SS. Simon and Jude: Roman Breviary

 

Sermon of St. Gregory, Pope: Sermon 30 on the Gospels

 

It is written: By His Spirit the Lord hath adorned the heavens. Job xxvi. 13. Now the ornament of the heavens are the godly powers of preachers, and this ornament, what it is, Paul teaches us thus To one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit; to another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another diverse kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. But all these worketh that one and the self-same Spirit, dividing to every man severally as He will.

 

So much power then as have preachers, so much ornament have the heavens. Wherefore again it is written By the word of the Lord were the heavens made. Ps. xxxii. 6. For the Word of the Lord is the Son of the Father. But, to the end that all the Holy Trinity may be made manifest as the Maker of the heavens, that is, of the Apostles, it is straightway added touching God the Holy Ghost: you and all the host of them by the Breath of His mouth. Therefore, the might of the same heavens is the might of the Spirit, for they had not braved the powers of this world, unless the strength of the Holy Ghost had comforted them.

 

For we know what manner of men the Teachers of the Holy Church were before the coming of this Spirit and since He came we see in Whose strength they are made strong. Verily, if we ask of the damsel that kept the door, she will tell us what was the measure of weakness and of strength in that Shepherd 3 of the Church nigh to whose most holy body we are now sitting, before that the Spirit came. He was so stricken by the words of one woman, that for fear of death, he denied Life.

 

Homily by St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo: 87th Tract on John

 

In the reading from the Gospel, the last before this, the Lord had said: Ye have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go, and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in My Name, He may give it you. And here He says These things I command you, that ye love one another. And by this it is that we must understand what fruit from us it is, whereof He saith I have chosen, that ye should go, and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain, and so the words added.

 

That whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in My Name, He may give it you. He will give unto us when we love one another, since this (mutual love) is itself the gift of Him Who hath chosen us when as yet we were fruitless, since it hath not been we who have chosen Him, (but He Who hath chosen us,) and ordained us, that we should go, and bring forth fruit, that is to say, should love one another. Love then, is the fruit which we should bring forth, and the Apostle Paul tells us 1 Tim. i. 5 that this love is love out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned. This is the love wherewith we love our neighbor, the love wherewith we love God, for we do not really love our neighbor unless we love God. For if any man loves God, he loveth his neighbor as himself, since he that loveth not God loveth not himself. For on these two commandments hang all the law and the Prophets. Love, then, is the fruit which we should bring forth.

 

And concerning this fruit, the Lord giveth us this commandment These things (saith He) I command you, that ye love one another. Hence also the Apostle Paul Gal. v. 22 when he is about praising up the fruits of the Spirit as opposed to the works of the flesh, saith first of all: The fruit of the Spirit is love. And from that as the beginning he draws out a string of other fruits, as thence begotten and thereto bound, namely, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, chastity.

 

Who is really joyful that loveth not the cause of his joy? Who can really be at one with another, unless he loveth that other? Who is cheerful under long toil for a good work, unless he loveth the aim? Who is kind, unless he loves the object of his tenderness? Who is good, unless by the persuasion of love? Who is truly faithful, unless by the faith which worketh by love? Who is gentle to any use, unless love move him? Who turns away from baseness unless he loves honor? Well, then, doth the Good Master so often command us to love, as though that commandment was all-sufficient, for love is that gift without which all other good things avail nothing, and which cannot be without having every other good gift which makes a good man good.