Homily 2

Pronounced before the people

in the basilica of St. Peter, apostle

November 19, 590 (a Sunday of Advent)

The Blind of Jericho

This Homily provides us with a magnificent example of "internalizing exegesis". The fallen man in Adam has abandoned the invisible realities because of visible realities; it is therefore appropriate that these last ones bring him back to God. By what intermediary, if not by Holy Scripture, extension of the Incarnation? Thus St. Gregory will be interested in the letter of Scripture, examine with scrupulous attention the very words of the Latin version, and focus on the text and its petty details. Every word, every little difficulty, is an opportunity for him to make comparisons, to quote other texts, to enlighten Scripture by Scripture, and thus to elevate the soul to God, by means of the 'allegory. Woven with human words and images borrowed from sensitive reality, allegory is at the very foundation of divine pedagogy. It strikes the sensitivity and imagination of man to tear his soul to numbness. As Gregory notes, "from the realities she knows, the divine discourse secretly puts in her heart a love she does not know" (Commentary on the Song of Songs).

Thus the orator compares the blind man healed by Christ to the human race. Driven from the joys of paradise by the sin of the first man and fallen into darkness, he begs Jesus for the light to walk in the path of life through his good works.

The finale of this Homily may seem a little dark. Let us not forget, however, the time so tried in which the holy pope preached. When death strikes unabated, the survivors usually tend to want to exorcise their presence by a coarse joy, accompanied by immediate pleasures: "Let's eat and drink, because tomorrow we'll die!" Hence the pastor's duty to protest. Rest assured, however, joy flourishes in the following Homilies, always associated with spiritual goods: the love of God that fills us, or the thought of the infinite happiness that God prepares for us in Heaven. Gregory does not invite dolorism, but true joy, the fruit of the love of things above.

Lk 18: 31-43

At that time Jesus took aside his twelve apostles, and said to them, "Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all that the prophets have written concerning the Son of Man will be fulfilled. For he will be delivered to the Gentiles, flouted, flogged, and spit on. And after flogging him, they will kill him; and on the third day he will rise again. "But they understood nothing of it; it was a hidden word for them, and they did not understand what was being said to them.

And it came to pass, as Jesus was approaching Jericho, that a blind man was sitting by the roadside and begging. Hearing the crowd, he asked what it was. It is said that it was Jesus of Nazareth who passed. Then he cried, "Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me!" Those who walked before the reprimanded him to silence him. But he cried out, "Son of David, have mercy on me!" Jesus, stopping, asked to be brought to him. When he approached, he asked him, "What do you want me to do for you?" He answered, "Lord, let me see!" Jesus said to him, "See! Your faith saved you. "Immediately he saw, and he followed him, glorifying God. And all the people, seeing this, praised God.

Our Redeemer, foreseeing that his Passion would trouble the souls of his Apostles, predicts them well in advance, and the sufferings of this Passion, and the glory of his Resurrection. Thus, seeing him die as he had told them, they would not doubt that he should also be resurrected. But because his still carnal disciples could not understand the mystery of which he spoke to them, he had recourse to a miracle. Before their eyes, a blind man opens himself to the light, so that a heavenly action strengthens in faith those who did not understand the words of the heavenly mystery.

Now it is necessary, dear brothers, to recognize in the miracles of the Lord, our Savior, facts of which we must believe that they have truly accomplished, but which, however, as signs, teach us something. For while testifying by their power of certain truths, the works of the Lord affirm others by their mystery. Notice it, in fact, to keep to the literal meaning, we do not know who was the blind man of whom our gospel speaks, but we do know who he symbolizes in the order of the mystery. The blind man is the human race: excluded from the joys of paradise in the person of his first father, deprived of the brightness of the light from on high, he suffers the darkness of his condemnation; but finding the light thanks to the presence of his Redeemer, he comes to perceive, by desiring them, the joys of the interior light, and he puts the step of his good works on the path of life.

2. It should be noted that it is at the moment when, according to the story, Jesus approaches Jericho, the blind find the light. Jericho means "moon," and the moon, in Holy Scripture, marks the weakness of the flesh, for it knows in each of its monthly cycles a decline, which symbolizes our weakness as mortals. Thus, it is when our Creator approaches Jericho that the blind returns to the light, since it was when God assumed the weakness of our flesh that the human race recovered the light that it had lost. It is because God undergoes the human condition that man is raised to the divine condition.

It is with reason that this blind person is represented to us at the same time sitting at the edge of the road and begging, because the Truth in person said: "I am the Way" (Jn 14, 6). He who does not know the clarity of the eternal light is therefore a blind man. If, however, he has begun to believe in the Redeemer, he is sitting by the roadside. However, if he neglects to pray and abstains from begging God to recover the eternal light, the blind man is well seated by the wayside, but he does not beg. On the other hand, if at the same time as he believes, he recognizes that his heart is blind and asks to recover the light of truth, then the blind man sits by the roadside and begs. He, therefore, who recognizes the darkness of his blindness and understands that he lacks the light of eternity, that he cries from the bottom of his heart, that he cries with all his soul and says, "Jesus, son of David, have pity me!"

But let us listen to what happened while the blind man shouted, "Those who walked before reprimanded him to silence him."

3. What do those who precede the arrival of Jesus represent, if not the crowd of carnal desires2 and the tempest of vices, who, before the coming of Jesus in our heart, dispel our thoughts by their assaults and hinder the calls of our heart prayer? Often, indeed, when we want to return to the Lord after sinning, and strive to overcome with vices the vices of which we have been guilty, the images of our past faults are pressed into our hearts; they blunt the tip of our mind, disturb our soul and stifle the voice of our prayer. Yes, "those who walked before reprimanded him to silence him," since before the coming of Jesus into our hearts, our past faults, whose memory strikes our thought, throw us into trouble in the midst of our prayer.

4. Let's hear what the blind man did then, before finding the light again. The text goes on to say: "But he cried out," Son of David, have mercy on me! "See, he whom the crowd reprimands in order to silence him cries again and again; it is thus that the more the storm of carnal thoughts3 torments us, the more we must intensify our prayer effort. The crowd wants to prevent us from shouting, since we often suffer even in prayer the harassment of images of our sins. But it is necessary that the voice of our heart persists with all the more force that the resistance which it meets is harder, in order to control the storm of our guilty thoughts, and to touch, by the very excess of its importunity, the merciful ears of the Lord. Everyone, I suppose, has experienced in itself what I am going to say to you: when we turn our minds from this world to turn to God, and apply ourselves to prayer, here we have to endure in our prayer as an unwelcome and painful thing, the very thing we had done with delight. It is scarcely possible that the hand of a holy desire can drive out the memory of the eyes of our heart, hardly if the groans of penance can triumph over the resulting images.

5. But if we persevere insistently in our prayer, we stop in our soul Jesus who passes. So it is added: "Jesus, stopping, asked that we bring him to him." Here he stops, he who passed: indeed, as long as the crowds of images oppress us in prayer, we have the impression that Jesus is passing; but when we persevere insistently in our prayer, Jesus stops to give us light, since God is fixed in our heart, and the lost light is restored to us.

6. However, the Lord still wants to make us understand something useful about his humanity and his divinity. It was when he passed that Jesus heard the blind man screaming, but it was once stopped that he performed the miracle of returning the light to him. Because to pass is the fact of the human nature, and to remain stopped, that of the divine nature. It is through his humanity that Jesus was born and raised, that he died and rose again, that he went from one place to another. Indeed, if the divine nature admits of no change, and if the change is equivalent to passing, it is obvious that the passage of the Lord comes to the flesh, not the divinity. By virtue of his divinity, he remains always arrested, because, being present everywhere, he does not need to come, nor to leave by a displacement. It is thus well in passing that the Lord hears the blind man who cries, and once arrested he gives him back the light, since it is in his humanity that he compassionately pitied himself on our cries of the blind but by the power of his divinity he fills us with the light of his grace.

7. Let us also notice what he says to the blind man who approaches: "What do you want me to do for you?" He who had the power to restore sight, then, did not know what the blind man wanted? No, of course! But he wants us to ask for things, although in advance he knows we will ask for them and he will give them to us. He exhorts us to pray to the point of being unwelcome, who says, however, "Your heavenly Father knows what you need before you ask him" (Mt 6: 8). If he questions, it is to be asked; if he questions, it is to excite our hearts to prayer. So the blind man immediately adds, "Lord, let me see!" What the blind man asks of the Lord is not gold, but light. He does not care to ask anything other than light, for even if it is possible for a blind man to possess something, he can not, without light, see what he has. Let us imitate, dear brothers, this man whose body and soul we have just heard. Let us not ask the Lord for deceitful riches, earthly gifts, nor transient honors, but light; not the light circumscribed by space, limited by time, interrupted by night, and whose view we share with animals; but let us ask this light that only angels see with us, which does not begin with any beginning and is bounded by no end. But the way to reach this light is faith. It is therefore with reason that the Lord responds immediately to the blind man to whom he will give light: "See! Your faith saved you. "

But to this the carnal mind4 objects: "How can I seek spiritual light, since I can not see it? How will I be certain that it exists, while it does not illuminate the eyes of my body? "We can answer in a few words this difficulty: the very objections that come to mind, we do not not with our body, but with our soul. Now no one sees his soul, and yet no one doubts having a soul when he does not see it. It is indeed this invisible soul that governs the visible body. Remove that which is invisible, and all that visible which seemed to support itself by itself crumbles immediately. It is therefore through an invisible reality that we live from this visible life; and we would doubt that there is an invisible life?

8. Let's hear what happened to this blind supplicant, and what he did. The text goes on: "At the moment he lives, and he follows him." To see and to follow is to do what one has understood to be good. Seeing, but not following, is understanding what is good, but neglecting to do it. Therefore, dear brothers, if we recognize that we are blind pilgrims, if by faith in the mystery of our Redeemer we sit by the wayside, if we pray daily to our Creator for light, if at last the from this light comes our intelligence out of his blindness, then, this Jesus whom we see through the spirit, let us follow him by our works. Let's have a good look at where he is going, and take our steps in his own, imitating him. For to follow Jesus is to imitate him. This is why he says, "Follow me, and let the dead bury their dead." (Mt 8:22). To follow, in fact, means to imitate. So the Lord is recommending elsewhere: "If anyone would be my servant, let him follow me."

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1 "Charnel" means for Saint Gregory all that belongs to the wounded nature of man, until grace has come to heal and elevate it. He opposes "spiritual", which applies to the reformed and elevated nature by grace. It is important not to understand "carnal" in the sense of "bodily". The body is not in itself worse than the soul. As St. Augustine says, "it is not the corruptible flesh that makes the soul sinful, but on the contrary the sinful soul that made the flesh corruptible" (De civitate Dei XIV, 3).

2 The carnal desires are concupiscence, unregulated by original sin, that is to say, the vitiated bottom of our nature which brings us to evil through a disorderly appetite for pleasure. "Man, if he had wanted to observe the divine precept, would have become spiritual even in his flesh. But through sin, he has become carnal even in his spirit. "(Morals V, 34, 61)

3 The carnal thoughts are here the thoughts enslaved to sin, and who bear with all their strength. Only the grace of God makes it possible to resist it (see Rom 7).

4 This is not the case here, as in paragraph 4, of the thought that leads to sin, but of thought incapable of rising to that which transcends the sensible and bodily order.

(John 12:26)

Let's observe where he goes, to be able to follow him. See, while he is the Lord and the Creator of angels, he came into the womb of a Virgin to assume our nature, which he himself created. He did not want to be born in this world of rich parents, but chose poor people. This is why, for lack of lamb to offer for him, his mother acquired young doves and a couple of turtledoves for the sacrifice (cf Lk 2, 24). He did not seek success in this world; he endured opprobrium and derision, endured the spittle, the whip, the bellows, the crown of thorns, and the cross. And since it is the attraction of material goods which has made us lose inner joy, he has shown us by what bitterness we must return. What sufferings must not man accept to suffer for himself, if God has endured so much for men!

Thus, he who, while believing in Christ, continues to seek the profits of avarice, exalts himself in the pride of honors, burns with the fire of envy, defiles himself in impure passions and eagerly seeks favors of the world, this one neglects to follow Jesus, even if he believes in him. If he seeks joys and pleasures, he walks in a path opposite to that of his Master, since he showed him one that is full of bitterness.

Let us put our past faults before our eyes; Let us consider how formidable it is that the Judge will come to punish them; Let's accustom our mind to cry. The time of this life, let us make it bitter by penance, to avoid the punishment of an eternal bitterness. It is through weeping, in fact, that we are led to eternal joys, as the Truth promises us: "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted" (Mt 5: 5). By the joys of this world, on the contrary, it is to tears that we come, as this same truth testifies: "Woe to you who laugh now, because you will grieve and weep." (Lc 6, 25). If therefore we desire the joy of reward on arrival, let us behave bitterly on the way. Thus, not only will we grow in God during our life, but our conduct will ignite others to sing the praises of God. Hence the rest of the text: "And all the people, seeing this, praised God."