Homily 15

Pronounced before the people

in the basilica of St. Paul, apostle,

Sunday of Sexagesime

February 18, 591

The parable of the sower

Homily today is about the parable of the sower, which Jesus took care to explain himself. Saint Gregory knows how to take the opportunity to justify by the example of the Lord the allegorical exegesis that he usually practices. His audience seems to be sometimes reluctant to follow him in his search for symbolic meaning. He therefore wants to allow himself the magisterium of Jesus to support his own. Critical spirit of the audience, need for the speaker to appeal to the authority of Christ to justify his method of exposure: these two elements illuminate the preaching of the Holy Pope of an unexpected day.

Since the Lord himself explained the parable, the preacher has only to exhort to put into practice this divine commentary. The seed is the word of God; it can only bear fruit if it is preserved in the soul. Pleasures and riches threaten to stifle: let's get rid of them. Let us not be stony souls, without roots. But persevere in "compunction", crying our sins so as not to fall back.

Here is the first mention of the compunction we encounter in Homilies. Let us take the opportunity to introduce ourselves to this state of mind, of which Saint Gregory can be considered as a very authorized master. The compunction is a slenderness of the soul, a very sharp pain, a sadness according to God. It expresses itself naturally by tears. It is common to the beginner who mourns his sins, to the progressor who stands out from the creatures, and to the perfect who suffers to wait for the Kingdom (see Pie Régamey, The compunction of the heart, in La Vie Spirituelle, July 1935, p. 65] - [83]).

But let's go back to our homily. The Pope devotes the end to showing the absolute necessity of patience. Without the patient support of the defects of the neighbor, we can not bear any fruit in this world. This is an opportunity for Gregory to report a famous example of patience, which he witnessed with the whole city of Rome: that of Servulus, poor paralytic of the portico of the church of St. Clement, which he relates the admirable death: "What shall we be able to say [in the day of judgment], when we shall see that Servulus of which we have spoken? His long illness paralyzed his arms, but did not prevent him from doing good works. "We see here one of the goals that our speaker sets for the stories he tells: to shame his listeners for their lukewarmness, face of the generosity of the saints.

Lk 8, 4-15

At that time, a large crowd gathered, and people came to him from various cities, Jesus said in parable: "The sower went out to sow his seed. And while he was sowing, some of the seeds fell by the roadside; and it was trampled on, and the birds of the air ate it. Another part fell on the stone; and after it was lifted, it dried up, because it lacked moisture. Another part fell in the thorns; and the thorns pushing at the same time smothered him. Another part, finally, fell into the good ground; and having lifted up, she bore fruit a hundredfold. "Saying this, he cried," He who has ears to hear, let him hear. "

His disciples asked him what this parable meant. He said to them, "To you is given to know the mystery of the Kingdom of God, while to others it is announced in parables, so that when they see they do not see, and that by hearing they do not understand not. Here is the meaning of this parable: the seed is the word of God; what has fallen by the wayside represents those who hear, but then comes the devil and he removes the word from their heart, lest they believe and be saved. What has fallen on the stone represents those who, having heard the word, receive it with joy. But they have no root: they believe for a time, and they succumb to the hour of temptation. What has fallen in the thorns represents those who, having heard the word, allow themselves to be stifled by the cares, riches, and pleasures of life, and bear no fruit. Finally, what has fallen into the good earth represents those who, hearing the word with a good and excellent heart, keep it and bear fruit through patience. "

The reading of the Holy Gospel that you have just heard, dear brothers, does not call for an explanation, but an exhortation. For what truth itself has explained, human frailty can not presume to discuss it. But there is one thing that you must consider carefully in this explanation of the Lord: if we told you that the seed symbolizes the word, the field the world, the birds the demons, the thorns the riches, your mind would hesitate perhaps to we believe. That is why the Lord himself deigned to explain what he said, so that you learn to look for what the things he did not want to interpret himself mean. Thus, by the commentary that he gave of his parable, he made known that he used symbols to speak, which must reassure you when we, weak as we are, we discover the symbolic meaning of his words . Who would ever have believed me, indeed, if I had wished to see riches in the thorns, especially as they stung and that these charmed? However, riches are thorns, since our minds are torn to the bites of the preoccupations they engender, and by dragging us to sin they inflict on us, so to speak, a bloody wound. So it is right that in this place, according to the testimony of another evangelist, the Lord does not call them riches, but deceptive riches (see Mt 13:22). Deceptive, indeed, are the riches that we can not keep for long. Deceitful are riches that do not take away the poverty of the soul. The only real riches are those that make us rich in virtues. So, dear brothers, you want to be rich, like real wealth. If you seek to achieve the summit of true honor, aspire to the heavenly kingdom. If you love glory and dignity, hurry up to be enrolled in the heavenly court of angels.

2. Keep in your soul the words of the Lord received by your ears. For the word of God is the food of the soul. And when the spoken word is not retained by the belly of memory, it is like a food that has been taken, but that refuses a sick stomach. But one despairs with reason of the life of him who can not keep the food [which he has absorbed]. Fear therefore the peril of eternal death, if while receiving the food of the holy exhortations, you do not remember in your memory the words of life, which are the food of justice.

Here is everything that you do, and that every day, without any downtime, you approach - whether you like it or not - the last judgment. Why love what we have to leave? Why not be interested in where to go? Remember this saying, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." Everyone present then had bodily ears. But he who says to all these people who had ears, "Whoever has ears to hear, hear," undoubtedly seeks the ears of the heart. So be careful that the word received remains in the ear of your heart. Be careful not to drop the seed at the edge of the path, lest the evil spirit, occurring, removes the word from your memory.

Be careful not to receive it on a stony ground, which would produce the fruit of good works, but without the roots of perseverance. Because many love what they hear, and propose to undertake good works, but soon, fatigue due to difficulties makes them abandon what was started. The stony ground thus lacked moisture, since it could not bring what had sprouted to the fruit that perseverance produces. Many, indeed, when they hear talk against avarice, hate this greed and praise the scorn of all things. But as soon as their soul sees a desirable object, it forgets what it praised. Many, when they hear talk against lust, not only do not want to defile their flesh, but blush to have it defiled. However, as soon as a beauty of flesh appears in their eyes, their soul is carried away by desire as if they had not yet taken any resolution to resist such a desire. And they commit reprehensible acts, though they have previously condemned in their hearts those they remembered to have committed.

Often, too, we are filled with compunction for our sins, and yet we fall back into the same sins, after weeping. Balaam cried thus at the sight of the tents of the people of Israel, and asked him to be like him in death: "May my soul die from the death of the righteous, and let my last hours be like theirs." (No. 23, 10). But soon after the hour of compunction, a bad cupidity inflamed him: in view of the presents that had been promised him, he gave a death advice for this people whose death he wished to imitate. He forgot what he had cried when he refused to extinguish in him the fire that lit up greed.

3. Notice it well, the Lord affirms in his commentary that worries, pleasures and riches stifle speech. They suffocate it because they take the spirit by the throat by the concerns they engender constantly. By preventing the good desires from penetrating to the heart, it is as if they shut the access to the air that makes us live. It should also be noted that the Lord associates two things with riches, cares and pleasures: that riches smother the mind by making it uneasy, and soften it by filling it with goods. Paradoxically, while overwhelming those who possess them, they deliver them to impurity.

But since pleasure can not coexist with despondency, they torment, at certain moments, by the cares involved in the care of their preservation, and soften at other times by their abundance which leads to pleasures.

4. As for the good earth, it is by patience that it gives back its fruit, since our good deeds are worthless if we do not support, with equality of soul, the evils which come to us from our surroundings. And the more one progresses towards the summits, the more one meets in this world of things painful to support, because the opposition of the present century increases to the extent that we withdraw to him our affection. This is why we see many people who, while doing good, still struggle under the heavy burden of tribulation. If they are now fleeing earthly desires, they are struck by harsher blows. But according to the word of the Lord, they give fruit by their patience, because by receiving trials with humility, they are themselves received into the rest with honor after the trials. This is how the sponged bunch flows into a tasty wine. This is how the crushed and pressed olive is stripped of its marc to give the rich liquor of the oil. This is how the grains are separated from the bale by beating them in the area, and they get purified from their straw in the attic. Let him who desires to conquer all his vices, therefore, apply himself to humbly endure the trials which must purify him, in order then to reach the Judge all the more pure because the fire of the tribulation will have rid him of his rust better here below. .

5. Under the portico which leads to the church of Blessed Clement, stood a certain Servulus - whom many of you have known as myself - poor in wealth, rich in merits, and exhausted by a long illness. From a very young age to the end of his life, he remained in bed, paralyzed. It's nothing to say that he could not stand, since he was unable even to sit up on his bed, if only to sit down. He could never put his hand to his mouth, nor could he turn to the other side. He had his mother and brother to serve him, and by their hands he distributed to the poor all he could receive as alms. He did not know the alphabet, but he bought himself manuscripts of Holy Scripture, and he was constantly read by all the pious people he received at home. Thus he learned to know Scripture as thoroughly as he could while, as I said, he was completely ignorant of the alphabet. In his sufferings he strove always to give thanks and to go night and day to the hymns and praises of God.

When the time came when so great a patience had to be rewarded, the sufferings of the limbs went back to the vital organs. Feeling on the point of dying, Servulus asked the strangers to whom he gave hospitality to rise and sing psalms with him in anticipation of his departure. As the moribund himself chanted with them, he suddenly stopped the psalmody with a loud cry of astonishment: "Silence! Do you not hear the praises Heaven radiates? "And as he reached out to his heart for the praises he heard in him, his holy soul parted with his body. But at his departure, such an exquisite perfume spread that all the audience was filled with an inexpressible sweetness; and all concluded without hesitation that, by these praises, it was Heaven who had just welcomed this soul. There was one of our monks there, who is still alive. He is accustomed to testify, crying a lot, that until the burial, one did not stop to smell the perfume. This is how that life left him who, in this life, had borne torment with serenity. Thus, according to the word of the Lord, the good earth has yielded its fruit by patience, and plowed by the pledge of the effort, it has reached the harvest of the reward.

But you, dear brothers, consider, I ask you, what excuses we will be able to present to the severe judgment of God, we who, having received goods and hands, remain lukewarm in the practice of good works, while an unfortunate man of all good and deprived of his hands has found the means to fulfill the precepts of the Lord. May the Lord not make appear to accuse us of the apostles, who, by their preaching, have brought with them into the Kingdom crowds of the faithful. May he not make appear to accuse us of the martyrs, who have reached the heavenly homeland by the shedding of their blood. What can we say then, when we see this Servulus we talked about? His long illness paralyzed his arms, without preventing them from doing good works. Pay attention to all this, my brethren, and so stir up your zeal for these good works, so that by now offering to imitate the good men, you deserve to share their fate one day.