1. A great crowd followed him because they saw the signs
THE SUNDAY SERMONS OF ST. BONAVENTURE
SERMON 18: THE FourTH SUNDAY OF LENT
1. A great crowd followed him because they saw the signs he worked upon those who were sick. John 6:2.
[Protheme] The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to preach to the meek, etc. In the proposed second verse taken from Isaiah 61:1 what is expected from a preacher is sufficiently described, because first he must be anointed with supernatural grace, second he must be instituted only by obedience, third, he must be inflamed with fraternal benevolence. The first orders the person in relation to the self, the second to God, and the third to the neighbor. First, the preacher must be anointed with supernatural grace, which is described, when it sets forth: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because the Lord has anointed me; the unction of supernatural grace is necessary to open up the divine scripture. The prophets were anointed to give testimony to them. Second, one must be instituted by obedience alone, which is noted when it adds: he has sent me.
Third, one must be inflamed with fraternal benevolence, and this is noted when it includes: he has sent me to preach to the meek. For this reason dearly beloved, let us ask the Lord, before everything else, that he might deign to anoint me with supernatural grace and inflame me with fraternal benevolence so that, by the mediation of obedience alone, I might be able to offer something worthwhile which may be to the praise of God, the strengthening of neighbor, and the increase of my merit. Amen.
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[Sermon] 2. A great crowd followed him because they saw the signs he worked upon those who were sick. Since infirmity of mind is a greater lesion than that of the body; therefore, in the evangelical example today, where the multitude follows Christ into the desert because they saw healing signs performed on the corporally infirm, all the spiritually infirm are instructed to follow Christ through the desert of adversity and punishment so that they might be liberated from their infirmities. But because the first thing is to hasten to a physician, then to display the sickness and later to receive the cure, we may proceed similarly in order and say, that in these words the beginning of justice and sanctity is noted; second, the designation of human calamity; third, the display of divine goodness.
First, the beginning of justice and sanctity is noted, when it says: A great crowd followed him. Second, the designation of human calamity, when it adds: upon those who were sick. Third, the display of divine goodness, when it includes: him because they saw the signs he worked.
3. It says then: A great crowd followed him, where the beginning of justice and sanctity is noted. The true beginner in justice and sanctity is the person, who follows
Christ first by voluntarily disdaining earthly cupidity; second in the true abasement of profound humility; third, in the continual mortification of one's own flesh.
4. First, the true beginner in justice and sanctity is the person, who follows Christ by voluntarily disdaining earthly cupidity. Whence Luke 9:57-58 says: A certain man said to him: T will follow you wherever you go. And Jesus said to him: 'The foxes have dens and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head.' Since the man wanted to follow Jesus so he might received riches and honor, the Lord called him the fox who has an earthly den of cupidity, and the bird who
Tue SUNDAY SERMONS OF ST. BONAVENTURE
has a nest on high of vain glory and ambition; for this reason he did not want to follow Christ, who was most poor and humble. Whence Matthew 9:9 says of blessed
Matthew: He saw a man named Matthew sitting in the tax collector's place, and he said to him: 'Follow me' and, rising up, he followed him. In his state blessed Matthew can signify the avaricious person, who is sitting at the tax-collector's place of earthly cupidity, to whom Christ says: Follow me, by disdaining earthly cupidity; and rising up from the ashes of cupidity, he followed him, by embracing most blessed poverty in affections and effect, in accord with Psalm 61:11: If riches abound, do not set the heart upon them.
5. Second, the true beginner in justice and sanctity is the person, who follows Christ in the true abasement of profound humility. Genesis 33:14 speaks about this:
May my Lord go before his servant, and I will follow his vestiges. These words of Jacob, who is interpreted as the usurper,*"° can be words of any lowly person who usurps the devil through humility, thus saying to Christ: May my
Lord go, through the voluntary abasement of profound humility, and I your servant will follow, with the fear of filial reverence your vestiges; I say vestiges, not of sublime power as that would be presumptuous, because they must be adored and not imitated; not of profound wisdom as this would be curiosity, because they must not to be scrutinized and imitated, but admired; but the vestiges of profound humility that are glorious, because in such matters it is a great glory to follow the Lord.*2"
86 See CCSL lxxii, 136: "Jacob means usurper or one who usurps."
*7 See Sir 23:38: "It is a great glory to follow the Lord, for length of days will be received from him."
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6. Third, the true beginner in justice and sanctity is the person, who follows Christ in the continual mortification of one's own flesh. Whence Matthew 10:38 says:
One who does not take up his cross and follow me, is not worthy of me. One who finds his life will lose and, the one who loses his life on account of me will find it. Behold that Christ, the king of kings,**° established by decree that no one can see him, unless the person is crucified with him; and this decree is so general that no one is excluded; it is so necessary, that no one is dispensed from it; but each person is held to accept the cross of mortification in one's body so that the life of Jesus Christ may be manifested in one's body*"' through imitation; in other words, no one is worthy to follow him to the crown without the victory banner. Whence after the exhortation he adds retribution, when he says: The one who finds life loses it, that is, the one who neglects to take up the yoke of the mortifying cross will await a judgment entailing one's destruction; but the one who loses his life on account of me will find it, that is, the one who crucifies his flesh of vices and concupiscence,** takes up the victory banner and will await the reward of one's coronation.
7. It continues: worked upon those who were sick, where the designation of human calamity is noted. In that time exterior infirmity was a sign of interior infirmity. The Lord did not cure anyone corporally whom he did not first cure spiritually; therefore, with the name of corporal infirmity one is able to designate the calamity or spiritual infirmity due to a certain similarity that they possess. Now just as the inequality of humors is the cause of corporal infirmity, so also is spiritual infirmity caused
328 See Rev 19:16.
329 See 2 Cor 4:10.
330 See Gal 5:24.
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by an inequality or disorder among the four affections, which are these: hope, fear, joy, and love.**' First, the infirmity of inconstancy and desperation is caused by timid fear and suspicion; second, the infirmity of envy and rancor is caused by joy and exultation over the afflictions of others; third, the infirmity of avarice and acquisitiveness is caused by an inordinate love of worldly prosperity.
8. First, the infirmity of inconsistency and desperation is caused by timid fear and suspicion. Whence Deuteronomy 32:36 says: He will see that their hand is weakened, and that those who were confined are also weakened, and those who remained are consumed. The hand of virtuous works is weakened; those who are confined, in the prison of suspicion and desperation; and those who remained are consumed, because of the widespread, acute conflagration of every kind of sin. But those liberated from this infirmity are spoken of in 1 Samuel 2:4: The bow of the mighty is overcome, and the weak are girded with strength. The bow of the mighty, that is, of the demons; indeed demons seriously strive to shoot arrows at timid and weak-minded people with that bow of suspicion and desperation; but when that bow is overcome through the consideration of divine benignity, which easily forgives, and the weak regain force and are girded with the strength of confidence and constancy. Psalm 26:2-3 speaks of this: They themselves are weakened, by suspicious and desperate fear; and they have fallen into the depths of eternal damnation. But if the encamped armies of diabolical iniquity that provoke desperate fear stand against the one trust31 Bonaventure's source seems to be Augustine, Tractate on John
60 n. 3. See CCSL xxxvi, 479 and FC 90, 30: "These are assuredly the four things that they call disturbances: fear and sadness, love and rejoicing."
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ing in the Lord; that one's heart will not be afraid, with timid fear.
9. Second, the infirmity of envy and rancor is caused by joy and exultation over the afflictions of others.
Whence 2 Chronicles 16:12 states: And Asa fell sick in the thirty-ninth year of his reign of a most violent pain in his foot, and yet in his illness he did not seek the Lord.
Asa, by reason of his infirmity, namely gout, can signify an envious person; for just as a person with gout losses the bodily ability to move, so the envious loses spiritual growth; yet in his illness the envious one did not seek the Lord, due to deformity of the person's will in relation to the divine. 2 Chronicles 21:15-19 speaks similarly about this: You however will be sick with a very grievous disease of the bowels, until your vital parts come out.... He died of a most wretched illness. The envious person is consumed and twisted by such malicious ill will when a good person prospers, that the vital parts appear as if they are exiting from one's bowels, and so the person dies of a most wretched illness, because of the rotting putrefaction of the entire person, for envy is the putridity of the bones.?"
10. Third, the infirmity of avarice and acquisitiveness is caused by an inordinate love of worldly prosperity. Whence Deuteronomy 29:22 says: Strangers who will come from afar, seeing the plagues of that land and the infirmities with which the Lord will have afflicted it, burning it with sulfur and the heat of the sun, so it cannot be sown nor any green thing grow. Avarice renders a person crafty and cunning in heart, offensive in conduct, and arid in works, because one is without compassion; therefore, the avaricious person is afflicted with stinking
332 See Prov 14:30: "Soundness of heart is the life of the flesh, but envy is the putridity of the bones."
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sulfur and the heat of the sun like the arid and burned ground; so it cannot be sown, because the heart of the avaricious will be satisfied no sooner with gold than it is satisfied with the wind; and therefore, the appetite rests nowhere, because it finds nothing solid, but rather the vanity of worldly prosperity. Strangers, however, who do not have a permanent city here, but seek after a future one,?*3 seeing the plagues with which the avaricious person is afflicted, learned from the example to despise all things for the love of God.
11. Lastly, the display of divine goodness is noted, when it says: because they saw the signs he worked. A\though the divine goodness is displayed through many signs; nevertheless, it can be stated that divine goodness is displayed in the present through three signs, which it brought about in three previously mentioned properties.
First, it caused the sign of piety and clemency in the gratuitous forgiveness of every manner of iniquity against the infirmity of suspicion. Second, it caused the sign of charity and benevolence in the charitable exhibition of one's own flesh against the infirmity of rancor and envy.
Third, it caused the sign of poverty and indigence in the voluntary despising of worldly prosperity against the infirmity of avarice.
12. First, it caused the sign of piety and clemency in the gratuitous forgiveness of every manner of iniquity.
Whence it says in Psalm 85:17: Show me a sign of goodness, so that they who hate me might see and be confounded because you Lord have helped me and consoled me. Show me a sign, of piety and mercy, of goodness, of eternal salvation; so they might see, the demons, which hate me, on account of the rigor of severe justice; and be confounded,
333 See Hebr 13:14.
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because of the constancy of human severity; because you Lord have helped me through the bestowal of invigorating grace; and consoled me, with the forgiveness of my iniquities. Jeremiah 50:2 states something similar and explains this: Declare among the nations and proclaim, lift up a standard, proclaim, do not conceal it. Preachers, and especially prelates and priests must preach in word and /ift up in deed that standard of divine mercy by the forgiveness of faults; nor should they conceal that by selling the free mercy of God at a temporary price; so then sinners, experiencing the sweetness of divine mercy, might announce and proclaim, to those fearing the rigor of severe justice, that God is more prone to forgiving than condemning. Whence Augustine in the Book On the Soul states: "Indeed the Lord is seen to give grace more slowly to the sinner, then that sinner who accepts; thus he hastens to absolve the torment of his conscience as if compassion for the miserable one torments him more than that miserable one's compassion for himself."**4
13. Second, it caused the sign of charity and benevolence in the charitable exhibition of one's own flesh against the infirmity of rancor and envy. Whence The Song of Songs 8:6 says: Put me as a seal upon your heart and as a seal upon your arm, for as strong as death is love, as enduring as the grave is longing. Even if the Son of God caused a great sign of charity and benevolence in the incarnation, by giving himself as a brother of the human race by assuming human nature, and in the passion by giving himself as the price of our redemption by bearing the punishment; nevertheless, the greater sign of love was when he gave over his own body to humanity as refreshing food. For in the other two ways there is a certain
334 See c. 6 of De spiritu et anima in PL 40:784. The citation is almost verbatim.
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separation and division between the one who gives and what is given, but in this way there is a wondrous and boundless union between the one who feeds and the food as one is transformed into the other.**° Given this union,
Christ says to the soul tasting the sweet sacrament of the Eucharist and love: Put me as a seal, of charity and benevolence, upon your heart, since it is in the center of a person, because of the intimate union of food with the one eating and the transformation of the one eating into the food; as a seal upon your arm, by the display of virtuous works, since "The proof of love is shown in works;"**° for as strong as death is love, which guided me through the difficulties of passing tribulations throughout my entire life right up to the last when it dragged me to the cruel torment of the cross; as enduring as the grave is the longing, of my eternal Father, who after the incarnation of the Son, allowed him to be led to death and displayed him for us risen, crowned with glory and honor, and raised up above the heavens; and he constituted him**' for us as an aid for wayfarers and the beatification of those in possession of heavenly glory.
14. Third, it caused the sign of poverty and indigence in the voluntary despising of worldly prosperity against the infirmity of avarice. Whence Luke 2:12 says: And this will be a sign for you: you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. This will be to you a sign, of poverty and need, because you will find the Son of God, inasmuch as he is human, wrapped in 885 See Book VII c. 10 n. 16 of Augustine's Confessiones in CCSL xxxili, 103-04.
*8° See Homily 30 n. 1 of GGHG in CCSL cxli, 256. The quotation is verbatim.
**7 See Ps 8:6-7: "You have made him a little less than the angels.
You have crowned him with glory and honor and have constituted him over the works of your hands."
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SUSY swaddling clothes of necessity and indigence, and not in the purple cloth of superfluity and vainglory; and lying in a humble and rough manger, of voluntary abasement and not in the silk bed of pompous ostentation. Whence
Bernard: "The most difficult time was chosen for the little son of a poor mother, who barely had swaddling clothes to dress him, and indeed laid him down in the manger. Even though it was of such great necessity, I hear no mention of clothing being made. Such is not the judgment of the world; either the world is mistaken, or he errs. Yet it is impossible that divine wisdom be mistaken."**® The world is consequently in error. That God might deign to grant us, etc.
338 Bonaventure adapts Bernard's Sermon 3 n. 1 "In Nativitate Domini." See SBOp 4.258.