Saturday of the Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

There is a temptation to understand our Christian life like a system.  The fact that we would spontaneously associate holiness with hierarchy is a sign of that.  If I do all the things I’m supposed to do – or at least the basic ones – I’ll be ok.  We spontaneously suppose that those who have engaged their lives in the church system become holy or holier by that fact.  Those of us who have never sinned, I suppose, have the right to be scandalized by the crimes church leaders commit.  Those of us who have sinned, and are willing to recall that fact when we learn about crimes committed by others, have a right to be sad, hurt, confused, upset, etc.  The method or system is not working, it has produced bad fruit, it needs to be reformed, etc.

When adults do not behave as they should – when they sin and transgress the law of God – we should certainly question our methods and our system.  We should, however, resist the temptation to try to find a solution that relies on human effort alone.  Holiness is the work of God’s grace in our hearts, it is not the result of a foolproof system perfected by human ingenuity and reform.  Jesus teaches us in today’s Gospel that having the qualities of a child – humility, simplicity, forgetting wrongs done, love of parents, innocence, trust, etc – is what God requires.  We cannot solve the problem of evil, the best we can do is beg God to banish it from our own hearts, and to forgive and heal its destructive influence on the world.

JEROME:

How good and just is the God of the law and the prophets, who keeps quiet and remains silent before the sins of the fathers and gives back to those who have not sinned!¹

AMBROSE:

The soul dies to the Lord, not through natural infirmity but through the sickness caused by guilt. This type of death is not the release from this life but is the fall resulting from sin.²

AMBROSE:

There are three kinds of death. One is the death due to sin, concerning which it was written, the soul that sins shall itself die.” Another death is the mystical, when someone dies to sin and lives to God; concerning this the apostle likewise says, or we were buried with him by means of baptism into death. The third is the death by which we complete our lifespan with its functions—I mean the separation of the soul and body. Thus we perceive that the one death is an evil, if we die on account of sins, but the other, in which the deceased has been justified of sin, is a good, while the third stands in between, for it seems good to the just and fearful to most people; although it gives release to all, it gives pleasure to few.³

JEROME:

Show me a body that has never been sick or one that is sure of enjoying good health forever after sickness, and I will show you a soul that has never sinned.⁴

VALERIAN:

Therefore, dearly beloved, let us shed our tears every day and ask this teacher of virtues to teach us to be devout to these profitable wounds. May he show us how to expose our breast in this warfare and sustain every onset of injury. It is not hard to enter a fight where you see that a victory has already been won. That which is taught by example quickly lodges in our minds.⁵

JEROME:

These words show us that the mind must not fail to believe in the promised blessings and give way to despair; and the soul once marked out for perdition must not refuse to apply remedies on the ground that its wounds are past curing.⁶

PACHOMIUS:

Why are you dying? Do not go into the trap. These are the reminders given to the believers, that by walking in them and striving in the commandments they will do the works worthy of eternal life.⁷

BASIL THE GREAT:

Remember the compassion of God, how he heals with olive oil and wine. Do not despair of salvation. Recall the memory of what has been written, how he that falls rises again, and he that is turned away turns again, he that has been smitten is healed, he that is caught by wild beasts escapes and he that confesses is not rejected. The Lord does not want the death of the sinner, but that he return and live. Do not be contemptuous like one who has fallen into the depths of sins.⁸

CAESARIUS OF ARLES:

As we shudder at the wounds of our sins as at deadly poisons, let us apply ourselves to almsgiving, prayer and fasting. Above all, by a charity that loves not only friends but even enemies, let us have recourse to the mercy of that heavenly physician to recover the health of our souls as if by spiritual remedies. For he said, “I take no pleasure in the death of the sinner but rather in the wicked person’s conversion, that he may live.”⁹

CASSIODORUS:

The prayer that frees us from faults wins the heart of the judge and wipes away sins; mercy cannot be withheld from the one who asks for it, as humility fires us to pray unceasingly for forgiveness. All this is achieved by the devoted Lord, for he does not wish to condemn those whom he forewarns.¹⁰

HILARY OF POITIERS:

The Lord says that the children should not be prevented because “theirs is the kingdom of heaven”; for the grace and gift of the Holy Spirit was going to be bestowed on the Gentiles by the laying on of hands, when the work of the law ceased.¹¹

INCOMPLETE WORK ON MATTHEW:

O flesh, friend of wickedness and not of goodness! Because it does not delight in the good, it easily forgets the good. But whatever evil it hears, it retains forever as though naturally planted in the heart. For a man can never forget what he loves nor remember what he hates.¹²

EPIPHANIUS THE LATIN:

For children are ignorant of wickedness. They do not know how to return evil for evil or how to do someone an injury. They do not know how to be lustful or to fornicate or to rob. What they hear, they believe. They love their parents with complete affection. Therefore, beloved, the Lord instructs us that what they are by the gift of nature, we should become by the fear of God, a holy way of life and love of the heavenly kingdom; for unless we are alien to all sin just like children, we cannot come to the Savior.¹³

APOLLINARIS:

For those qualities which the child has by nature, God wishes us to have by choice: simplicity, forgetfulness of wrongs done to us, love of our parents, even if struck by them. He laid his hands on the children because the laying on of hands signifies the arming of God’s power.¹⁴

1. COMMENTARY ON EZEKIEL 6.18.1–2.  Stevenson, K., & Gluerup, M. (Eds.). (2008). Ezekiel, Daniel (p. 76). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
2. ON HIS BROTHER SATYRUS 2.36.  Stevenson, K., & Gluerup, M. (Eds.). (2008). Ezekiel, Daniel (p. 77). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
3. DEATH AS A GOOD 2.3.  Stevenson, K., & Gluerup, M. (Eds.). (2008). Ezekiel, Daniel (p. 77). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
4. AGAINST THE PELAGIANS 3.11.  Stevenson, K., & Gluerup, M. (Eds.). (2008). Ezekiel, Daniel (p. 77). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
5. HOMILY 17.4.  Stevenson, K., & Gluerup, M. (Eds.). (2008). Ezekiel, Daniel (p. 78). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
6. LETTER 122.1.  Stevenson, K., & Gluerup, M. (Eds.). (2008). Ezekiel, Daniel (p. 84). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
7. LETTERS 3.9.  Stevenson, K., & Gluerup, M. (Eds.). (2008). Ezekiel, Daniel (p. 84). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
8. LETTER 44.  Stevenson, K., & Gluerup, M. (Eds.). (2008). Ezekiel, Daniel (p. 84). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
9. SERMONS 150.5.  Stevenson, K., & Gluerup, M. (Eds.). (2008). Ezekiel, Daniel (p. 84). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
10. EXPOSITIONS OF PSALM 140.1.  Stevenson, K., & Gluerup, M. (Eds.). (2008). Ezekiel, Daniel (p. 85). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
11. ON MATTHEW 19.3.  Simonetti, M. (Ed.). (2002). Matthew 14-28 (p. 95). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
12. HOMILY 32.  Simonetti, M. (Ed.). (2002). Matthew 14-28 (p. 95). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
13. INTERPRETATION OF THE GOSPELS 25.  Simonetti, M. (Ed.). (2002). Matthew 14-28 (pp. 95–96). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
14. FRAGMENT 96.  Simonetti, M. (Ed.). (2002). Matthew 14-28 (p. 96). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.