Luke, V, 1-11. Jesus at Capernaum.

"And in the synagogue was a man possessed by an unclean spirit"; and, lower down: "Coming out of the synagogue, he entered the house of Simon and Andrew, and Simon's mother-in-law had a high fever."

See the clemency of the Lord Savior. He is not moved with indignation, nor offended by crime, nor affected by injustice to the point of abandoning Judea; on the contrary, forgetting wrongs, thinking only of clemency, sometimes teaching, sometimes delivering, sometimes healing, He seeks to soften the heart of this unfaithful people. And it is good that S. Luke first mentioned the man delivered from the evil spirit, and then related the healing of a woman: for the Lord had come to care for one and the other sex; it was necessary to heal first the one who was created first, and not to leave aside the one who had sinned by inconstancy of soul more than by perversity. It is a Saturday that the Lord begins to perform healings, to signify that the new creation begins at the point where the old had stopped, to mark on the premise that the Son of God is not subject to the Law. but superior to the Law, that He does not destroy the Law, but accomplishes it. It is not by the Law but by the Word that the world has been made, as we read:

"By the Word of the Lord the heavens have been made firm" (Ps 32,6). The Law is not destroyed, but fulfilled, in order to renew the once fallen man. So the Apostle says, "Destroy the old man, put on the new, which was created according to Christ" (Col., III, 9 ff.). And it is right that he begins on Saturday, to show that he is the Creator, bringing works into the fabric of works, continuing the work he had once begun Himself. Like the worker who is about to repair a house, he begins, not with the foundations but with the roofs, to demolish the dilapidated one; so he puts his hand first to the point where he had previously finished. Then it begins with the least to come to the most considerable. Deliver from the devil, even men can? by the word of God it is true; ? to command the dead to resurrect only belongs to the power of God.

And let no one be moved if in this book we are shown the devil pronouncing the first name of Jesus

from Nazareth. It is not from him that Christ received this name: from heaven the Angel brought it to the Virgin. It is his impudence to pretend to the primeur of something among men and to present to men a so-called novelty, to inspire the terror of his power. As well, in Genesis, is he the first to speak of God to man; for you read, "And he said to the woman, Why then hath God told you not to eat of any tree?" (Gen., III, 1)? So one and the other was deceived by the devil, healed by Christ. Continue, continue, learn the mysteries of the Gospel text, and in these two healings recognize the mystery of common salvation. "In the same way, that all die in Adam, so all are quickened in Christ" (I Cor. XV, 22).

Who is the one who in the synagogue was possessed of an unclean spirit? Is it not the Jewish people? As entwined by the rings of a serpent and caught in the nets of the devil, he defiled his pretended body purity by the inner garbage of the soul. And it is very true that there was in the synagogue a man possessed of the foul spirit, because he had lost the Holy Spirit. The devil had entered the place from which Christ had gone out. At the same time, we are shown that the nature of the devil is not evil, that his works are iniquitous: for he who, by virtue of his superior nature, recognizes him as Lord, by his works he denies him. And what shows its malice and the depravity of the Jews is that it has spread over this people such blindness, such infirmity of spirit, that this people denies the one that the demons recognize. O disciples and heirs worse than their master! He tempts the Lord in words, them by the fact; He said, "Throw yourself," they begin to rush him. To weigh these things from a deeper point of view, we must hear the health of the soul and the body: first the soul, prey to the pitfalls of the serpent, is delivered; for the soul would never be vanquished by the body, if at first it was not tempted by the devil. From the moment, in fact, that the soul moves, vivifies, and leads the body, how could it allow itself to be caught by its bait, if it were not itself entwined by the bonds of some higher power? So Eve did not feel hunger until tempted by the cunning of the serpent; and that is why the salutary remedy must first act against the author of sin itself. Perhaps, too, represented by this woman, mother-in-law of Simon and Andrew, was it our flesh that suffered divers fevers of sins and burned excessive transports of various lusts. The fever of love is not less, I would say, than that which warms. This fever burns the soul, the other the body. For our fever is debauchery; lusts are hot; so the Apostle says, "Let those who can not restrain themselves marry; it is better to marry than to burn "(7 Cor., VII, 9). Our fever is luxury; our fever is anger. Although they are vices of the flesh, they make their fire penetrate the bones, they affect the mind, the soul and the senses. The soul is the first solicited by the artifice of the devil: for a fertile field, a garment, a jewel, all this is persuasion of the serpent. The attraction of honors, the summit of power, the delights of feasts, the beauty of a courtesan, is the trap of the devil; they are like the seductive remarks of the perverse mind, which, by the seduction of the flesh, soon brings down an almost feminine lightness, also precipitates and degrades the soul, because the beauty of a woman is not coveted. first of all by the soul, but by the eyes of the body: what you do not see, you do not like it; but as soon as the flesh has coveted, the soul becomes enthralled with it, and sees its constancy fade, the spirit sharing this love falters (they are two in the same body) (Gen., II, 24), and thus death penetrates by the accomplished crime. The devil tempts, the flesh persuades. Yet the fever of the soul is more violent than that of the body; It often happens that the pleasure of the soul causes the health of the body to be despised and not to avoid dangers. It is not out of place to recall the story of Theotime here. He was suffering from a serious eye disease, he loved his wife, the doctor had forbidden him the use of marriage. In the impatience of desire, carried away by the ardor of passion, he could not moderate himself. Knowing for sure that he would lose his sight, before approaching his wife, in the very fire of his burning desire, everything being ready for this business, "Farewell," he said, dear light. Like what passion is more ardent than fever, cut down and consume more! But as soon as one returns from his madness, the intimate conscience opens his eyes, then comes the repentance of the act and everyone blushes with the infamy of his crime. Then God is afraid, and the sinner would like to repent, but he can not; then we attack the flesh, we accuse the devil: she as a middleman of vices, he as the artisan of misguidance. The ugliness spreads out: for every secret is bare before God, and it is not the leaves of the fig tree, that is to say, the garment of the body or the worldly morgue which veil the secret vices. And everyone, the conscious soul of his fault, trembles at the judgment of God and says "If the mountains could fall on me! in what cracks in the rocks will I hide when He comes to crush the earth? Then the flesh gives birth to the thorns and thorns, that is to say, the quills of worries and preoccupations, and the fires of which the soul is enveloped by the lust of the flesh. Yes, the soul is crucified by the nails of the pleasures of the body, and once given to earthly lusts where it plunges, it is difficult for it unless it is a divine favor, to resume its flight to the heights of where She went down. Enlaced by the nets of her actions, delivered to the charms of worldly pleasures, she is now captive.

So is the Adam, like the Eve whom the Lord came to release: one was made in the image of God, the other received his strength from his husband and, as long as it was subjected to stronger that they had in one mind only a will, pleasing to God; and, placed in the paradise of God, they took care of feeding their heavenly life. But once the flesh began to give different advice and to no longer observe its own law, they were exiled from paradise and deserved to fall back into the abyss and abyss of this place of sin. And that no one judges it wrong to regard Adam and Eve as figures of the soul and the body while they are considered to represent the Church and Christ - for the Apostle, having said that they are two in one flesh, added, "This is a great mystery, I mean as to Christ and the Church" (Eph., V, 32) - so then there may be the mystery of the sovereign God at strong reason that of our soul. But she is tied up, nailed, captive, and consumed with the fevers of the body, suffering with the flesh, she is sick. You have to look for a doctor. But who will be strong enough to heal the wounds of the wounded soul? What man will be able to help others when he can not help himself? Who can restore life to others when he can not escape death himself? All died in Adam, for "sin has entered into this world through one man, and through sin death; and it has passed to all men, from the moment that all have sinned "(Rom., V, 12). So the fault of that one is the death of all. As well, saints were sent, prophets were sent to proclaim divine oracles; and they could not move anything forward. So let's look for some doctor among angels or archangels. But how could they help me so that I do not sin, since even an archangel could not abstain from sinning? How can an angel bring me back to paradise, when Satan himself and his angels could not keep the place they had received?

"And going up into a boat which was at Simon, he begged him to depart a little from the shore. "

From the moment that the Lord accorded many cures of various kinds, neither time nor place could contain the eagerness of the crowd to be healed. In the evening, they followed him; the lake was there, they pressed him. That is why He goes up in Peter's boat. This is the boat that we see in St. Matthew still agitated (Matth., VIII, 24), in S. Luke filled with poests: you will thus recognize and the troubled beginnings of the Church and, later, its fertility ; because fish represent those who move in life. There Christ still sleeps among the disciples, here He commands: He sleeps in the shakers, He is awake among the perfect. But in what way does Christ sleep, you have heard him say by the Prophet, "I sleep, and my heart watches" (Cant., V, 2). And St. Matthew did well not to omit the manifestation of eternal power when He commands the winds. This is not human science? as you hear it say to the Jews: "Of a word II commands to the spirits"? but a mark of celestial majesty when the agitated sea subsides, when the elements obey the order of the divine voice, when insensible objects acquire the sense of obedience. The mystery of divine grace is revealed when the waves of the world subside, when a word makes the unclean mind cling to it; one does not contradict the other: the two things are highlighted. You have a miracle in the elements, you have a teaching in the mysteries. St. Matthew having thus taken his part, S. Luc has adjudged the boat where Pierre had to fish. The one who has Peter is not agitated; The one who has Judas is agitated: undoubtedly the many merits of the disciples were embarked on it, but she was still agitated by the perfidy of the traitor. In both there was Peter: but, solid in his merits, he is agitated by those of others. Let us beware of the treacherous, let us beware of the traitor, lest one put us all in danger. So no agitation for the boat where prudence leads, from which is absent the perfidy, that pushes the faith. How could she be agitated, having for pilot the one on whom the Church is founded? There is therefore agitation when faith is weak; security when the charity is perfect. So, if we command others to throw their nets, we say only to Peter: "Leads off", that is to say in the high seas of controversy. Is there depth comparable to the sight of deep riches (Rom., XI, 33), to the knowledge of the Son of God, to the proclamation of his divine generation? This, the human mind certainly can not grasp it and fully probe by reason; but the fullness of faith reaches him. For if I am not allowed to know how He was born, I am not allowed to ignore that He was born; I do not know the mode of his generation, but I recognize the principle of his generation. We were not there when the Son of God was born of the Father; but we were there when the Father declared him Son of God. If we do not believe God, who to believe? All that we believe, we believe as seen or heard: the sight is often wrong, the hearing is authentic. Do you reject the personality of the witness? If good people spoke to us, we would consider it a criminal offense not to believe them: God asserts, the Son shows, the sun eclipses, the earth testifies with trembling. The Church is led by Peter off controversies, to see on the one hand the risen Son of God, on the other the spread of the Holy Spirit.

 But what are the nets of the Apostles, which are ordered to cast? Is it not the sequence of words, the folds of discourse, the depths of discussions, which do not let those who have taken them escape? And it is good that the fishing instruments of the Apostles are the nets, which do not destroy their catch, but keep it and remove it from the abyss to the light, which carry those who floated from the lowlands on the heights.

 He is still for the Apostles a fishery of another kind; this kind of fishing, the Lord only orders it to Peter alone: ​​"Throw the hook," said he, "and take the first fish that will go up again" (Matt. XVII, 26). Great and spiritual lesson, which teaches Christians submission to the sovereign power, so that no one will allow himself to break the edicts of a king of the earth. If the Son of God has paid tribute, are you tall enough, you, to feel that you have not to pay it? Even He, who possessed nothing, paid tribute; and you, who seek the profits of this world, why not recognize the burdens of this world? why judge you above the world, in the arrogance of your soul, when you are subject to the world by your miserable cupidity? Thus the didrachm is paid: it was the price of our redemption and of our body, promised in the Law (II Kings, XII, 4), paid in the Gospel and found not without reason in the mouth of a fish: for "it is by your mouth that you will be justified" (Matt. xii. 37). The price of immortality for us is our testimony; for, as it is written, "The mouth testifies for salvation" (Rom., X, 10). Perhaps this first fish is the first martyr: it has in its mouth the didrachm, that is to say, the amount of the tax; our didrachm is Christ. So the first martyr, who is Stephen, had this treasure in his mouth when he spoke of Christ in his passion (Act., VII, 55 ff.).

 But let us return to the text that we have discussed, and learn the humility of the Apostle. "Master," said he, "we have toiled all night without taking anything; but on your word I will throw the net. I too, Lord, know that for me it is night when you do not order. No one has signed up yet, it's still night for me. I laid the trap of speech at Epiphany, and I have not taken anything yet. I asked it during the day; I am waiting for your order; on your word I will throw the nets. O vain presumption! O fruitful humility! they had taken nothing until then; at the voice of the Lord they capture a great multitude of fish. It is not the work of human eloquence but the benefit of the heavenly call. Truce to human arguments: it is by his faith that the people believe. The nets break and the fish does not escape. We call to the rescue the companions who were in the other boat. What is this boat? perhaps Judea, in which John and James were chosen? for "Judea became her sanctuary" (Ps 113: 2). These, therefore, come from the synagogue to Peter's boat, that is to say, to the Church, in order to fill the two nacelles. For all bend the knee in the name of Jesus (Philip II, 10), either the Jew or the Greek: "Christ is all, and in all" (Col. III, 11). But for me, I dread this piling up, and so filled the boats are not about to sink: for there must be heresies (I Cor., XI, 19), for the test of the good. We can, however, recognize yet another church in the boat of another; because of the unique Church several are born. This is one more worry for Pierre, that his taking already preoccupied. But being perfect he knows how to keep those he has gathered, since he knows how to take those who are scattered; those he takes on a word, he gives them to the Word; it is not, he says, his capture, it is not his doing. "Depart from me, Lord," he said; because I am a sinful man. He was surprised at divine gifts, and the more he had obtained, the less he flattered himself. Say, you too: "Depart from me, O Lord, for I am a sinner," so that the Lord may answer you: "Do not be afraid. To the forgiving Lord confess your sin. Do not be afraid to tell the Lord even what is yours, since he has given us what is his. "He does not know how to envy, He does not know how to delight, He does not know how to remove, See how good the Lord is to have given men the power to give life.