Fidelity challenges us in a particular way today because its difficulty has come to be associated with it being something unnecessary or unnatural. In fact, love draws us into a kind of commitment. God Himself shows that this commitment is fully intended on His side and generally lacking on ours. Infidelity begins when our will commits to someone else from that place within our hearts that is reserved for one alone. The vow of chastity is not just the withholding of one’s body from the marital act: it is the consecration of all the affections of the heart to God. This doesn’t produce people who are frigid, but, for those who “can accept it,” they become by their devotion tangible sparks and flames manifesting the kingdom already present now. All are loved, not for themselves, but because God is loved above all.
CHRYSOSTOM:
What do you say, prophet? God punishes, and shall I grieve for those whom he is punishing? Certainly. For God, who punishes, wants us to grieve, since he does not want to punish us, and he grieves when carrying out punishment. Do not rejoice at this. One will say, “If they are justly punished, we ought not to grieve.” What we ought to grieve for is this, that they were found worthy of punishment. When you see your son undergoing medical or surgical treatment, do you not grieve? You do not say to yourself, “What is this?” This cutting is for health, to speed his recovery; it is for his deliverance, this burning? But for all that, when you hear him crying out and unable to bear the pain, you grieve, and the hope of health being restored is not enough to carry off the shock to nature.1
ORIGEN:
It is a great work to be rubbed with salt. If we are seasoned with salt, we are full of grace.2
ORIGEN:
To take an example from human relationships, if the Holy Spirit gives, then I travel on to Jesus Christ and God the Father.3
JEROME:
That you were washed in water means washing not only from heretics but also from ecclesiastics who do not receive saving baptism with a full faith, about whom it is said that they will have received the water but not the Spirit.4
ORIGEN:
But see the mercy of God, see his extraordinary goodness. Even though Jerusalem was thrown into the open field, he does not look down on it as thrown out forever, he does not leave it in a state of perversion as entirely forgotten, as not in the end to lift up the fallen. You were thrown out, but I still return to you; my visit is not lacking after your ruin.”5
JEROME:
When she is ready for marriage and her body is becoming beautiful, she did not have clothes to cover her, and she was not protected by the help of God. If people do not have clothing that Christ gives, they are naked; if people are not clothed inwardly with mercy, goodness, humility, chastity, gentleness and patience, they are cast on the earth, and their beauty is defiled in disorder and nudity.6
ORIGEN:
Let us pray that the mercy of God will come on us and wash away the blood from our souls.7
JEROME:
Our Lord is anointed with another oil, which is not supposed to soften the grief caused by wounds but nonetheless brings with it joy.8
JEROME:
Our loins are girded with fine linen whenever the enticing incentives of lust have to be held back, and nothing of a heavy humor is left, and we are filled with the teaching of the apostle, when he says, “stand therefore, having girded your loins with truth.”9
JEROME:
In Ezekiel, God speaks to Jerusalem: “You were perfect through my beauty.” And this is the meaning of the text: “You were not perfect through your own works or through your own knowledge and the boasting of your heart but through my beauty, which I had put on you freely through my mercy.”10
GREGORY THE GREAT:
Since it often happens when preaching is abundantly poured forth in fitting ways that the mind of the speaker is elevated in itself by a hidden delight in self-display, the preacher may exercise great care, lest he who prescribes remedies for the diseases of others should himself succumb through neglect of his own health, lest in helping others he desert himself, lest in lifting up others he fall. For to some the greatness of their virtue has often been the occasion of their perdition. causing them, while inordinately secure in their own strength, to die unexpectedly through negligence. For as virtue strives with vices, the mind flatters itself with a certain delight in it. And it comes to pass that the soul of a well-doer casts aside cautious circumspection and rests secure in self-confidence. And now while the well-doer is in a lazy state, the cunning seducer enumerates all things that it has done well and encourages him in his pride to think himself superior in all beside.…
The mind is lifted up by confidence in its beauty, when, glad for the merits of its virtues, it glories within itself in security. But through this same confidence it is led to play the harlot, because, when the soul is deceived by its own thoughts, malignant spirits, which take possession of it, defile it through the seduction of innumerable vices.11
INCOMPLETE WORK ON MATTHEW:
But he says, “To whom it is given.” By this he does not mean that to some it is given and to some it is not given. Rather, Jesus shows that unless we receive the help of divine grace, we have no power on our own account. But since grace is not denied to those who are willing, the Lord says in the Sermon on the Mount: “Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find. Knock and it will be opened to you. For every one who asks, receives, and every one who seeks, finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.” We must first will to ask, and then grace follows. For grace cannot achieve anything without will, nor can will have any power without grace. The earth too does not germinate unless it receives rain, nor does rain bring forth fruit without the earth.12
JEROME:
None of the above is receptive to the kingdom of heaven. Only the person who for Christ seeks chastity wholeheartedly and cuts off sexual impurity altogether [is the genuine eunuch]. So he adds, “He who is able to receive this, let him receive it,” so that each of us should look to his own strength as to whether he can carry out the commands of virginity and chastity. Chastity in itself is agreeable and alluring; but one must look to one’s strength so that “he who is able to receive this may receive it.” It is as if the Lord with his words were urging on his soldiers to the reward of chastity with these words: He who is able to receive this let him receive it; he who is able to fight, let him fight and conquer.13
INCOMPLETE WORK ON MATTHEW:
For many try to be chaste in body but commit adultery in their will. If fornication were not committed through the will alone, the Lord never would have said, “Everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Therefore the will frequently sins without action. The continence that brings glory is not the continence that a weakness in our bodies compels us to keep; rather it is the one which we embrace with the will of our holy intention.14
Footnotes
- HOMILIES ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 43. Stevenson, K., & Gluerup, M. (Eds.). (2008). Ezekiel, Daniel (p. 58). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
- HOMILIES ON EZEKIEL 6.6. Stevenson, K., & Gluerup, M. (Eds.). (2008). Ezekiel, Daniel (p. 59). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
- HOMILIES ON EZEKIEL 6.6. Stevenson, K., & Gluerup, M. (Eds.). (2008). Ezekiel, Daniel (p. 59). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
- COMMENTARY ON EZEKIEL 4.16.4–5. Stevenson, K., & Gluerup, M. (Eds.). (2008). Ezekiel, Daniel (p. 59). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
- HOMILIES ON EZEKIEL 6.7. Stevenson, K., & Gluerup, M. (Eds.). (2008). Ezekiel, Daniel (p. 59). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
- COMMENTARY ON EZEKIEL 4.16.6–7. Stevenson, K., & Gluerup, M. (Eds.). (2008). Ezekiel, Daniel (p. 59). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
- HOMILIES ON EZEKIEL 6.9. Stevenson, K., & Gluerup, M. (Eds.). (2008). Ezekiel, Daniel (p. 60). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
- COMMENTARY ON EZEKIEL 4.16.8–9. Stevenson, K., & Gluerup, M. (Eds.). (2008). Ezekiel, Daniel (p. 60). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
- COMMENTARY ON EZEKIEL 4.16.10. Stevenson, K., & Gluerup, M. (Eds.). (2008). Ezekiel, Daniel (p. 60). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
- AGAINST THE PELAGIANS 2.25. Stevenson, K., & Gluerup, M. (Eds.). (2008). Ezekiel, Daniel (p. 61). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
- PASTORAL RULE 4. Stevenson, K., & Gluerup, M. (Eds.). (2008). Ezekiel, Daniel (pp. 61–62). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
- HOMILY 32. Simonetti, M. (Ed.). (2002). Matthew 14-28 (p. 94). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
- COMMENTARY ON MATTHEW 3.19.12. Simonetti, M. (Ed.). (2002). Matthew 14-28 (p. 94). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
- HOMILY 32. Simonetti, M. (Ed.). (2002). Matthew 14-28 (pp. 94–95). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.