Tuesday, June 18, 2019

Sermon by S. John Chrysostom: Homily 60 to the People of Antioch



SINCE the Word says, This is my body; let us both confess and believe him, and let us behold him with the eyes of our mind. For Christ gave us not sensible things, but altogether intelligible ones, although disguised in sensible form. It is the same in baptism; the gift is given through sensible matter, namely water, but it is birth and renewal that is intelligibly effected. For if you were bodiless, he would have given you bodiless gifts. But since your soul is joined to your body, he gives you intelligible things in a sensible form. How many of you are saying, I wish I could see him in the flesh, see his face, his clothes, his shoes! Lo, you do see him, you touch him, you eat him. You want to see his clothes, while he indeed allows you not only to see him, but more than that, to eat and to touch and to receive him within you.

THEN let and none draw near in a weak and sickly draw manner: let all be ardent, all fervent and aroused. For if the Jews ate the Paschal lamb with their shoes on their feet and their staff in their hand, and in haste; how much more alert should you be! They indeed were about to set out for Palestine, and therefore they behaved as travelers: but you must go forth to heaven.

THEREFORE, be watchful in all things; for there is no small punishment decreed for those who receive unworthily. Consider how you are roused to indignation against the man who betrayed him, and against those who crucified him: and then consider whether you yourself are guilty of the body and blood of Christ. They killed his most holy body, but you receive it in your polluted soul after so many benefits conferred. It was not enough for him to be made man, to be beaten with rods and crucified; he even made himself one with us: not only by faith, but truly in very deed he made us his own body.

WHO should he who be spotless than he who partakes of such a sacrifice? And surely purer than a sunbeam should be the hand distributing this flesh, the mouth filled with this spiritual fire, the tongue reddened by this exceedingly awe-inspiring blood ? Consider what tremendous honor is conferred upon you, at what table you are a guest. Angels tremble when they see him, nor do they dare to look on him, because of the dazzling splendor emanating from him; on him do we feed, to him we are united, and we are made of one body and of one flesh with Christ. Who can express the noble acts of the Lord, or shew forth all his praise? What shepherd feeds his flock with his own blood? And why do I say shepherd? Many are the mothers who after the pains of childbirth give their children to strangers to nurse: yet he would not suffer this, but he feeds us with his own blood, and in every way unites us to himself.

No comments:

Post a Comment