SERMON 359/A
SERMON HELD THEN AT TUNIS ABOUT PATIENCE
AND FROM THE READING OF THE GOSPEL ABOUT THE STEWARD
Hope like an anchor in the solid.
As long as we are in this world, if we take care to have our heart above, it will not harm us that we walk below. For we walk below in this flesh. However, if we fix our hope above, we have placed an anchor in solid ground: that we might withstand the waves of this world, not by ourselves but by him in whom the anchor is fixed, our hope, because he who made us hope will not deceive us, to return the thing for hope. For hope, as the Apostle says, which is seen, is not hope. For who hopes for what they see? But if, he says, we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
It is one thing to desire, another to see.
Concerning this patience that the Lord grants, I wish to speak to your Charity. For the Lord Jesus Christ also says in the Gospel in a certain place: In your patience, you shall possess your souls. It is also said in another place: Woe to those who have lost patience. Whether it is called patience, endurance, or forbearance, it signifies the same thing with various expressions. Let us not fixate on the diversity of sounds but inscribe the unity of the thing itself in our hearts, and let us internally possess what we call outwards. He who knows that he lives a pilgrim life in this world, wherever on earth he has been placed according to the body, who knows he has an eternal homeland in heaven, who trusts that there is there a region of blessed life, which it is allowed to desire here, but not to possess, glowing with such a good, holy, and chaste desire, lives patiently here. Patience does not seem necessary in prosperous things, but in adverse things. No one patiently endures what delights. But whatever we endure, whatever we patiently bear, is hard and bitter, and accordingly, patience is not necessary for happiness, but for unhappiness. Nevertheless, as I began to say, whoever burns with the desire for eternal life, in whatever land he may be, even in prosperity, must live patiently because he endures his very pilgrimage with difficulty until he reaches the longed-for homeland. One is the love of desire, another of vision. For both who desires loves; and who sees loves; and who desires loves so that he may reach it; and who sees loves so that he may remain. But if the desire of the saints burns so from faith, what will it be in manifestation? If we love so, when we believe what we have not yet seen, how will we love when we shall see?
Faith and hope.
Therefore, the Apostle says these three things which he especially commends to be built up in the inner man: faith, hope, charity, and when he praised the three, he finally said: But the greatest of these is charity. Follow charity. What then is faith? What is hope? What is charity? And why is charity greater? Faith is, as defined in a certain place of the Scriptures, the substance of things hoped for, the conviction of things which are not seen. He who hopes, has not yet what he hopes for, but by believing he is similar to one possessing. For faith, he says, is the substance of things hoped for, it is not yet the very thing we will hold, but faith itself is in place of that very thing. For he who holds faith does not hold nothing, nor is he empty who is full of faith. Therefore, the reward of faith is great because it sees not and believes. For if it saw, what reward would there be? Therefore, the Lord, when he had risen from the dead and had shown himself to his disciples, not only to be seen by eyes but also to be handled by hands, when he had convinced human senses that it was he who had risen who a little before had hung on the wood, intending to be with them for some days as long as he seemed to suffice for confirming the gospel and for building up the faith of the resurrection, ascended to heaven, so that he might not be seen, but be held by believing. For if he were always here and conspicuous to these eyes, there would be no praise for faith. Now indeed it is said to man: Believe. And he wants to see. He is answered: So that you may one day see, in the meantime believe. Faith is the merit: vision is the reward. If you wish to see before you believe, you demand the reward before the work. What you wish to have has a price. You wish to see God. The faith of such a great good is the price. You wish to arrive, and you do not wish to walk? Vision is possession, faith is the way. He who refuses the toil of the journey, how does he seek the joy of possession?
On charity.
But faith does not fail, because hope is present. Remove hope, and faith fails. For how can one who does not hope he can arrive move his feet in walking? But if you remove the love of both, that is, of faith and of hope, what good is it that he believes, what good is it that he hopes, if he does not love? Indeed, he cannot even hope for what he does not love. For love kindles hope, hope shines with love. But when we reach the things we hoped for in faith, not having seen them, what faith will be praised there? Indeed, faith is the conviction of things not seen. When we see, it will no longer be called faith. For you will see, not believe. Likewise, hope itself. When the thing exists, you no longer hope. For what a person sees, why does he still hope for it? Behold, when we arrive, faith ends, hope ends. What about love? Faith turns into vision, hope turns into reality. Then there will be vision and reality, not faith and hope. What about love? Can it end? For if it was already inflamed for what was not seen, surely when it sees, it will be even more inflamed. Therefore, it is well said: But the greatest of these is love, because vision follows faith, reality follows hope, but no reality follows love; it grows, it increases, it is perfected by that very contemplation.
Everyone wishes to be set free.
Hence, desiring the face of God, sighing toward the homeland of eternal happiness, no matter how much worldly felicity surrounds us, no matter how much abundance and affluence we are filled with, situated in that desire, we will consider the earthly pilgrimage miserable, and in that very misery we beseech God, always saying: Lord, deliver me. The poor man says: Deliver me; and you think he says it to be freed from poverty. The rich man says: Deliver me; perhaps he is sick. No, he is healthy, and he is rich, and he cries out: Deliver me. Why, except for what the very prayer says: Deliver us from evil? In whatever goods they may be involved, it is necessary for a Christian to cry out: Deliver us from evil. If he cries out: Deliver us from evil, there is something from which he is to be delivered; if there is something from which he is to be delivered, he is in evil; if he is in evil, no matter how many goods he has to delight in, he has what to endure until he enjoys God. Therefore, endurance is necessary in this world for the poor, the rich, the healthy, the sick, the captives, the free, those on a pilgrimage, and those established in their homeland; endurance is necessary because all are on a pilgrimage in the world. And until they are freed from this pilgrimage and adhere to that truth and immutable substance, for which they have sighed while on pilgrimage, they are involved in temptations and cry out to God with a true heart: Deliver us from evil.
Who is truly happy. Job.
However, wretched men see those who are called blessed in this world, and they want to be like them, thinking that when they become like them, they will no longer be in hardship. This is a perverse mindset, and not Christian, full of greed, not faith: they believe there is nothing after this life. I do not say: He is happy in this life who abounds in all things. Far be it from me to say such, but if he thinks there is nothing after this life, he is never happy. For reason and truth compel us to acknowledge that no one can be happy here, happy according to wisdom's judgment, not as greed judges.
And behold, when I have proposed, every man has judged that it is possible to be happy. And I begin to seek whether such a one can be found on this earth. Surely I do not say: He is happy who is healthy, who is rich, who is honored, who lives safely with all his own? I do not say this, but: He is happy who needs nothing. It is answered immediately: Then the rich man is happy because he needs nothing. If he needs nothing, he does not desire anything, if he desires, he is in need. You observe his wealth, I question his greed. How does he not need, to whom what he has is too little, and he desires to have more? Do you see that all he has amassed to possess is fuel for a fire where he grows, not where he is satisfied?
Therefore, if he desires more ardently the more he has, I do not say to you: He is in need, but he is poorer than a beggar. For a beggar's desire is satisfied with a few coins, but an avaricious man's desire is not satisfied by the whole world. Here again, you may respond: what if he seeks nothing beyond what he has? I commend if I find it, rejoice greatly, he has set a limit to an infinite thing, he could say to greed: Thus far. Great strength, great domination of the mind is to impose a limit, to break the greedy desire, to restrain greed, to set bounds to burning lust.
Great virtue, I confess, great virtue. Nevertheless, according to what I have defined, I do not yet call him happy. For what did I say? Who is happy? He who needs nothing. Behold, this one needs nothing: and abounds in all things, and seeks nothing more. I still ask: Does he not wish to have more? It is answered: He does not wish to have more. Does he fear to lose what he has? It is answered: He fears. How then does he not need, and if he now does not need in wealth, he needs in security. And who can make him secure in this world that what he possesses cannot perish, from whom can he receive security about things that totter and fall? Many rich men slept, rose poor. No one, therefore, gives him this security. And he knows it too, and therefore he fears.
Therefore, his mind must be increased, he must gain greater strength, so that just as he imposed limits to greed, so he may not fear to lose what he has, and may strengthen his heart so that he can say, having lost all things: Naked I came from my mother's womb, naked shall I return to the earth. The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away; as it pleased the Lord, so has it been done, blessed be the name of the Lord.
Great is this athlete of God, for he struggled with a great adversary. Let us, therefore, make the man so magnanimous that he is neither inflated by what he possesses nor broken by the loss of it but is as one who has as if he had not, uses this world as if not using it, has great wealth, which is the will of his Lord, like he whom we have mentioned: As it pleased the Lord, he says, so has it been done, blessed be the name of the Lord; to be rich: the will of my God; to be poor: the will of my God. See how he fulfilled what all sing but few do: I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth . What is: at all times? Both when it is well and when it is ill: this is at all times, this is always.
He is truly rich who is rich within, not within walls, but within thoughts, in conscience not in chest. Such riches neither shipwreck can take away; for he can come out of the waves both naked and full. Do we think we have found a happy man? If he is happy who needs nothing, whoever such a one may be on earth, why not happy? I think because we have also found such a one in need; if he still needs, he is not yet happy.
Behold he desires nothing, behold he loses securely, is not inflated by prosperity, not weakened by adversity. How is he not yet happy? If I find one in need, I do not dare to pronounce him happy. And whence, says someone, are you to find even this one in need? I find clearly. If he believes in God, he still needs, he is still a beggar of God. For it can be that such a man does not say in prayer: Deliver us from evil, but says: I need. What does he need? Eternal life. He does not yet have it. He is amid temptations.
Behold, Job himself, provoked to love God for nothing, for to this end the devil provoked him, having lost all his possessions, the consolation of his children lost, the only remaining wife being a temptress not a comforter, and struck grievously from head to foot so that even the patrimony of the poor man was taken from him. The poor man's patrimony is health, which when a rich man does not have, whatever he has is bitter to him.
Perhaps you find a poor man who does not need the patrimony of the rich; you do not find a rich man who does not need the patrimony of the poor. Job, struck grievously from head to foot, lost the patrimony of the poor, which is health. Nevertheless, he was not led to attribute folly to God and to displease Him in his troubles: God always pleased him. A new Eve suggested blasphemy at the instigation of the serpent with whom he invisibly wrestled: Say something against God and die. And he: You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we receive good at the hand of the Lord and shall we not receive evil?
She was an Eve, but he was not an Adam. He was defeated in paradise, this one conquered on a dunghill. Yet, amid all his sufferings, he says at one point: Is not human life on earth a temptation? Therefore, established in this human life, undoubtedly he was established in temptation. He wanted to be freed from this temptation. Even he needed the life where there is no temptation. If he needed, he was not yet happy. Therefore, whatever kind of man you may establish, describe, depict here, you wish for what you do not find. No one can be happy on this earth.