Luke, XI, 5-13. The unwelcome friend.

"If any of you, having a friend, find him in the middle of the night and say to him, Friend, lend me three loaves."

Another passage with a precept: we must offer prayer at all times, not only the day, but also the night. You see it indeed: he who in the middle of the night went to ask his friend for three loaves and persevered in his urgent request is not frustrated with his request. What are these three loaves, if not the food of the heavenly mystery? If you love the Lord your God, you will be able to obtain it not only for yourself but for others. And who is more our friend than the One who for us delivered his body?

It was to Him that in the middle of the night David asked for loaves, and he received them; for he asked when he said, "In the midst of the night I rose up to praise you" (Ps 118, 62); so he got those loaves he served to us to eat. He asked when he said, "I will bathe my bed every night" (Ps.6,7); for he was not afraid to awaken in his sleep He whom he always knows in awakening and acting.

 So, remembering the scriptures, let us pray day and night to beg forgiveness of our sins. For if such a saint, taken by the duties of kingship, said his praise to the Lord seven times a day (Ps 118, 164), always attentive to the morning and evening sacrifices, what should we do? We must all the more ask that we fail more frequently by weakness of the flesh and the spirit, so that, weary of the way, very tired of the course of this world and the circuits of this life, we were not lacking, for our repair, bread that strengthens the heart of man (Ps 103, 15)? And it is not only in the middle of the night, but almost every moment that the Lord recommends to watch: for He comes in the evening, and in the second and the third watch, and He is in the habit of striking. "Blessed therefore are the servants whom the Lord will find awake at his coming. If therefore you desire that the power of God be prepared and serve you (Luke xii. 37), you must always watch; for there are many pitfalls around us, and heavy is the sleep of the body; if the soul begins to sleep, it will lose its vigor and strength. Shake your sleep to knock on the door of Christ. This door, Paul also asks that it be opened to him: not satisfied with his prayers, he begs that those of the people assist him, so that the door is open to him to speak of the mystery of Christ (Col., IV, 3 ). And perhaps it is the door that John has seen opened; for he saw it, and said, After that I saw; and here is a door open in heaven, and the voice that I first heard spoke to me like a trumpet, and said, Go up here, and I will show you what is to be done. "(Rev. IV, 1). The door opened for Jean; the door opened for Paul so that he would receive for us the bread that we would eat: for he persisted in knocking on the door, by the way, out of purpose (II Tim., IV, 2) in order to revive the Gentiles, tired and weary of the road of the world, by the abundance of heavenly food.

 This passage therefore gives the precept to pray often, the hope of obtaining, the art of persuading: first by precept, then by example. For when one promises a thing, one must obtain the hope of what is promised, so that there is obedience to the opinions, faith to the promises: the latter, thinking of human goodness, acquires even more the hope of eternal goodness. Still, it is necessary to make just demands, so that prayer does not become sin (Psalm 108: 7). And he (Paul) did not blush to ask a thing often, not to seem unconvinced in the mercy of the Lord, or proudly offended at not having obtained something from the first prayer: "Also, says I have prayed the Lord three times "(II Cor., XII, 8); and it shows that God often does not grant what He is prayed for, because he considers useless what we think should be advantageous to us.

Luke, XI, 14-26. Teachings.

"Every kingdom divided against itself will be depopulated."

 The reason for this saying is that being accused of casting out demons by Beelzebub, prince of the demons, He wanted to show that his kingdom is indivisible and enduring. It is right also that he replied to Pilate: "My kingship is not of this world" (Jn, XVIII, 36). Therefore those who do not put their hope in Christ, but think that demons are driven out by the prince of demons, He denies that they belong to a lasting kingdom. This applies to the people of the Jews, who for this kind of suffering invoke the help of the devil to drive out the devil. How, when faith is torn, can the divided kingdom survive? Since the Jewish people are under the Law, and Christ was also according to the begotten flesh of the Law, how can the kingdom of the Jews, which is the Law, last, when this same people divide the Law, since the people of the Law deny this Jesus whom the law promises? Thus the law of the Jewish people is fought in a certain way, fighting is divided, dividing disintegrates. If the kingdom of the Church subsists eternally, it is because its faith is undivided, its unique body: "For there is only one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God, and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in all "(Ephes., IV, 5 ssq.). What madness and what sacrilegious fury! While the Son of God took flesh to crush the unclean spirits and snatch his booty from the prince of the world, while he also gave men the power to destroy evil spirits, thus sharing the spoils, which is the mark of the triumphant, some invoke in their favor the help and the help of the diabolical power, when it is by the finger of God? or according to Matthew (xii. 28) by the Spirit of God? that the demons are driven out. We understand by this that the kingdom of divinity is like an indivisible body, since Christ is the right hand of God, and the Spirit seems to offer the image of a finger, such as the frame of a body contained in unity in the deity. Does not the kingdom appear indivisible, since it is like an indivisible body? For "in Christ, you have read it, bodily lives the fullness of the deity" (Col., II, 9): what you certainly can not deny of the Father, and must not deny of the Spirit. And that this comparison with our members does not make you believe that it is necessary to establish a sharing of power: an indivisible thing can not be divided. It is therefore as a figure of unity, not to distinguish power, that this word is to be understood, since the right hand of God says, "My Father and I are one" (Jn, X, 30). But if the divinity is indivisible, the person is distinct. However, when the Spirit is called a finger, it designates its active power, since the Holy Spirit is a worker of divine works as well as the Father and the Son. For David says:

"When I see the heavens, the work of your fingers" (Psalm 8: 4), and in Psalm 32 (v. 6), "And by the Spirit of his mouth is all their might. Paul says again: "All this is the work of one and the same Spirit, who does his part to each as He hears it" (I Cor., XII, 11).

And when He says, "If it is through the Spirit of God that I drive away the denials, it is assuredly that the kingdom of God has come among you" (Matt. Xii. 28), He shows at the same time that there is a kind of imperial power of the Holy Spirit, in which is the Kingdom of God, and that we also, in whom dwells the Spirit, are a royal residence. So says II later: "The Kingdom of God is within you" (Lk, XVII, 21). We must therefore regard the Holy Spirit as associated with the sovereignty and imperial majesty of the deity, for "the Lord is Spirit, and where is the Spirit of the Lord is freedom" (II Cor. 17).

"When the foul spirit has come out of a man, he wanders through places deprived of water, seeking rest without finding it. "

There can be no doubt that this is said of the people of the Jews, whom the Lord above excludes from his kingdom. Understand that heretics and schismatics are separated from the Kingdom of God and the Church; and hence it is clear as the day that every assembly of schismatics and heretics is not of God, but of the filthy spirit. So one man is the whole Jewish people. The filthy spirit was taken out by the Law; but having been unable to find rest in Gentiles and Gentiles because of the faith of Christ - for foul spirits Christ is a fire; He had extinguished in the hearts of Gentiles, until then desiccated, then by baptism moistened with the dew of the Spirit, the fiery darts of the adversary (Ephes., VI, 16) - he returned to the people Jews, who, in order to be treated in their outward and superficial appearances, remain only more defiled in the intimacy of the soul. He neither purified nor extinguished his flame in the stream of the holy fountain; the evil spirit therefore rightly came back to him, bringing with him seven spirits even worse, because, in a sacrilegious thought, he confronted them with the week of the Law and the mystery of the octave. In the same way that the grace of the Septiform Spirit is multiplied for us, so all the vexations of unclean spirits are accumulated on them: for we sometimes hear the totality by this number, because it is the seventh day that having completed the works of the world God rested. This is why "the barren has seven times born, and the one who had a people of sons was without strength" (I Sam. II, 5, according to Hebrew).

Luke, XI, 29-32. The sign of Jonah.

Finally, to make you see that the people of the Synagogue have its beauty at the moment when the happiness of the Church is preached, He adds:

"This generation is a perverse generation, looking for a sign, and it will be given no other sign than the sign of Jonah: for, just as Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites, so will the Son of God. 'man.'

Here again, once the people of the Jews have been condemned, the mystery of the Church is evidently expressed: it is she who, with the Ninivites through penance (Jonah, III, 5), and with the Queen of the South by the zeal to gather wisdom (I Kings x. 1), gathers from the confines of the whole world to know the discourses of the peaceful Solomon. Queen assuredly, whose kingdom is undivided, forming only one body of diverse and distant peoples. So the other mystery was great, concerning Christ and the Church (Ephes., V, 32); but this one is greater, because the other has at first come as figurative, while now the mystery is fulfilled in its reality; there is the figure of Solomon, here Christ in his body. Two categories therefore constitute the Church, according to whether one is ignorant of sin or of sinning: for penance destroys sin, wisdom avoids it. So much for the mystical sense. Moreover, the sign of Jonah, if it shows the Passion of the Lord, also testifies to the seriousness of the sins committed by the Jews. We can remark at once and the oracle of majesty and the mark of goodness: for the example of the Ninevites announces the torture and at the same time shows the remedy; so that even the Jews must not despair of forgiveness, provided they consent to do penance.

Luke, XI, 33-36. The light on the candlestick.

"No one lights a lamp to put it in a hiding place or under a bushel, but on a candlestick. "

Having thus placed the Church above the Synagogue, He commits us to transfer our faith preferably to the Church; for the lamp is faith, as it is written, "The lamp of my steps is your word, Lord" (Ps 118, 105); for the word of God is our faith, the word of God is light, the lamp is faith. "There was the true light, which enlightens every man on his coming into this world" (Jn, I, 9); on the other hand, the lamp can only shine if it receives its light elsewhere. It is this lamp that is lit - the vigor of our mind and our feeling - so that the lost mine can be found (Lk, XV, 8). Let no one therefore place faith under the law: the law is contained in measure, grace goes beyond measure; the law is a shadow, grace gives clarity. As no one holds his faith in the measure of the Law, but brings it to the Church, where the grace of the Spirit manifests itself, that the Prince of priests enlightens the splendours of the sovereign divinity, so that the shadow of the law does not smother him. This lamp, that, according to the ancient rites of the Jews, the prince of priests regularly lighted in the morning and evening hours, was extinguished as if placed under the bushel of the Law; and the city of Jerusalem which is on earth, which kills the Prophets (Matt., xii. 37), disappears as situated in the valley of tears; while the Jerusalem which is in heaven, in which our faith militates, placed on the highest of all the mountains, that is to say the Christ, the Church, I say, can not be hidden under the darkness and the ruins of this world, but, resplendent with the brightness of the eternal Sun, it illuminates us with the lights of the grace of the Spirit.

Luke, XI, 37-54. Pharisaism.

"Now you, Pharisees, first clean the outside of the cup and the dish. "

As you can see, our bodies are designated by the mention of earthen objects, fragile, which in an instant are precipitated on the ground and break; and the innermost wills of the soul are easily translated by the expressions and gestures of the body, as the inside of the cup reveals from without. In the following, there is no doubt that the word chalice refers to bodily suffering, when the Lord says: "The chalice that the Father gave me, you do not want me to drink it? "(Jn, XVIII, 11). His body is drunk when the weakness of the body is absorbed by the dispositions of the mind, and, so to speak, passed into the mind and the soul, so that external powerlessness is absorbed. in. So you see that it is not the outside of this chalice or dish that defiles us, but the interior. Also, as a good teacher, He taught us how to purify the stains of our body, saying, "Give alms, and everything in you will be pure. See only remedies! Mercy purifies us, the word of God purifies us, according to what is written: "Now you are clean, thanks to the word that I have spoken to you" (Jn, XV, 3). And you find not only in this passage, but in others, how gracefully it is said, "The alms deliver from death" (Tob., XII, 9), and "hide alms in the the heart of the poor, and it is she who will plead for you on the wrong days "(Sgt Sir, XXIX, 12 or 15). This is the starting point of a very beautiful passage: having invited us to seek simplicity, He condemns the superfluity19 and the down-to-earth of the Jews, who, materially taking the things of the Law, are compared not without because of their fragility: they observe things which have no use for us, neglecting those in which our hope has its fruit; so they commit a great fault by disdaining what is better; and yet oblivion is promised even to fault, if mercy comes next. In a few words he condenses the many deficiencies of those who apply all their care to pay the tithes of the humblest fruits, and have no fear of the judgment to come or any love for God, while works without faith are useless. . They leave the judgment and the love of God aside: judgment, because they do not relate to judgment all that they do; charity, because they do not love God with their hearts. But on the other hand, in order not to make us seek the faith and neglect the works, It contains in a few words the perfection of the believer, who must prove himself by faith and works: "It was necessary," says He, do this and do not omit that. "

He takes again the arrogance and the vanity of the Jews, when they pretend to the first places in the feasts. Moreover, against the very experts of the Law is pronounced a sentence of condemnation: like the tombs that do not show, their appearance deceives, their trade disappoints: outside beautiful promises, inside they contain any kind of stench . This is what many doctors do, by demanding from others what they themselves are unable to imitate; and this is why they too are tombs, as it is said elsewhere: "A gaping sepulcher is their throat" (Ps. 5, 11).

Here again is a fine passage against the perfectly vain superstition of the Jews, who by building tombs to the Prophets condemned the acts of their fathers, but imitating the crimes of their fathers attracted the sentence upon themselves. In fact, to build tombs for the Prophets, it was to accuse the crime of those who had killed them; and to reproduce the resemblance of their actions was to declare himself heirs of paternal iniquity. It is not to build, but to imitate, who is considered to be ready to charge. And one can not absolve from hereditary iniquity those who, by crucifying the Son of God, which is more serious, have made the height of the crimes of their fathers. He was therefore right to add elsewhere: "Fill the measure of your fathers" (Matt., XXIII, 32), because after the outrage to God there is no more serious fault that they may commit. . This is why Wisdom sends them the Apostles and the Prophets. Who is Wisdom, if not Christ? And so you have in Matthew: "Behold, I send you prophets and sages" (XXIII, 34). In the person of the Jews we again take up, and those who, in charge of teaching the knowledge of God, are an obstacle to others and do not themselves recognize what they profess, are declared liable to punishment.