So pray that the true Elijah will invigorate the dead and sterile waters within me, and season the meats that I present to you with the salt of the apostles, to whom He said, "You are the salt of the earth." For nothing can be offered to God that is not seasoned with salt. Do not look here for the thunder of that worldly eloquence that Jesus Christ saw fall from heaven like lightning; instead cast your eyes upon this man acquainted with sorrow, who had neither beauty nor attraction, who understands infirmity. And believe that as I respond to your questions, I do not depend on my own training and ability, but on the promise of Him who said, "Open your mouth and I will fill it."
QUESTION #1
You ask me how a person can become perfect, and how a childless widow should manage her life.
Such a question was put to Jesus Christ by a doctor of the law: "Master," he said to him, "what is it that I do to gain eternal life?" The Lord replied, "Do you know the commandments?" "Which commandments?" replied the doctor. Jesus said, "Do not kill, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness, honor your father and your mother, and love your neighbor as yourself." This doctor answered him, "I kept all these commandments since my youth." Jesus Christ said, "You still lack one thing: if you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor; then come and follow me." So, madam, in response to the question you pose, I will employ the words of Jesus: if you want to be perfect, carry your cross, follow the Savior, emulating Saint Peter, who said, "You see, Lord, that we have left everything to follow you." Go, sell everything you have, give to the poor and follow the Savior.
Christ does not say, "Give it to your children, your brothers, your parents," for by this standard, even if you had such, the Lord must have first preference: "Give it to the poor," or rather, to Christ, whom you assist in the person of the poor. He, being rich, became poor due to love of us — He who said in the thirty-ninth Psalm, "As for me, I was poor and needy, and the Lord took care of me." And, at the beginning of the following psalm, "Blessed is he who is attentive to the needs of the poor and the needy."
Indeed attentiveness is needed to discern the poor from the many people who live in their sins as much as in squalor and poverty; what is meant is those of the sort of whom the apostle Paul spoke when he says, "They only asked us not to forget the poor." It was for the relief of these poor people that Paul and Barnabas carefully collected alms on the first day of the week in the congregations of the Gentile converts to the faith, and they disciplined themselves, not sending others, to bring it to those who had been stripped of their property for Jesus Christ — those who suffered persecution, and who told their father and their mother, their wives and their children, "We do not know you." These are the authentic poor, who have performed the will of the heavenly Father, and of the Savior who said, "These are my mother and my brothers: those who carry out the will of My Father."
In saying this, I do not mean that to prevent alms-giving to Jews, to Gentiles, and to all other poor people of any nation whatsoever. But we must always prefer the Christian to the unbeliever, and among the Christians themselves, we must make a great distinction between a poor man whose life is pure and innocent and one whose life is corrupt and disorderly. For this reason the Apostle Paul, who in many places in his epistles urges the faithful to exercise charity toward the poor, recommends that they do so primarily to fellow believers — to one with whom we are united in the same religion, and who is not separated from the brotherhood by disruptive and corruptive immorality. Inasmuch as Saint Paul commands us to give food to our enemies when they are hungry, and to give them something to drink when thirsty, and thereby to pour coals of fire upon their head, how much more ought we to do so for those who are not our enemies, and who profess a holy Christian life?
It is necessary to take in a beneficial way, and not in a bad sense, what is said by the apostle: "Thereby you pour coals of fire on his head." He meant that in doing good to our enemies, we overcome their malice and hatred with our expressions of goodness, and thus we will soften their adamancy; we banish the bitterness and fury to make room for friendship and affection. Thus we pour upon their heads those coals about which it is written, "A mighty hand launches sharp arrows with devouring coals." For, just as the seraph of whom Isaiah speaks purified the prophet's lips with a fiery coal which he had taken from the altar, we shall purify the sins of our enemies, overcoming evil with good, blessing those who curse us, and imitating our Father in heaven, who "makes his sun rise on the good and the evil, and sends rain on the just and the sinners."
Since you have no little children, "use the wealth from swindling to make more friends for yourself, that you may be received in the eternal dwelling-places." It is not for no reason that the Gospel refers to the earthly riches of wealth as unjust, because they have no source other than the injustice of men, and one cannot gain unless someone else loses. So I consider the axiom to be true, that those with much property are either swindlers, or the heirs of swindlers.
This doctor of the law, being told by Jesus Christ that to be perfect we should renounce all the wealth we possess, could not resolve to do so, because he was rich. Then the Savior, turning to His disciples, said, "How difficult it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven!" He does not say it is impossible, but it is difficult, although the example that He gives shows an absolute impossibility: "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." But this is impossible rather than difficult, for it will never be possible for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle; therefore a rich man can never enter the kingdom of heaven. But the camel is a terribly hunchbacked animal, and it usually carries heavy burdens. And when we wander off the path that Jesus Christ blazed, and follow bad paths that lead to sin, we are loaded with the burden of riches or the weight of our sins, and it is impossible for us to enter the kingdom of God. But if we unload this oppressive weight, and put on the wings of a dove, then we will fly away ourselves; we will find rest, and we will say, "When you can sleep in the middle of the campfires, you will become like the dove, whose wings are silver, and whose back is as bright as gold." With our back, which was deformed by the heavy burden that was crushing us, covered with this bright gold, representing the spiritual sense of the divine Scriptures, and with these "silver wings," which signify the literal sense, we will be able to enter into the kingdom of God.
The apostles, saying that they had abandoned all their possessions, boldly sought from Jesus Christ a proper reward for this virtue, and the Lord replied, "Whoever, for My name, shall abandon his house, or his brothers, or his sisters, or his father or mother, or wife, or children, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life." What blessedness to have Jesus Christ himself as your debtor, and to receive much in return for little things — the eternal in exchange for the temporary, and durable and strong goods in exchange for our fragile and perishable wealth.
So, if a widow has children, especially if her family is upper-class, she must not leave them in poverty. Let her love them equally, and have regard for her soul, treating it like one of her own children. She must apportion the property together with them, and not abandon everything to them; rather, she must make Christ a fellow-heir. You could perhaps say that this is difficult, and revolting, and that such treatment of children opposes your tender instincts. But you will hear the Lord reply: "The one who is able to perform such a thing, let him do so," "If you want to be perfect, go, sell all that you possess," etc. In saying, "If you want to be perfect," He does not make this burden a requirement, but allows freedom to pursue either course regarding children. Do you want to be perfect and raise yourself to the highest level of virtue? Imitate the apostles, sell everything you have, give to the poor, and follow the Lord. Separated from all creatures and stripped of everything that you own in the world, follow Him bare, with only a cross. Or, are you content not to be perfect, and to remain in the second-highest level of virtue? Then abandon everything you have, and give it to your children and parents. No one will rebuke you, if you follow this lesser way, provided that you also agree that it is fair that you defer to one whose way tends toward perfection.
You will want to tell me that such sublime virtue is for the men and apostles, but it is impossible for a refined woman, who needs a thousand things to maintain her way of life. Hear therefore what the apostle Paul says: "I do not mean that others are helped and that you are overburdened, but that, to relieve inequality, your abundance compensates for their poverty, so that your poverty is also relieved by their abundance." That is why the Lord says in the Gospel, "Whoever has two coats, let him give to him who has none."
Now, if we lived among the ice of Scythia and the snow of the Alps, where not only two and three coats, but even the animal-skins are scarcely sufficient protection from the harsh cold climate, would we be obliged to strip ourselves to clothe others? We must understand "coat" to mean all that is necessary to clothe us and provide what is naturally required, since we are born naked. And by "the provisions of a single day" is meant, whatever is necessary to feed ourselves. In this sense we fathom the commandment in the Gospel, "Do not worry about tomorrow," that is, about the future, and the apostle's statement, "While we have food and covering, we must be content."
If you have more than you need, give to the poor, and know that you are thus paying a debt. Ananias and Sapphira deserved to be condemned by the apostle Saint Peter, because they had quietly set aside part of their property. Is it a crime, you might ask, not to donate everything one has? No, but the apostle punished them with the death penalty because they had lied to the Holy Spirit, for while reserving for themselves what they needed to live, they pretended to surrender completely all earthly things — thus seeking, in vain, only the approval and esteem of men. Notwithstanding that we are free to give or not to give, he who renounces all his goods in order to be perfect must expect that one day in the future his poverty will be rewarded with property.
Regarding the life that a widow must lead, the apostle sets the rules in a few words, when he says, "The widow who lives in luxury is dead, although she seems alive." I have dealt with this matter thoroughly in the two books that I have dedicated to Furia and Salvina.
QUESTION #2
How shall we understand what the Savior said in Saint Matthew: "And I tell you that henceforth I will not drink of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink with you again in the kingdom of My Father"?
This passage has caused some authors to invent a certain fable, claiming that Christ will reign in the flesh for a thousand years, and will drink the wine which He has not drunk from that time until the end of the world. But as for us, we believe about the bread, which the Lord broke and gave to His disciples, is nothing but the body of our Lord and Savior, as He Himself said to them, "Take, eat, this is my body." And the cup is the one about which He said, "Drink of this, all of you, for this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many." This is the cup of which we read in the prophet, "I take the cup of salvation," and elsewhere, "How admirable is your cup which overwhelms me!" So, inasmuch as "the bread which came down from heaven" is the body of the Lord, and if the wine He gave to His disciples is his blood, "the blood of the new covenant, which was poured out for many for the remission of sins," let us reject the Jewish fables, and assemble with the Lord in this great upper room, furnished and prepared, in which He kept the Passover with His apostles, and there, receiving from His hand the cup of the new covenant, and celebrating Easter with Him, let us become intoxicated with that wine of sobriety. For the kingdom of God is not drink and food, but justice, and joy, and peace in the Holy Spirit.
It was not Moses, but our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave us the true bread — He who is both the diner and the dinner, the eater and that which is to be eaten. It is His blood we drink, and we cannot drink it without Him. Every day in His sacrifices, we press the grapes of the true vine, and of the vine of Sorek, which means "Chosen," and we drink in this wine of the kingdom of the Father, not according to the letter, but in the newness of the spirit, singing a new song which no one can sing except in the kingdom of the church, which is the kingdom of the Father. The patriarch Jacob desired to eat this bread, saying, "If the Lord God is with me, and gives me bread to eat and clothes to wear," and so forth. "For when we are baptized into Jesus Christ, we are protected by Christ. We eat the bread of angels, and we heard the Lord telling us, "My food is to do the will of my Father who sent Me, and to accomplish His work." Let us therefore also do the will of the Father who sent us, and carry out His work, and Christ will drink His blood in the kingdom of the church with us.
QUESTION #3
Why do the evangelists speak differently about the resurrection of our Lord, and how He appeared to His apostles?
Here you first ask why Matthew says that our Lord rose "on the evening of the Sabbath, when the first day of the following week was just beginning to shine," and Saint Mark, on the contrary, said that He arose in the morning, "Jesus arising on the first day of the week in the morning appeared to Mary Magdalene, from whom He had expelled seven demons. And she, departing, told those who were His companions, as they mourned and wept. And these, hearing that He was alive, and that she had seen Him, did not believe in Him."
This problem has a twofold solution. Either we do not accept the testimony of Mark, because this final portion is not contained in most of the Gospels that bear his name — almost all the Greek codices lacking it — or else must affirm that Matthew and Mark have both told the truth, that our Lord rose on the evening of the Sabbath, and that He was seen by Mary Magdalene in the morning of the first day of the following week.
So this is how this passage of Saint Mark should be read: "Jesus arising," place a little pause here, then add, "on the first day of the week in the morning appeared to Mary Magdalene," so that, being raised, according to Saint Matthew, in the evening of the last day of the week, He appeared to Mary Magdalene, according to Saint Mark, "the morning of the first day of the week," which is how John also represents the events, stating that He was seen on the morning of the next day.