6. See Mt 13:32.
SERMON 223H 235
NOTES
1. The style, and above all the excessively complex and mixed imagery, incline me to ascribe an early date to this sermon. Such elaborate contortions are, to be sure, characteristic of his mind, and never ceased to be so; but I think that as he grew more experienced in preaching he refrained from inflicting them on his hearers in such concentrated form. Let us guess a date about 400.
2. Because it is both tiny and hot.
3. See Jn 1:9. 4. See Rv 19:16; Dn 9:24. This latter text refers in fact to the Holy of Holies, the innermost shrine of the temple. But it was read by the early Church, in its Greek and Latin versions, as referring to a person, Christ.
5. The Fathers all assumed that the Church's major liturgical customs were inaugurated person¬ ally by the apostles.
6. See Mt 13:32.
SERMON 2231
AT THE EASTER VIGIL
Date: uncertain1
By our own humility let us call back to remembrance the humility of Christ
I, my dearest friends, am strictly required by this great and holy solemnity to exhort you to watch and pray. Our faith, you see, is engaged in conflict with the night of this age, to save our interior eyes from falling fast asleep and lapsing into the night of the heart. In order not to tumble into such an evil condition, let us pray in the words we have read, and say to the Lord, Enlighten my eyes, lest I should ever fall fast asleep in death, lest my enemy should ever be able to say, I have prevailed against him (Ps 13:3-4). This enemy is the one who stirred up the Jews in their madness against our Lord Jesus Christ, using them as his own instruments and weapons; but he did not prevail against him. His enemies of flesh and blood, indeed, reckoned they had prevailed, but his spiritual enemy was defeated in them. The impure spirit, you see, was conquered by the pure flesh of the victim; and by the very act of inflaming men to do openly what they wished, he himself underwent secretly something he certainly did not wish. By killing Christ, that is, he shed the blood which would restore to life all the others he had killed. Why, he doesn't even possess him among the dead. He wanted to see him associated with them in death, and he had the pain of seeing them associated with him in his resurrection.
In this life we celebrate his death, because after this death we hope to share his life. So by our own humility let us call back to remembrance the humility of our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us watch in humility, pray in humility, and with the most devoted faith, the firmest hope, the most fervent charity, reflecting what sort of day will be ours in glory, if we turn night into day by our humility. And so may God, who commanded the light to shine out of the darkness, shine in our hearts (2 Cor 4:6), so that within ourselves we may do something similar to what we have done in this house of prayer by lighting all these lamps.2 Let us adorn God s true dwelling place, our consciences, with the lights of justice. Or rather not us, but God's grace with us, of which we have the promise in the words of the prophet: He will bring forth your justice like the light (Ps 37:6). And keeping watch m this way, we shall not be afraid of the fear by night, and the busy thing