ning to be begotten by heavenly grace in the womb of faith, needs to be aided
SERMON 216
TO THE COMPETENTES
Date: 39/'
Who are the "competentes"?
1. The commencement of my ministry and of your conception, your begin¬ ning to be begotten by heavenly grace in the womb of faith, needs to be aided by prayer,2 so that my sermon may contribute to your welfare and salvation, and your conception to my encouragement and consolation. We clergy instruct you with sermons; it is up to you to make progress in your conduct. We scatter the seed3 of the word; it is up to you to produce the crop of faith. Let us all run the course in the tracks of the Lord according to the vocation with which we have been called by him; none of us must look back. Truth, you see, who can neither be misled nor mislead, openly warns us: Nobody putting hand to plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of heaven (Lk 9:62).
That you indeed long for this kingdom and are aiming at it with all the energy of your minds, is shown by your very name, your being called competentes. What else, after all, are competentes but people asking together? I mean, just as condocentes, concurrentes, considentes simply mean people teaching together, running together, sitting together, so the word competentes is made up from asking to¬ gether, and aiming at one and the same thing.4 And what is this one thing that you are asking and longing for, but what a certain person, casting aside all fleshly desires and trampling on the terrors of the world, fearlessly exclaims about: If fortresses are arrayed against me, my heart will not fear; if war breaks out upon me, in this will I hope. And to express what this thing might be, he went on to add: One thing have I asked from the Lord, this will I seek; to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life; and to explain what the blessedness of this region and dwelling consists in, he continues by declaring, to contemplate the delight of the Lord, and to be protected by his temple (Ps 27:3-4).
Overcome the world
2. Do you see, my fellow new boys and girls, to what delight of the Lord you will come, when you reject the delights of the world? If you despise the world,