St. John of Avila: Sermon 34 (Part One)
Introduction: St. John of Ávila (1499-1569) overlapped with the famous Spanish Carmelites, Teresa of Ávila and John of the Cross, but he was himself a diocesan priest and preacher, not a religious. He travelled throughout Andalusia preaching and drawing large crowds; he became the first rector of the University of Baeza; he tried to found a community of apostolic priests, but his burgeoning plans were bowled over by the quick spread of the Jesuits. Though far less known than his Carmelite compatriots, he was named a Doctor of the Church by the late Pope Benedict XVI in 2012. Among his writings are copious sermons and letters, a few Bible commentaries, and some treatises. Below is the first part of a sermon given for Holy Thursday; the source is Obras Completas de Beato Juan de Ávila, ed. Luis Sala Balust (Madrid: La Editorical Catolica, S.A., 1953), II:489-494.
Sermon 34: Incorporated into Christ through Communion, We Possess the Heart of the Father
(For Holy Thursday)
St. Juan de Ávila
(1499-1569)
In me manet, et ego in
illo. He is in me, and I in him (Jn 6:57).
In that prayer that Christ
our Lord made to His Father on the Thursday of the Last Supper, at
night, He tells Him, among other words: Father, I made Your Name manifest to
men, those whom You gave me (Jn 17:6).
And among all the other good, and very good, things that He did, He
especially honed Himself in preaching the honor of His Father, attributing to
Him the doctrine that He preached, the miracles and works that He did,
all for our example, so that He would enkindle the hearts of the apostles in love
of the invisible Father, so highly praised by His Son.
And one of them, who was
Saint Philip, said, as if in the name of all: Lord, show us the Father, and
it is enough for us (Jn 14:8), as if someone said, “Since He has told us so
many good things about Him, we would like to see Him, and we would then have
nothing more to ask nor to desire.” He,
certainly, had much reason for desiring to see the Father, since He clearly
makes blessed[1]
those who clearly see Him. But how will
they see Him, if He does not show Himself?
How will He show Himself, if we do not love Him? Then how did Christ our Lord say, If someone
loves Me, I have Myself made Him manifest to him (Jn 14:21)? And how will we love the Father, if the
Father does not first love us (1 Jn 4:19), since our loving Him is the effect of
His loving us?
And who, on the contrary,
has to be loved by so high a thing as God the Father, we being so low that even
His arranging us as He wills and giving us the being of nature is a very great
mercy and beyond all of our merit?[2] A mercy is that love with which He loves us
men and angels, with which He raises them above all their created nature and
makes them consorts by grace and by glory of the divine nature (2
Pet 1:4).
To love someone is to give
him lordship over oneself; it is to make oneself captive, and to imprison
oneself, and to place oneself in his lordship.
Then who will not praise that eternal Father, principle not only of angels
and men, but of all creation, and even of two Persons, the Son and the Holy
Spirit, from Whom, as Saint Paul says, all fatherhood in heaven and
on earth takes its name (Eph 3:15)?
A Father from Whom the Son and the Holy Spirit receive all that They
have, and He receives it from no one; He has from Himself whatever He has, and
He is Who He is. But who will say Who He
is? He is an infinite Power Who came to
be able to engender a Son equal and similar to Himself; He is such a Goodness
that He came to give all of His essence to His Son by way of generation and to the
Holy Spirit by way of love; and, finally, He is a sea of infinite perfections
Who, to say it better, is an infinite perfection, Whom the angels reverence,
and the dominions adore, and the powers tremble at,[3] and the two divine Persons
know that He is their principle and that, although there is the highest
equality among them, and more than equality, since it is unity in the
same nature, yet, along with this, there is the authority of the Father, from
Whom the two divine Persons receive what They have, and the Father does not receive
anything from them nor from anyone else.
Then, setting to one side this
highest Majesty and infinite height, raised above us with infinite distance,
and, on the other side, our lowness and, what is worse, our thoughts, who will
dare to hope, or even think, that two such extreme distances could be joined
into one? Who among men will fly so high
that he would catch this prey which flies upon cherubim and wings of winds (2
Sam 22:11)? Who so rich that he would
possess this Lord and wound His heart with the dart of love, and make Him come
down to deal with laws of equality of love with creatures so unequal to
Him? “You are truth,” said Saint
Augustine, “and I lie and vanity,” etc.[4] And when will these extremes be able to join
themselves into one? And if they join
together, it is a thing most worthy of admiration, as the holy Job felt, saying:
Lord, what a thing is man that You would visit him and place Your heart in
him? (Job 7:17) And according to the
saying of the Lord, where the treasure is, there is the heart (Mt 6:21);
how could a thing as poor as man is be the treasure of a thing as rich
as God is?
Certainly, there is need
here for the faith of Abraham who, not grown thin on the part of the creature,[5] but comforted in the
promise of the Creator, gave glory to God, holding Him to be so powerful that
He can do everything that He promises. But
what He had promised there was that Sara, sterile and old, would give birth to
a son. A great marvel, for certain; but
much more is it that God the Father gives Himself, for love, to a sterile soul,
to a worm of the earth, to a sinner and one unworthy of seeing heaven and treading
earth and of eating a bit of bread. That
God would love—and with so intimate a love—His creature, the beautiful love the
ugly, the king the vassal, the all the nothing, is a thing of greater marvel
and more blessed to possess, but very hard to believe; and no small pledges are
necessary to make us certain of so great an honor, such grand richness, and
such copious blessedness. Because if
they give us sufficient pledges of this, what remains but to lose one’s life,
if it is necessary, in order to get the heart of God the Father for our own,
and to have it wounded by the dart of love?
Blessed be the divine
goodness which comes so far, which gives us a good that we do not merit, and His
gifts exceed what we ask of Him, and even what desire, and even what we
understand, as Saint Paul says (Eph 3:20).
Nothing in regards to doing good to men seems hard to God, and, as much
as the height of heaven exceeds the littleness of earth, so are they[6] raised, in doing good for
us, over the littleness of our heart for daring to desire and ask for it. In Your thoughts, Lord, for him who
complies[7]—says
David—there is no one like You (Ps 40:5).
It is thus certain that the divine
and paternal heart, moved by His intimate goodness, wants to place itself among
men, and to hold them for its treasure, not to enrich Him with them, but
rather so that, joining Himself with them, it would make them as rich as Him,
since they would possess Him. And the
means He took to join these extremes was His most holy Son, Jesus Christ our
Lord, according to what He Himself says: I am the way, the truth, and the
life; no one comes to the Father except through Me (Jn 14:6). Let all those who desire to ascend to the
height of the Father, then, know that the staircase is Jesus Christ, His Son;
let all know that there is no other principal meditator if He is not, because,
although the saints be so, they are so through Him, and they are so because He
was the mediator in order that they might have worth with God, and that He is
the mediator for all, if they want to come to Him.
--But, what will we do,
since He is also high and most high, as the Church sings?[8] And yet we can come to His height, as to that
of His Father, inasmuch as God has one and the same height and inasmuch as man
is united with the very person of the Word of God.
--Don’t go about full of
aches and pains: it’s been days since God responded to these questions through
the mouth of Moses, and, later, of Saint Paul: Do not say—says God—who
will go up to heaven and who will descend to the abyss in order to bring us
this commandment? (Dt 30:12) Saint
Paul declares the same thing, saying: Who will go up to heaven to bring us
to Jesus Christ? Who will descend to the
abyss to bring Him resurrected? Very
near is what was commanded of you; it is in your mouth and in your heart
(Rom 10:6-8).
You ask me where Christ is,
so that you would go and, through Him, ascend to the Father, and I have to
respond to you by pointing with my finger, like Saint John the Baptist, and I
have to tell you as great a truth as he says, and the same truth that he said: There
is the Lamb of God, Who takes away the sins of the world (Jn 1:29). There He is, clothed in some accidents of
bread, and He is there in a much more marvelous manner than He was when
Saint John pointed at Him with his finger.
Oh divine love of the Eternal
Father, which set up Jesus Christ, His Son, as the door through which to enter
unto Him, according to what He said (Jn 10:9); and He sets Him up so close to
men and so wide open that it appears He is inviting them to enter through it! The heart of the Father is His Son; he who
has His Son, has the heart of the Father.
He places Him in that uncovered reliquary, so that all would see Him, just
as publicly as you see Him over there.
Oh wisest Father! Does Your Majesty not know what You have
placed in public, being a precious or beautiful thing, that there are many who
desire it? Do you not know, Lord, that,
as Your servant Saint Gregory said, “He who carries a treasure publicly, by
this act, gives one to understand that he desires that it be stolen”?[9] You, Lord, have You not said: With every
guard, guard your heart, because life proceeds from it (Prv 4:23)? And if the life of our body proceeds from the
heart, and, therefore, You commanded that we place it in a very safe place, why
did You not place Your heart in a safer place, since from Him proceeds the life
of our heart, and He is the fount of life, by which all living things
live in heaven and on earth? If it were
money, it would not be much to guard a little of it, since it’s worth a little;
but Your heart, Lord, which is richness itself, and which You loved so much,
why do You not fear that they will rob You of it, since it is so beautiful and
rich, and it is placed so publicly and so near to us that, in four or five
steps, we could approach it and take it?
Oh the inventions of divine Wisdom,
manifester of its enkindled love for men, which, by being so admirable, ought
not to be forgotten or kept silent about, since of them it is said: Declare
the inventions of God among the peoples (1 Chr 16:8)! Oh desire, oh intense thirst which You have,
Lord, that men would rob You, possess You, and be blessed by You!
The sun enlightens, warms,
and gives joy without anyone intreating it, but rather it does so by its
own nature; and fire and all Your creatures communicate what You have told
them, without choice, but rather by the instinct of nature which You stuck in
them, making them participants, in their own way, in Your infinite liberality. But just as they are, in their being, lower
than You, their liberality has nothing to do with Yours; they, if it is given
them, do not know what they do; but You, Lord, knowing what You do, and thinking
of it, You communicate Yourself with more gain and more copiously than any of
Your creatures. Oh, who could
understand, Lord, Your ways full of beautiful love! Who could understand how, in all things, when
You do not yield and when You yield, and when You do and do not do, when
You flatter and scold, the end that You intend in everything is our satisfaction
and eternal salvation!
You command us, Lord, that
we close up and guard our heart with every guard (Prv 4:23), so that it
not be poured out among creatures and lost from You, Who are its life; you
command that it be empty of all love, like the altar of Your sacrifices, and so
that all its hollows[10] be filled with You and
possess You; and, commanding us to have so tight a guard on our heart, You
place Your own in public so that all can rob You of it, and no one takes ours
from us, and all rob You of Yours!
Woe to the blind world that,
to enrich itself, robs the poor and, to satisfy itself, drinks silt, wanders
after the wind and smoke of vain honor, and, even with these miseries, it cannot
grasp what it desires! And the love and
heart of the omnipotent Father comes to them, and they do not take care of it, though
they could be blessed by it! There it
is, men, there is the heart and love of God the Father; why are there so few
desirous of it? We boast that God the
Father wants to give His love; why so tepid to receive it?
[1] The
word used here (bienaventurado) often has the specific meaning of described
the blessed in heaven, those who have obtained the Beatific Vision.
[2]
These two words—“mercy” (merced) and “merit” (merecimiento)—are etymologically
connected in Spanish.
[3]
These last three phrases are based on the Preface to the Roman Canon.
[4]
The closest passage seems to be St. Augustine, Confessions X.41.66,
though the quote is not exact.
[5]
This is a literal translation of this phrase (no enflaquecido por parte de
la criatura); the meaning seems to be that “he did not grow weak in accord
with his creaturely nature,” that is, by his created nature, it would have made
sense for the old Abraham to grow weak and give up hope. Instead, he was “comforted in the promise of
the Creator.”
[6]
The implied plural subject here seems to be the “thoughts of God” mentioned in
the next sentence.
[7] I am
uncertain what the phrase para lo que cumple means here, as it is not
found in the Psalm verse here quoted. Cumplir
typically means “complete” or “fulfill,” but it can also mean “comply.” The phrase could also mean “for what He
completes” or “for what He achieves,” but the jump between second-person (“In Your
thoughts”) to third-person (“for what He achieves”) would be very
strange.
[8] The
reference is to the Gloria: “For You alone are holy, You alone Lord, You
alone the Most High…”
[9]
See St. Gregory the Great, Homilies on the Gospels I.XI.1: “It is also
to be noted in this matter that the treasure, being founded, is hidden, that it
be preserved, since he who does not hide the eagerness for heavenly desire from
human praises does not suffice for guarding it from malign spirits. For we are in the present life as if on the
way by which we travel to the fatherland.
But malign spirits lay in wait along our way like thieves. Therefore, he desires to be despoiled who publicly
carries a treasure along the way” (PL 76:1115A-B). St. Gregory is commenting on Mt 13:41-52.
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