seized by a rabid bite, unless he is terrified by the hearing sent ahead; which indeed we conjecture not absurdly, for immediately in what follows the quality of the bite itself is shown: "How," it says, "if the pastor tears from the lion's mouth two legs of a sheep, or the extreme part of an ear" (Amos 3:12). The pastor for us is without doubt that good one who, having left behind ninety-nine sheep, did not disdain to seek out the one wandering. But it is worth the effort to examine more diligently that those ninety-nine which that pastor left on the mountains, manifested in the flesh, he did not abandon, remaining in the nativity. For the angels glorying in the celestial height, who can no longer wander anywhere, clearly bear the figure. For the lion of which we spoke above, after that ruin of his own fall by which, affecting the consortium of Divinity, he became even more miserable than man, while he disdains to be inferior to the Creator, was stripped of all dignity of archangelic power. But to this one, nevertheless, he attached whatever power of the ministers of the witnesses, lest he perish alone, to the case of his own casting down. And from this, however, so much of that vigor of the eminent creature now remains for him, that those already suffering future damnation, while they foreknow, when they have lost the merit of living, cannot have even that remedy of dying.

From that fall, therefore, as I have said, each one who remained in the love of his Creator and in the honor of angelic blessedness could no longer be led astray, and consequently could not be endangered; as happened in the beginning with the angels, what is to be done with men at the end, so that the course of salvation and perdition, once unfolded, is completed when the number is exacted and fulfilled. Therefore, the good shepherd left those sheep of the heavenly height and came to that one lost sheep, in whose sign the human race lay, and that sheep, which could not ascend by itself to those ninety-nine because it had been gnawed by that lion, he carried on his own shoulders, because he lifted it up in his own body; and when he returned to the heights of heaven with the flesh he had assumed, he brought back that same sheep, which had wandered from paradise, to the angels. Hence it is now clear who the shepherd is who frees the two legs and part of the ear, and who the lion is that devours the rest: that is, this is Christ, that is the devil. But, setting aside carnal consideration for a moment, let us see what is the smallest part of the body that remained covered from the devourer. For I do not think that the good shepherd would have wished to rescue such a mangled and nearly consumed thing with such zeal, unless he recognized that some palpitating life still remained in that very particle. This sheep, as we have already said, is any sinner whatsoever, if, having wandered from those who protect themselves with caution, he incurs the beast by his own fault, when he has turned away from the shepherd.

For while he walks through the desert, that is, while he thinks upon vain and perishable things, the devil meets him and attacks his thought with the bite of pestilent persuasion. When he has already begun to hold the captive man's desire in his power, the ravenous mangler has in a way swallowed his front part. And yet, if desire and the definition of sin are not followed by effect, the two legs, so to speak, are freed—that is, the rear part which had not yet been devoured. For even if he lost certain front feet of his thought through desire in the lion's jaws, he snatched the remaining steps, which he did not bring to the effect of the deed, from the mercy of the shepherd. Yet it must be noted that he freed that portion of the body which seems to survive as the extreme part of the ear. For after he said, "as if he rescues the two legs," he added "and the extreme part of the ear." Our ear, therefore, is our obedience: for when we pray and come to our senses, the lion devours the first part of this ear; the shepherd frees the last. The first part of the ear is "Do not desire." That is already swallowed, because thought has desired. The following part is, "Do not pursue your desires." Thus, if we do not fulfill in deed the evil we have conceived in thought, with the front part of obedience wounded, that which is extreme is rescued from the lion's mouth. How? Surely through penance and correction.

This reading, turned over many times by the Lord throughout the whole passage, shows what and how great things we suffer and still do not come to our senses: "I sent upon you a lack of bread, a dulling of the teeth; I struck you with a burning wind" (Amos 4:6). The lack of bread is that we may know that when one departs from the Lord, there is no source of life. But whence is the dulling of the teeth contracted? I think that saying of Solomon in a certain place is fitting, where he made a comparison, saying: "Just as a sour grape is harmful to the teeth." Now, a sour grape is a promise seized prematurely and a thing grasped when the fullness of time is deferred. For to wish to have in this world the sweetness and pleasantness that is promised to us in eternity is quite unripe and bitter. Of this still harsh and green grape, not wine but poison, Adam tasted within paradise to his own and our ruin; and because the parents ate the sour grape, the teeth of the children became dull. But Ezekiel, foreseeing that the original debt would be cancelled by Christ's payment, speaks thus: "I live," says the Lord, "if that proverb will any longer be in Jerusalem: The fathers ate the sour grape; the teeth of the children will become dull" (Ezek. 18:3). Now whatever it was that Adam did—what he coveted proudly, what he presumed illicitly, what he desired incautiously—no longer harms you; you must fear the dulling of the teeth from your own eating, you must restrain the touch of appetite from useless greed. You desire a sour grape, but wait for the ripeness of the promise. That delight is not owed to your age.

If you seek a sweet one, wait for the heavenly; if you desire a human one, you will suffer a harsh one. For what is the glory of the world, except that which he calls below, a burning wind? Even if its gentleness delights men, yet its terror strikes its lovers: "And because you have not returned to me even thus," says the Lord, "now prepare to meet your God Israel" (Amos 4:10). The apostle Paul indeed says (1 Thess. 4:17) where he describes the coming of the Redeemer, how we will be snatched up to the clouds to meet Christ in the air; yet here I think this meeting pertains to something else. For even while living here we meet God, as it were, if we embrace the precept that is offered; and because He is ready to forgive, let correction meet Him for repentance. But also, whoever, for the love of eternal life, not only abstains from unlawful things but also restrains himself from lawful ones, is to be judged as having met Him spontaneously. For to give an example, let us say each one: adultery being generally forbidden, simple marriage is permitted by law; yet the splendor of virginity is incomparably preferred to it: hence, he who gives his virgin in marriage does well, and he who does not give her does better (1 Cor. 7:38). Therefore, we ought to feel this about every observance: he who does evil flees; he who does good waits; he who does better meets.

Now after many and most pious admonitions, which stand for our progress even according to the letter, he fittingly describes our Rogations in the reading itself, saying: In all streets and ways let there be wailing (Amos 5:16). These ways and streets signify our acts, through which we run the human course of life with mortality. Ways are lesser offenses, but streets are broader sins, which send to that wide and spacious road that leads to perdition; and many are those who find it. But by the narrow path one goes to that one of whom the prophet foretold, that no one heard his voice in the street, whose word, of course, did not resound in the freedom of sin. Therefore in this street, because it is our act, let there be also our wailing: which wailing, however, the following words testify should not be confused and disorderly. He will call, he says, the farmer to mourning, and to wailing those who know how to wail (Ibid.). You see, of course, that not everyone knows how to wail, but only those who know are to be called. The farmer is one who, by this mourning of penance and by the affection of compunction, cleanses his land, that is, his substance, of thorns, tames it with precepts, waters it with tears, fertilizes it with humility, enriches it with seed, multiplies it with fruit.

Indeed, according to the state of human calamity, there is no one who does not know how to lament, since generation is such that even he who knows nothing else knows this, so that even the new age of infants entering this world, bursting forth with their first voice in weeping, as if by some prophecy of calamities, lacks all understanding, yet brings forth in nature a lament which they do not yet have in knowledge, and without any aid of instruction, the very beginning of perils produces the teachings of tears. Since this is so, let us inquire according to the spirit what difference there is between those who know and those who do not know how to weep. For as there are kinds and orders of men, each ought to have this knowledge of weeping. One cause of tears for a king, another for a subject, another for a sinner, another for a just man. Secular history relates that a certain Parthian king, after a victory, having surveyed from a higher place the very numerous multitude of his army, wept; and when asked by the satraps what cause there was for weeping in such happiness, he said: I lament this multitude, which, however victorious, within not many years is entirely to be ended by the law of nature. If to secular wisdom...

Behold tears worthy of a worldly king, such as would befit even a Christian prince, who after triumphs thinks more of death than of glory, not to be proud but to lament. What if we know that this weeping of a religious prince is a witness in the present cause, when that David, great in virtue, endowed with power, preeminent in piety, amid golden garlands and jeweled diadems, sighed with the most intense heat of burning desire for the crown of the heavenly kingdom rather, saying, "When shall I come and appear before the face of my God" (Ps. 41:3)? Did he not have his own tears as bread day and night, while they said to him daily: "Where is your God?"—which, indeed, was said to him not by an external persecutor compelling him to deny, but by his own soul longing to see. For his spirit, intent on heavenly things, spoke to itself: "Where is your God? When shall I come and appear before his face?" If, therefore, such tears befitted a holy king, what shall we now say of the Holy of Holies Himself, who, before showing the power of resurrection, spent the weakness of weeping over a four-day-old corpse? So, at the highest level, such tears befit the Redeemer. For He wept much there.

There is Adam's sin; there the wages of sin, death; there Lazarus, that is the human race; there the deceased covered by a stone, that is the hardness of the condition; there the tearless comforters, that is the disbelief in the resurrection; there the fourth day having come for the deceased: these four things happen to sinners in the funeral of souls that are cried out: the first is thinking of evil, the second defining it, the third perpetrating it, the fourth persisting in the crime. Concerning the fourth, all of us, recurring through Lazarus so that we may be revived, need not only the sweetness of pity but also the bitterness of weeping. After these things, because by such teaching he also taught us to lament, let us discern the knowledge and share the tears. Behold today many come to church; if anyone, prostrating himself in prayer, begins with any amount of weeping to pray for something that pertains to the world—either the happiness of worldly life, or the death of enemies, or the increase of riches, or the length of this life, or the honor of secular dignities—does not such weeping teach that man does not know what he laments, which, useless and quite unskilled, he has undoubtedly lost, as often as he has poured it out? This is not so much wretched as if, by weeping, he were to ask that those things be granted to him which many, not knowing God, seem to obtain without any prayers by sinning.

On the other hand, you see another groaning and crying out: "Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner," lamenting his evil life, seeking a good one, washing away his offense with the same tears with which he waters his bed, showing to God in his groans the weakness of the flesh, the ardor of the spirit, the horror of death, the love of resurrection. This one is skilled in weeping, this one is most learned in lamentation. Such a tear does not fall to the ground, because it is commended to God, to whom it is said: "You have placed my tears before your face" (Psalm 55:7). Finally, since if our Rogations are properly observed, they cannot be completed without weeping, I will distinguish the knowledge of weeping as briefly as I can. The greatest skill is to expend tears here, so that the numbness of the teeth which we mentioned above can be healed, rather than to preserve them there where the gnashing of teeth is never ended. For to those it is said: "Woe to those who now laugh, because they will mourn and weep"; but to these: "Blessed are those who now weep, because you will laugh and rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.