mixed in with the people of God, now that the sacraments have been solemnly
SERMON 224
ON THE OCTAVE OF EASTER
Date: 4141
Choose for yourselves those in the people of God whom you would imitate
1. Today those who have been baptized in Christ and bom again are to be mixed in with the people of God, now that the sacraments have been solemnly celebrated.2 Let me address my remarks to them, and also to you in them and them in you. Here you are, you have become members of Christ.3 If you stop to think about what you have become, all your bones will say, "Lord who is like you ?" (Ps 35:10). It is not, in fact, possible to think in a fitting way about what
God has here seen fit to do to us. Doesn't all talk and perception quite fail to grasp or express how gratuitous grace has come your way, without any merits of yours preceding it? And that's why it's grace, because it has been given gratis, gratuitously, freely. What grace? That you should be the members of Christ the Son of God, that you too should be brothers and sisters of the only Son. If he is the only Son, how can you be his brothers and sisters, except that he is the only Son by nature, you are his brothers and sisters by grace?
So because you are members of Christ, I have some advice and suggestions for you. Those you are to be mixed in with should listen too. I really fear for you today, not so much from the pagans, not so much from the Jews, not so much from the heretics, as from bad Catholics. Choose for yourselves those in the people of God whom you would imitate. Because if you decide to imitate the majority, you will not find yourselves among the few who walk along the narrow road.4 Refrain from robbery, from fraud, from perjury. Turn your backs on the whirlpool of drunkenness. Dread all forms of fornication like death;5 not the death which releases the soul from the body, but the one in which the soul will bum for ever with the body.
Against the whispered suggestions of the devil, we ought to employ the enchantments of Christ
2. My brothers, my sons, my daughters, my sisters,6 I'm well aware that the devil forms his own parties, and never stops talking in the hearts of those whom