St. John of Ávila: Sermon 65.1 on the Annunciation / Treatise 1 on Mary: Part II

 For an introduction to St. John and this text, as well as Part I of the text, see my previous post here: https://undustedtexts.blogspot.com/2024/01/st-john-of-avila-sermon-651-on.html

What Bush Is This, Which Burns and Is Not Consumed?

Who will speak?¹ Who will speak the powerful deeds of the Lord (Ps 106:2)? Who will understand His mercies? Have you encountered any book in which you have read the mercies of God? Have you seen a book which tells them?

Moses wandered, pasturing his herd, and set it there in the deepest part of the desert, and, wandering, he, very careless, saw a bramble which burned and was not consumed; he was frightened at how it burned and was not consumed. “Certainly, I have to go there and see this great marvel.” Is there not more, Moses? Is there not more? He goes there, and, as soon as he draws near, he finds that God was in the bramble. See, through your life, he who saw God in the bramble, and [God] spoke to him from there: “Moses, do not come here; you are coming very close; see how the earth where you are is holy.” Is there nothing more except coming to see? “Unshod yourself.” Was he holier by becoming unshod? “Unshod yourself, do not bring your sense, nor your reason, nor your force, nor your knowledge; set aside what avails nothing; you have need of another spirit, another force, another understanding: unshod yourself; you are nothing, you avail nothing; did you think that there would not be more? Glean that you are near God, near Him at Whose Majesty the angels tremble.” God speaks from the bramble: Ego sum Deus Abraham, Deus Isaac, Deus Jacob [I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob] (Ex 3:6). “Marvelous God, and you are in the bramble? What does Your Majesty command?” “I have ears to hear and eyes to see the pains which My people suffer: I have heard the voices which they make to Me in Egypt: I have seen their affliction, and, come what may, I have descended here to free them. Glean that I command you to go to Pharaoh, and tell him this, and this on My behalf.” Admirable is the vision, certainly, but marvelous is its completion. Who will understand the mercies of the Lord (Ps 107:43)? Who His counsel? What is this? What is this? If we enter into the desert, if we take our sheep to the most secret [place], if we retreat to the deepest interior of our hearts, we will see the vision of God, that He is near, that He burns and is not consumed, that our eyes see a pregnant maiden; God is in her, and she is not consumed; she is pregnant and a maiden: if we do not approach to see this mystery, they will say that we go about like fools; remove your reasons and natures, unshod yourselves of your shoes of animal leather, set aside the knowledge and understanding of flesh: Go forth, daughters of Sion, and you will see King Solomon crowned with the crown, with which his mother crowned him on the day of his betrothal (Sgs 3:11). Let us ask our Lady for the grace to know how to receive, and to delight in, and to understand something of this mystery.

Do not come with a profane and dishonest heart: denude your reason, come with feet unshod, untrusting in yourself, separated from yourself, closer to and asking help from God. What is this? Approach a little: what does this Maiden have? What fire is this which she has within her? They will respond to you: “Not an angel nor an angel, but the Lord Himself Who is in her.”² “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, God of Jacob.” O blessed be You, Lord, and glorified forever, and may the angels adore and revere You forever! What does the great God do, enclosed in a maiden? The name of the city of God: Dominus ibidem [the Lord is there] (Ez 48:35): the name of the Son of the Virgin and of God: Emmanuel (Is 7:14). You call the city, you come to the Virgin thinking that there is nothing more; God will respond to you in her: “Behold.” What are You doing, Lord, here, in a maiden? “I saw the work and pains of My people, and the labors and anguishes which they suffer, and I have descended to free them Myself.” O marvelous God! Men and the Prophets, give voices, so that He Who is to come would come already!

The world was captive to the power of the demon, and in great anguish; great were the forces of the demon, and great sorrow was it to see what sin worked in the hearts of men, with efficacy. “There is no other remedy,” says God, “I know what My people suffer, I know their anguishes, I have had compassion on men, on the Holy Fathers in limbo, on the seats which are to be repaired: I have descended and come to free them.” O, glorified be You, Lord, Who comes from one to the other! He sent Moses over there so that His people would be freed by him from their captivity by Pharaoh, and God remained Himself without costing Himself anything: is He here in the same way? No. Descendi ut liberarem populum meum [I descended so that I might liberate My people] (Ex 3:8). “I descended to liberate My people.” What will it cost You? When Moses liberated Your people, You threw many plagues at Pharaoh: You throw dog flies at him, then frogs, then other things which give them great pain and labor: but what must it cost You? What thing is this, Lord? Propter nos homines, et propter nostram salutem descendit de cœlis, et incarnatus est de Spiritu Sancto ex Maria Virgine, et homo factus est [For us men, and for our salvation, He descended from the heavens, and He was incarnate of the Holy Spirit from Mary the Virgin, and became man].³ Men, there is a reason to no longer have a heart of stones instead of flesh (Ez 36:26), since the Word of God is become flesh for us men, and for our salvation. God incarnated and became man: over there He remains in the bramble, and they do not touch Him; here, He descends from the heavens, and has become man.

There Is No More; It Was a Marriage For Love

What does God have [in common] with man? Join those extremes for me.

Give me the desire today (if it were not [already] with him who knows so much) to say to Him: “Lord, do You know what You are doing?” What thing is higher than God? What thing lower than man? God and man! Since Adam sinned, “man” is a name of dishonor, since man and sinner are one and the same thing. And when Saint Paul wants to rebuke someone, he calls him “man”:⁴ Non ne homines estis [Are you not men]? (1 Cor 3:4). And the Psalmist: Ut sciant gentes, quoniam homines sunt [That the nations may know that they are men] (Ps 9:20). May they know that they are men, that they are sinners, and miserable. Who could ever think such a thing? That heaven is with the ground? That the high is with the low? That the rich is with the poor? That the pure is with the dirty? That the gold is with the mud of man? What is this, Lord, that you have so truly joined with man? Erunt duo in carne una [The two will be one flesh] (Mk 10:8). What is it to become man? He becomes man, and He does not leave off being God; two natures and one person; in such a manner that He is called God, God man, and man God, and that which is said of the one, is said of the other. They are married. O mira Dei usque ad hominem exinanitio! O mira hominis usque ad Deum exaltatio! [O marvelous emptying of God towards man! O marvelous exaltation of man towards God!]⁵ God descends unto becoming man, and raises man towards God: how low, and how high!

So that you might know how much God and His goodness can do, God is abased to become man, as far as joining with humanity, and [as far as] giving it the hypostasis⁶ and personality of God, and there are not two hypostaseis, but two natures joined, human and divine nature; and the human is impersonal, it is hypostasized and joined to the divine Word, not two persons, but one, in order to make you understand that the goodness of God could, without any reward, raise that humanity to hypostasize it in God, and to adorn it with so many excellences and graces; and that He Who had goodness for this, will have it to raise you yourself from the dung, so that you might be a son of God by participation; that He did this for this [reason], so that you would see in the head that which was to pass in the members. That, as He thus came to it without rewards, so He will come to you yourself without yours: Præclarissimum nobis proponitur exemplar prædestinationis nostræ Dominus Jesus [The Lord Jesus is proposed to us as a clearest exemplar of our predestination].⁷ The example of predestination—if you are predestined, if God calls you—is justifying and saving, because it is predestined by grace.

Today the Word is wedded with that holy soul and body. Wedded, Lord? For this reason He said [it], so that I would tell it to you if you did not know it: “wedded.” Take that equality away from me! Are there those here who understand marriage? Take that equality away from me in the manner of lineage! Are they equal in one? What goes from lineage to lineage? From knowledge to knowledge? From riches to riches? A greatest difference, which all the angels are terrified to hear of. Who sees God descend today and abase Himself? (I say God abases Himself, not by changing place, but rather, I mean to say, by taking that humanity.) It was an unequal thing; but, to the end, that soul and body were most clean and holy: Your love, Lord, undergoes all of it, suffers all of it, enriches all of it in exchange for performing mercies. O great good, O great honor! Do you think that there is nothing else [to do] except wedding Yourself with that humanity? O my King, even the relatives of the Spouse are very unequal, poor and disobedient! If one would come from the Indies with much money, if they knew that he gave alms, what would the poor relatives do in order to demand it and take it from him! Then see, Lord, that Your Spouse owes nothing, never sinned, was most clean in her conception: then see how much we, the relatives, owe, how weighted with debts we are, how infirm, exiled, condemned to death, unraveled, and enemies of God, with a thousand debts and traps, and all would be laid upon You. If You were not, Lord, Who You are, I would tell You: “Lord, do You know what You are doing? All the sins of men would be laid upon Your shoulders: You would have to pay it, upon You would all fall, since nothing would be remitted You.

“Do You know with whom You are wedded? Do You not dishonor Yourself with the relatives of the betrothed? Son of the Father, so rich in heaven, do You come here, to earth, to wed Yourself, and to live among so poor a people? If You were, Lord, some avaricious man whom the needs of others would not move, there would not be much in it; but, being Yourself, Lord, so amorous, so merciful, and You Who gives Your heart⁸to him whom You see in need, how do You place Yourself among such poor men? What have You done? That the needs of all would be laid upon Your shoulders, and that which the other sinned in his flesh, and that which the other sinned in his madness, and the other in his adulterizing and in his blaspheming. What have You done, Lord? I have to say it, Lord. Blessing the heavens and the earth: I will do it, since You love the ugly, and he appears handsome to You.” There is nothing more; it was a wedding for love, the Father well loved, so that He gave even the Son to us in such a marriage: Sic Deus dilexit mundum, ut Filium suum unigenitum daret [God so loved the world, that He would give His only-begotten Son] (Jn 3:16). The Father well loved us, the Son well loved us, He Who consented to such, the Holy Spirit well loved us, He Who ordered such. Why did the Father give Him? So that He would die and they would skin Him, so that they would wed Him with the slave. Here I am, the slave of the Lord. He who is born of a slave woman is a slave, although He be the son of a free man, because birth follows the womb. Is it not so? The Virgin calls herself a slave, and He Who is born of her calls Himself a slave: O Domine quia ego servus tuus sum, et filius ancillæ tuæ [O Lord, for I am Your servant, and the son of Your handmaid] (Ps 116:16). O Father, I am Your slave, and the son of Your slave! You were a slave, Lord; who shackled You to that cross with nails? The Son of God did not come to be served, but to serve (cf. Mt 20:28). You were a slave of men, since You served them, and they want to thank You for it with hard pains.

O blessed [be] Your goodness, and cursed our illness! That God would send His Son to the world to heal men! What was it, Lord, which moved You? Quæ te vicit clementia, ut ferres nostra crimina ]What clemency conquered You, that You would bear our crimes]?⁹ Would it not be enough to send a Moses? Non angelus, non legatus, ego feci, ego feram, ego portabo, ego salvabo [Not an angel, not a legate, I Myself did, I will bear, I will carry, I will save] (cf. Is 63:9, 46:4).¹⁰ “Hear Me, My people, those whom I bring, reared in My womb,” says the Lord: “I did, I will suffer you, I will carry you, I will save you, I will carry you between My shoulders; because I made You, I will carry you, and I will save you unto old age, unto your canes I will give you hope.” Blessed be You, Lord, since He Who made the vase came to solder it, and He in Whose mold it was made, He Himself came to remedy and mold it! “I want to descend,” says God—what was this? God guard you with love! The Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit well loved us. This matter is all love. You do not ask for equality, You do not place Yourself in that work, You do not ask a reason for love: it is love; will there be eyes to see this, that, because of the grand love which He had, He abased Himself and enclosed Himself in the womb of the Virgin, determined to pay and suffer and die for men, and to pay all his debts, even though it costs Him His life?

1Here the “treatise” version of this sermon cuts out numerous lines. The original sermon reads: “Ecce ancilla Domini, etc. ubi supra [Behold the handmaid of the Lord, etc., as above]. The words which, through the mediation of divine favor, will give our sermon a base, the holy Gospel says them in the Mass that is said today, as you have heard. Quis loquetur potentias Domini, auditas faciet omnes laudes eius; quis sapiens custodiet hoc [Who will tell the powerful deeds of the Lord, will make all of His praises heard; which wise man will guard this]? (cf. Ps 106:2)”

2 This line is based on Is 63:9, as found in the Septuagint, which reads (in part), “Not an elder nor an angel, but the Lord Himself saved them.”

3 A quote from the Nicene (Niceno-Constantinopolitan) Creed.

4The sermon version adds another Pauline quote: “Contentiones et rixae [Contentions and strifes] (Gal 5:20), etc.”

5 See St. Thomas of Villanova, Conferences on the Lord’s Natal Day IV.12, in St. Thomas of Villanova, Opera Omnia, Volume IV, Conciones Omnes in D.N. Jesuchristi ac B.V. Mariæ Festa Complectens (Manila: Amigos del Pais, 1883), 47: “Marvelous emptying of God towards flesh, marvelous, too, exaltation of flesh towards God.”

6 In this paragraph, St. John seems to use the word supuesto as a literal translation of the Greek hypostasis, with the related verb supositar meaning “to hypostasize.” Among the older Fathers, the term was used to refer to a nature, substance, or essence, but it later developed the meaning of “person”; where the older Fathers might have spoken of two hypostaseis, the later ones would speak of two ousiai (singular ousia, “essence”), with a single hypostasis, hence the term “hypostatic union.” Since hypostasis literally means “standing” (stasis) “beneath” (hypo), it lent itself to the understanding of the base substance, essence, or nature, but that meaning was changed; it is the later meaning, equivalent to “individual” or “person,” which St. John is referring to with his translation of supuesto (from the Latin suppositus, literally “placed” (positus) “under” (sub), etymologically identical to hypostasis). The DRAE gives a philosophical meaning of supuesto as “every being which is the principle of its own actions,” which also applies to a hypostasis in the later sense. See Real Academia Española, Diccionario de la lengua española, 22^nd ed. (Madrid: Espasa Calpe, S.A., 2001), 2112. “Hypostasize” means, at least here, “to unite with a hypostasis,” or “to form a hypostatic union.”

7 See St. Augustine, On the Predestination of the Saints, XV.30 (PL 44:981): Est etiam præclarissimum lumen prædestinationis et gratiæ, ipse Salvator, ipse Mediator Dei et hominum homo Christus Jesus [For a clearest light of predestination and grace is the Savior Himself, the Mediator of God and men Himself, the man Christ Jesus]. See also St. Augustine, On the Gift of Perseverance XXIV.67 (PL 45:1033): “There is no more illustrious example of predestination than Jesus Himself, wherefore I also argued this in the first book, and I have decided to recall it at the end of this one: there is, I say, no more illustrious example of predestination than the Mediator Himself.”

8 Literally “innards” (entrañas).

9 Two lines from the hymn Jesu, nostra redemptio, the Office Hymn for the Feast of the Ascension, dating from the 9^th or 10^th century.

10 See n. 6 above on the quote from Is 63:9.

 

 

Sources: Tercera parte de las obras del padre maestro Juan de Ávila... (Madrid: Pedro Madrigal, 1596), II:161-185.
Obras completas del B. Mtro. Juan de Ávila, ed. Luis Sala Balust (Madrid: La Editorial Católica, S.A., 1953), II:1004-1019.

(References given are for the full sermon.)

Translation and Notes ©2024 Brandon P. Otto.  Licensed via CC BY-NC.  Feel free to redistribute non-commercially, as long as credit is given to the translator.