Homily 1

Pronounced before the people in the basilica of St. Peter, apostle

November 12, 590 (a Sunday of Advent)

The advent of the son of man

This first homily is part of the dramatic context of the year 590 (see introduction to the Harangue to the people about the epidemic). It was on September 3 that Gregory resolved to take control of the rudder in the middle of the unleashing of the waves: "While crying, I remember the quiet shore of my rest, which I lost," he writes. to St. Leander. He is not satisfied with crying his lost contemplative life; but, as he has already begun to do since the death of his predecessor Pelagius, he deals with the daily bread of the population, spends lavishly on the poor, and organizes relief for the plague victims. It draws heavily on the income of the Church and its family wealth. These circumstances show us, certainly, his exceptional competence of administrator, but especially the breadth of his pastoral charity.

This context allows us to understand that the preacher's calls to put all his hope in Heaven mean nothing in him flight responsibilities and forget the misery of his brothers. We also understand that it is not by hyperbole that he shouts to his flock exclamations such as this: "See how much you remain of the innumerable people that you were." The pope does not need to condition his audience. For its beleaguered followers, it is obvious that there is no longer a terrestrial future. And it is on such a conviction that St. Gregory grafted his preaching, so rich in Christian hope. Things are getting worse: either! But have not the catastrophes that strike us been announced as preceding the end of the world and the return of the Lord? Now the end of the world, and our death, too, are the beginning of the joys of the heavenly country. And is not the shortest way to get there, hard as it may seem, the best? The present life is only a path; we must therefore despise the world. One concern deserves our concern: that the Lord, on his return, deems us worthy to know the endless joys we hope for. Hence the need to rectify our life, to resist victoriously to evil and to expiate our past mistakes.

Lk 21, 25-33

At that time, Jesus said to his disciples, "There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth the nations will be anguished at the sound of the sea and the waves of upheaval; men will dry up with fear in the expectation of what is to happen to the whole earth, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then we will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds with great power and great majesty. When it begins to arrive, straighten up and lift up your head, for your redemption is coming. "And he told them a parable," See the fig tree and all the trees: when they make their fruit appear, you know that the summer is near. So for you: when you see this happen, know that the Kingdom of God is near. Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass that all this has happened. Heaven and earth will pass, but my words will not pass. "

Our Lord and Redeemer, dear brothers, wish to be ready. So he announces to us the misfortunes that must accompany the old age of the world, to distance us from the love of this world. He tells us what great calamities are immediately preceding the end, so that, if we do not want to fear God when we are quiet, we feared at least, under the repeated blows of these calamities, the approach of his judgment. For a little before the passage of the Holy Gospel that your fraternity has just heard, the Lord said in a manner of premise: "The nations will stand against the nations, and the kingdoms against the kingdoms; there will be great earthquakes, plagues and famines in various places "(Lk 21: 10-11). And a few sentences later, he adds what you have just heard: "There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on earth the nations will be anguished at the sound of the sea and the waves of upheaval. "

Of all these predictions, we see some already realized; as for the others, we dread to see them soon to be fulfilled. That the nations stand up against the nations, that they be oppressed with anguish on the earth, we observe it more in our time than we read in the books. That an earthquake has ruined innumerable cities, you know how often we have heard it from other parts of the world. Epidemics, we suffer constantly. As for the signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, it is true that we have not yet seen them, but the troubles in the atmosphere already allow us to suppose that these signs are not far off. Moreover, before Italy was delivered to the blows of barbarian swords, we saw in the sky armies all on fire and, in a blaze, the blood of the human race, which was spread afterwards. An incredible upheaval of the sea and the waves has not yet occurred. But since many predictions have already been realized, there is no doubt that the small number of those who remain will be followed, because past facts guarantee the fulfillment of those to come.

2. If we tell you this, dear brothers, it is to keep your minds in a careful prudence and vigilance, lest security numbs them, and ignorance keeps them languid; it is also so that fear continually stimulates your minds, and that such stimulant strengthens them in good works, at the thought of those words added by the voice of our Redeemer: "Men will dry up with fear in the world. the expectation of what is to happen to the whole earth, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. "Who does the Lord call the powers of heaven, except Angels, Archangels, Thrones, Dominations, Principalities, and powers? They will appear visibly in our eyes at the coming of the rigorous Judge, to make us then pay with severity what our invisible Creator now supports us without getting impatient. It is added here, "Then shall the Son of Man be come upon the clouds with great power and great majesty." It is as if it were plainly said, "They shall see in power and majesty that that they did not want to listen when he presented himself with humility, so that they will then feel all the more the rigor of his power that they do not now bow the nape of their hearts to his patience. "

3. But these words having been spoken to the reprobate, the following are addressed to the elect to comfort them: "When it shall begin to come, straighten up and lift up your head, for your redemption is coming." is as if the Truth clearly warned his chosen ones by saying: "At the moment when the misfortunes of the world are multiplying and the shaking of the celestial powers announces the terror of the judgment, raise your head, that is to say, rejoice in your hearts; indeed, while the world ends, of which you are not friends, the redemption you desired approaches. "In Holy Scripture, the word" head "is often put in the place of the word" spirit, " for just as members are commanded by the head, so thoughts are ruled by the mind. To lift one's head is to raise one's spirit towards the joys of the heavenly country. Thus, those who love God are invited to rejoice with great joy because of the end of the world, because they will soon meet the one they love, while passing what they did not like. May the faithful who desires to see God be careful not to cry over the misfortunes that afflict the world, since he knows that these very misfortunes bring him to an end. It is written in fact: "Whoever wants to be the friend of this century is the enemy of God" (Jas 4: 4). He who does not rejoice at the approach of the end of the world affirms himself as the friend of the world, and is thereby convinced of being the enemy of God. May it not be so with the hearts of the faithful. That it is not so with those who believe by faith in the existence of another life, and show by their way of acting that they love this other life. For crying over the destruction of the world is fitting for those who have planted the roots of their hearts in the love of the world, who do not seek the future life, and do not even suspect its existence. But we, who know the eternal joys of the heavenly homeland, must rush to them in haste. We must wish to go there as quickly as possible and to reach it by the shortest way.

Of what evils, indeed, is the world not oppressed? What sorrows and adversities are we not anxious about? And what is life mortal, if not a journey? But what madness, think well, my brothers, that exhausting yourself in the fatigues of travel without wanting yet such a trip to end! To show us that the world must be trampled upon and despised, our Redeemer immediately adds an ingenious comparison: "See the fig tree and all the trees: when they make their fruits appear, you know that summer is near. So for you: when you see this happen, know that the Kingdom of God is near. "It is as if he clearly said," If we know the proximity of summer by the fruits of trees, we can likewise recognize by the ruin of the world that the Kingdom of God is near. "These words show us clearly that the fruit of the world is its ruin: it grows only to fall; he budges only to destroy by calamities everything that has burgeoned in him. It is with reason that the Kingdom of God is compared to summer, for then the clouds of our sadness will pass, and the days of life will shine with the brightness of the eternal Sun.

4. All these truths are confirmed to us with great authority by the following sentences: "Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass that all this has happened. Heaven and earth will pass, but my words will not pass. "Nothing in the nature of material things is more lasting than heaven and earth, and nothing in reality passes faster than word. In fact, the words, as long as they remain unfinished, are not words, and as soon as they are finished, they are already no longer, since they can only be finished by passing. So the Lord declares, "Heaven and earth will pass, but my words will not pass." It is as if he clearly said, "Everything around you is sustainable, is not sustainable without change in the face of 'eternity; and everything that seems to me to pass is actually fixed and does not pass, because my word that passes expresses ideas that can not change. "

5. Notice it, my brethren, we are now seeing what we have just heard. Every day, new and growing ills overwhelm the world. See how much you remain of the innumerable people that you were; and yet, plagues do not cease to melt on us daily, sudden misfortunes strike us, new and unforeseen calamities afflict us.

As in the age of youth, the body is vigorous, the breast robust and healthy, the nerve of the neck and the bronchi developed, but in the years of old age, the waist bends, the neck dries out and low, the chest is overwhelmed with frequent shortness of breath, the force is lacking, the difficult breathing interrupts the speech - because even in the absence of disease, the health itself is often for the old men only a continual discomfort - so also the world, in its first years, knew the equivalent of a vigorous youth; he was then robust to multiply the human race, full of greenness by the health of the body, filled with riches; now, on the contrary, the world is sinking under the weight of his own old age, and as if his death were approaching, he is overwhelmed by ever increasing trials. So, my brothers, do not love this world, which can not, as you see, survive long. Fix in your mind that commandment which the apostle [John] gives us to warn us: "Do not love the world, nor what is in the world; for if anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. "(1 Jn 2:15)

The day before yesterday, my brothers, you were told that a sudden storm had uprooted old trees, felled houses and knocked down churches to the foundations. How many men, who were in perfect health at the end of the day, imagined that they would do such and such thing the next day, and died suddenly that night, carried away by the trickle of this cataclysm!

6. Let us consider, however, my dear ones, that to realize this, the Invisible Judge only stirred the breath of a very light wind: it was enough to provoke the flurry of a single hurricane to shake the earth and shake the foundations of so many buildings to the point of overthrowing them. What will this Judge do when he comes himself and his anger will burn to punish sinners, if he can not stand when he strikes us with a tiny hurricane? In the face of his anger, what flesh will remain, if by waving the wind, he has shaken the earth, and if, stirring violently the air, he has overthrown so many buildings? It is in considering the severity of the Judge who is coming that Paul exclaimed, "It is terrible to fall into the hands of the living God" (Heb 10:31). And the psalmist expresses such severity in these terms: "God will come openly, our God, and he will not keep silence. A fire will burn in his presence, and there will be a violent storm around him "(Ps 50: 3). At such severity in justice, the storm and the fire make a procession, for the storm experiences those whom the fire must consume.

So put the day of judgment before your eyes, dear brothers, and in comparison, everything that seems painful now will become light. It is about this day that the prophet affirms: "It is near, the great day of the Lord, near and coming in all haste. The cry of the day of the Lord is bitter, the valiant man will be tested there. A day of wrath that day, a day of tribulation and anguish, a day of calamity and misery, a day of darkness and darkness, a day of mist and tornado, a day of trumpet and trumpet ringtones. " So 1, 14-16). From that day, the Lord says again through the voice of the prophet, "Once again, and I will shake not only the earth, but also the heaven." (Ag 2: 6)

See, we have just said it; it has shaken the air, and the earth has not resisted; who can hold when it shakes the sky? And what about the terrifying events that we are the spectators, except that they are the harbingers of anger to come? We must therefore consider that there is as much difference between the present and the last day's tribulations as between the person of an annunciator and that of a powerful judge. So, dear brothers, apply all your attention to the thought of this day; rectify your life, change your manners, overcome the bad temptations by resisting them, and those to which you succumbed, expiate them by your tears. One day you will see the advent of the eternal Judge with all the more confidence that the fear of his rigor will have made you take the lead now.