[Sermon] 1. There was a crowd with Jesus and they
PENTECOST AND THE SUNDAYS AFTER
SERMON 33: SIXTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
[Sermon] 1. There was a crowd with Jesus and they had nothing to eat. He called his disciples together and said to them, I have compassion on the crowd, for behold, they have now been with me three days, and have nothing to eat. Mark 8:1. Our Lord, who is inwardly filled with mercy and piety, seeing today the crowd that endured want for love of him, deigned to satiate them freely with both corporal and spiritual food. However, since divine mercy condescends to no one except the person who first suffers the bitterness of need and penance, and endures it with longstanding patience; therefore, three things for our instruction are implied in order in the proposed verse.
For in the proposed verse the necessity of the provoking indigence is first noted; second, the benignity of the patient assistance; third, the forbearance of the persevering, successful request. Whence human indigency calls upon the benign God to be compassionate, perseverance requests assistance, and divine compassion relieves the weakness. First, therefore, the necessity of the vexing indigence is noted, when it says: There was a crowd with Jesus and they had nothing to eat. Second, the benignity of the compassionate assistance is noted, when it adds: he called his disciples together and said to them: I have compassion on the crowd. Third, the forbearance of the persevering, successful request is noted, when it includes: behold, they have now been with me three days.
2. First, the imminent indigence of the crowd is noted in the proposed verse, when it says: There was a crowd
THE SUNDAY SERMONS OF ST. BONAVENTURE
with Jesus and they had nothing to eat. This crowd needed to eat in a threefold manner, since for this reason the exterior and interior person was being oppressed. Now first it needed to be fed with food, the lack of which was causing a debilitating impotence. Second, it needed to be fed with salutary teachings, the lack of which was causing the blindness of ignorance. Third, it needed to be fed with sacramental refreshment, the lack of which was causing the tepidness of idleness.
3. Now first this crowd needed to be fed with food, the lack of which was causing a debilitating impotence.
Whence Exodus 16:3 says: Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat over the flesh pots and ate bread to the full. Why have you brought us into this desert, that you might put to death the entire multitude with famine? Because no one, according to the normal course of nature, is able to subsist for long in this life, unless sustained by corporal food. Therefore, the children of Israel, who were not paying attention to the power and benignity of God, but, rather, their fragility, and lacking nourishment, were in despair regarding their corporal life. Although they were not worthy by reason of their diffidence, God heeded their wishes, and sent provisions in abundance to them, with which their bodies might be sustained. In the same manner the benign God satiated the weak and hungry crowd today, lest it falter along the wayside. Whence the gospel today says: they ate and they were well satisfied .**4 4. Second, the crowd needed to be fed with salutary teachings, the lack of which was causing the blindness of ignorance. And Christ speaks of this to his disciples in Luke 9:13: You give them something to eat. Christ is
564 See Mark 8:8.
PENTECOST AND THE SUNDAYS AFTER
talking to the apostles and doctors or preachers, so that they may nourish the ignorant and the hungry with celestial food, the bread of life and understanding, and give them the water of salutary wisdom to drink, stirring up their appetite for spiritual food, because sinners and ignorant people "having been turned back grow weak in this life, if they are left to grow weak in their conscience without the sustenance of doctrine."*** Whence: Not on bread alone does a person live, but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.5™
5. Third, the crowd needed to be fed with sacramental refreshment, the lack of which was causing the tepidness of idleness and weariness. Whence John 6: 54-55 states:
Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you. The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has life everlasting. Behold, this eating is so necessary that, unless a member is joined through it to the mystical body of Christ, that is, the Church, that person is unable to receive the flow of life from the head, namely Christ.
Whence, it follows: The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood, abides in me and I in him.°® 6. Second, in the proposed text the benignity of compassionate assistance is noted, when it adds: He called his disciples together and said to them, I have compassion on the crowd. Our Lord, on account of the great benignity, which he has for the human race, first has mercy on the crowd weak with impotence, sustaining it with corporal
565 See Sir 15:3: "With the bread of life and understanding, she (Wisdom) will feed him...."
566 The critical edition states that this quotation is from the Glossa Ordinaria on Luke 9:13.
587 See Matt 4:4.
568 See John 6:57.
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food. Second, he has mercy on the crowd blind with ignorance, illuminating it with salutary teaching. Third, he has mercy on the crowd tepid with idleness, inflaming it with the sacramental delight.
7. First, the Lord has mercy on the crowd weak with impotence, sustaining it with corporal food. Whence
Psalm 102:12 says: As a father has compassion on his children, so has the Lord compassion on those who fear him, for he knows our fraine. Just as a father has compassion on his children, refreshing them with corporal food, lest they succumb and die, so our Lord today has mercy on the hungry crowd, by feeding it corporally with five loaves and a few fish, lest they falter along the wayside.
This must be attributed to divine power and not human debility; for he knows the frame of our body is unable to subsist for long, unless it is sustained by continual nourishment.*®
8. Second, the Lord has mercy on the crowd blind with ignorance, illuminating it with salutary teaching. Whence
Sirach 18:13 says: He has mercy, and teaches and instructs his flock like a shepherd. Our Lord, who has mercy (He is in fact the Father of mercy,*"° and thus the benignity of merciful compassion that he has for humanity) teaches and instructs his flock like a shepherd, with the word of doctrine. He was greatly solicitous and zealous to feed the human race with the bread of life and understanding.
Whence he did not cease, as blessed Jerome says: "to go around cities, villages, and towns announcing the reign
569 The critical edition states that this quotation is from the Glossa Ordinaria on Mark 8:6.
570 See 2 Cor 1:3.
PENTECOST AND THE SUNDAYS AFTER
of God,"®"! because the refreshment of the mind is better than that of the stomach.
9. Third, the Lord has mercy on the crowd tepid with idleness, inflaming it with the sacramental delight.
Whence Psalm 110:4 states: Merciful and gracious is the Lord, he has given food to those who fear him. Merciful and gracious is the Lord, he has given to the faithful that fear him, with the fear of filial reverence; the food, of his own body under the appearance of bread; a bread having all delight and the sweetness of every flavor,*" the taste of which arouses the soul with such ardor, so that, with both all tepidity and idleness destroyed and all carnality destroyed, it is united with this food alone through love and transformed into it; and then at that time it tastes how sweet is the Lord,*"* experiencing in a certain way that his spirit is sweeter than honey,* and comprehends with the senses, what a great multitude of sweetness*" is hidden in this sacrament of love.
10. Third, in the proposed text the forbearance of the persevering, successful request is noted, when it includes: behold they have now been with me three days. Those successfully requesting a benefit from God are those who, with forbearance and patience, stay with him for three days, that is to say, in the pain of bitter contrition in the heart, in the sorrow of an open confession with the mouth, and in the labor of a befitting satisfaction in deed.
571 Cf. Book I of his Commentary on Matthew at 9:35 in PL 26:62AB.
572 See Wis 16:20.
573 See Ps 33:9.
574 See Sir 24:27: "For my spirit is sweeter than honey, and my inheritance sweeter than honey and the honeycomb."
575 See Ps 30:20: "How great is the multitude of your sweetness, O Lord, which you have hidden for those who fear you."
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And this distinction is able to be taken from the Gloss, which says the following: "The crowd stays with the Lord; while the multitude of the faithful, who shun their sins through penance, turn back to the Lord in deed, speech, and thought."°"
11. First, the sinners stay with the Lord in the pain of bitter contrition in the heart. Whence Sirach 2:4: In your sorrow endure and in your humility have patience. When a person considers that he crucifies the Son of God within oneself again®"' because of his sin, this person must be interiorly contrite with so much pain and bitterness and disdain, and despise the self with so much humble abjection, that over and over again, prostrate on the bare earth or soil, he breaks out exteriorly in tears like a woman mourning the death of an only child, because God will not despise a contrite heart®"* that stays in the pain of contrition, and humbled, in the humility of voluntary abjection, without a murmur of impatience. Whence Bernard comments on the Song of Songs: "In what way will the sinful soul not be humbled by this true knowledge of itself, when it perceives itself burdened by sin, inclined to vice, and feeble in virtue? Will it not turn around even more in its affliction as long as it is pierced by a thorn? It will be turned around, I say, to tears, it will be turned around to laments and sighs, it will be turned around to the Lord, and it will call out to the Lord: Heal my soul because I have sinned against you."®"
12. Second, we have to stay with the Lord in the sorrow of an open confession of the mouth. Whence Psalm
°76 See the Glossa Ordinaria on Mark 8:2 in PL 114:208D.
577 See Hebr 6:6.
578 See Ps 50:19.
79 Bonaventure has abbreviated Sermon 36 n. 5 on The Song of Songs. See SBOp 2.7. Ps 40:5 ends the citation.
PENTECOST AND THE SUNDAYS AFTER
tL 24:5-7: Direct me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior. On you I have waited all the day long.
Remember the depths of your compassion and the mercies that are from the beginning of the world. The sins of my youth and of my ignorance do not remember. Direct me in your truth, and do not incline my heart to evil words, to make excuses for sins;**° and teach me, to purely and perfectly confess my sins; because you are God my Savior, who bestows the pardon of all offenses; because on you
I have waited all the day long, that is, often confessing my sins with sorrow and lament. Therefore, Remember the depths of your compassion and the mercies, and my ignorance do not remember. Each one has to truly pay attention that all his sins be confessed perfectly, because if one is retained, pardon for others will not follow. It is not possible that a person be both just and sinful, good and bad, a servant of God or a servant of the devil, because no one can serve two masters,**! who order contrary things.
Whence like a ship in the water that is full of holes, even if all its holes are closed except one, it will sink nevertheless into the depths of the sea because of that one; so too with the sinner, for if all sins are confessed except one, the person will be damned because of that one alone.
13. Third, we have to stay with the Lord in the labor of a befitting satisfaction in deed. Whence Sirach 2:1 reads:
Son, come to the service of God, stand in justice and fear and prepare your soul for temptation.
Humble your heart and endure. Son, come to the service of God, by undertaking penance; stand in justice, so that "as grievous as the damages of the fault you inflicted through an offense
580 Bonaventure combines Ps 24:5 ("Direct me in your truth") and Ps 140:4 ("Do not incline my heart to evil words, to make excuses for sins").
581 See Matt 6:24.
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are, so much the more should you inflict groans upon yourself through penance;"*" so that where transgression has abounded through an excess of fault, there the gift of grace may abound®*? more through worthy deeds of penance; and in fear, of filial reverence, because the one who is without fear will not be justified; and prepare your soul for temptation from the devil, lest you submit to him through consent. Willingly indeed does the devil send temptations to those who escape from the Egypt of sin, by bringing back the memory of worldly delights, so as to make them descend from the cross of penance. Humble your heart,>* against the swelling of empty prominence, lest you be seduced by your pride and judge yourself to be something when you are nothing; and endure with the Lord in the labor of befitting satisfaction, because such
"penance is the best thing, which brings all weaknesses back to perfection,"** according to what Augustine says.
Let us ask, therefore, etc.
**? Bonaventure adapts Gregory's principle found in his Homily 20 n. 8 of GGHG. See CCSL cxli, 160 583 See Rom 5:20.
584 See Sir 2:2: "Humble your heart and endure...."
85 See Gal 6:3: "For if anyone thinks himself to be something, whereas he is nothing, he deceives himself."
586 Bonaventure adapts Book III, c. 9 n. 17 of Ps-Augustine, Hypomnesticon contra Pelagianos et Coelestianos. See PL 45:1631: Poenitentia ergo res est optima et perfecta, quae defectos revocat ad perfectum. ("Penance is therefore the optimal and perfect thing, which recalls the faltering to perfection.")