Homily 28

Pronounced before the people

in the basilica of Saints Nereus and Achilles,

The day of their holiday

May 12, 592

The healing of the son of the Royal Officer

Saint Nereus and Saint Achilles died at the end of the first century. They may have belonged to Nero's Praetorian cohorts. After their martyrdom, they were buried in the cemetery of Christian Flavians.

The Gospel of the day recounts the healing of the officer's son, perhaps in connection with the officers of the two martyrs. This episode, says Gregory, needs more exhortation than explanation, except on one point: why does Christ reproach his lack of faith to a man who expresses his faith precisely by asking for the cure of his son? The speaker shows what is lacking in this officer's faith.

He also notes that Jesus refused to go to the son of the royal officer, although he made the trip for the centurion's servant. It is to teach us not to have regard to riches or honors, but to the only nature of men, created in the image of God. We must consider in each one what he is ("his dignity as a person", we would say today), not what he has. It is also a call to humble ourselves when we are rich.

Today, the preacher finally notices, it is the world itself, full of calamities, which comes to teach us not to love it, and thus brings us back to God.

Jn 4: 46-53

At that time there was an officer of the king whose son was sick at Capernaum. When he heard that Jesus was coming from Judea to Galilee, he went to him and begged him to come down to heal his son, who was at death. Jesus said to him, "If you do not see signs and wonders, you do not believe." The king's officer said to him, "Lord, come before my son dies." Jesus said to him, "Go, your son. lives."

The man believed what Jesus said to him and left. As he returned, his servants came to meet him and told him that his son was alive. He asked them what time he was better, and they said to him, "Yesterday, at the seventh hour, the fever left him." The father then recognized that it was time for Jesus He had said to him, "Your son lives." And he believed, he and all his house.

The reading of the Holy Gospel that you have just heard, my brothers, need not be explained. But, so that I do not seem to have let it pass without saying anything, I will speak to you anyway in a few words, rather to exhort you than to explain it to you.

I do not see any more than one point which we must seek explanation, it is to know why this man came to ask for the cure of his son was heard saying: "If you do not see signs and wonders you do not believe. "Is it not obvious that he believed, the man who implored the healing of his son? Would he have implored this healing from the Lord if he did not believe that he was the Savior? Why then does Jesus say, "If you do not see signs and wonders, you do not believe," to him who believed before seeing a sign?

Remember, however, what this man asked, and you will see clearly that he doubted his faith. Because he prayed Jesus to come down to heal his son. He desired therefore the bodily presence of the Lord, while he is not absent from any place by his spirit. The royal officer therefore did not believe firmly enough in Jesus, since he did not consider him capable of restoring health without being physically present. Had this man's faith been perfect, he would have been persuaded that there is no place where God is present. He thus greatly lacked faith because he did not honor the majesty [of the Lord], but only his bodily presence. He therefore asked for his son's healing, but his faith was mixed with doubt, since while believing that he to whom he addressed had the power to heal, he nevertheless thought that he was absent from his dying son. But the Lord, whom he begs to come, shows him that he is already there where he invites him: with a simple commandment, he gives back health, he whose will has created all things.

2. We must here consider with great attention what the testimony of another evangelist tells us of the centurion who comes to the Lord and says to him: "Lord, my servant is lying in my house, paralyzed, and he is suffering cruelly. Jesus answered immediately, "I will heal him" (Mt 8: 6-7). Why then does our Redeemer refuse to go corporally to the son of the royal officer, who had yet asked him to come, while he promises to go corporally to the servant of the centurion, without, however, Did he pray? He does not consent to surrender himself to the son of the royal officer; he does not refuse to go to the servant of the centurion. Why this way of acting, if not to repress our pride, which inspires us with esteem only for the honors and riches of men, and not for their nature made in the image of God? When we judge the goods with which people surround themselves, it is clear that we do not care about their inner being; and when we consider their physical aspect, though worthy of contempt, we are not interested in what they are. But our Redeemer did not wish to go to the son of the royal officer, and showed himself ready to go to the servant of the centurion, to show that the saints must despise what is high for men, and not despise what men judge worthy of contempt. Our pride is thus blamed, he who does not know how to esteem men by what makes them men, and who looks, as we have said, only the external things which surround them, without considering their nature, nor recognizing honor of God in them. Behold, the Son of God will not go to the son of the royal officer, and yet he is ready to heal the servant. If the servant of such and such asked us to go to him, our pride would answer us secretly in our thought: "Do not go! It would be to humble you, dishonor you, and degrade your office. "He who comes from heaven does not refuse to go to earth with a servant, and we who come from the earth, we do not accept to be humiliated on earth. What is more vile, what is more despicable before God than to seek the consideration of men and not to fear the look of the inner witness!

So the Lord told the Pharisees in the Holy Gospel: "You are one of those who pretend to be righteous before men; but God knows your hearts, and that which is high in the eyes of men is abominable in the sight of God "(Lk 16:15). Notice, my brothers, notice these words well. For if it be true that that which is high in the eyes of men is abominable in the eyes of God, then the thoughts of our heart are all the lower in the eyes of God that they are higher in the eyes of men, and the humility of our heart is all the higher in the eyes of God because it is lower in the eyes of men.

3. We do not care what we do well. Let us not be exalted by our labors, nor raised by abundance or glory. If the profusion of all kinds of goods puffs us up with pride, we are worthy of God's contempt. On the contrary, the psalmist says about the humble, "The Lord keeps little children" (Ps 116: 6). And because those whom he calls little children are the humble, soon after having expressed this sentence, he adds a reflection as to answer our desire to know what God will do for these humble people: "I humbled myself, and he delivered me. "

That's what you need to think about, my brethren, that's what you need to meditate with as much attention as possible. Do not esteem in your loved ones the goods of this world. Having only God in view in men, do not honor that their nature made in the image of God - I speak here only men who are not your superiors. You will observe this vis-à-vis your loved ones if you start yourself by not letting your hearts swell with pride. For he whom ephemeral things exalt still does not know how to respect in his neighbor that which lasts. So do not consider in yourself what you have, but what you are.

See how he fled, this world we love! Those saints near whose grave we are assembled have trampled on a flourishing world with contempt. They enjoyed a long life, a continual health, material abundance, fertility in families, tranquility in a well-established peace. And this world, which was still so flourishing in itself, was already withered in their hearts. While everything withered now is in itself, it still flourishes in our hearts. Everywhere death, everywhere mourning, everywhere desolation; on all sides we are struck, on all sides we are watered with bitterness; and yet, in the blindness of our mind, we love even bitterness tasted in the concupiscence of the flesh, we pursue what flees, we cling to what falls. And as we can not hold back what falls, we fall with what we hold embraced in its collapse.

If the world once captivated us with the attraction of its pleasures, it is now it which returns us to God, now that it is filled with so great scourges. Remember that what runs in time does not count. For the end of transient goods shows us enough that what can pass is nothing. The collapse of passing things shows us that they were almost nothing, even when they seemed to hold firm. With what attention, dear brothers, we must consider all this! Fix your heart in the love of eternity; and without further striving to reach the greatness of the earth, strive to attain that glory of which your faith gives you assurance, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who, being God, lives and reigns with the Father in unity of the Holy Spirit, for ever and ever. Amen.

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1 The "carnal heart" is the heart enslaved to sin.

2 Defensor: magistrate charged to defend the populations against the arbitrary of the governors. This charge has gained importance in the sixth century.