Saturday, August 17, 2019

St. Ambrose: Commentary on Luke 12: 51-53



As long as the unison of vices, an indivisible and inseparable agreement, persisted in the same house, there was no division. But when Christ brought to the earth the fire of which He would consume the faults of the flesh, or the sword, which signifies the cutting edge of the power that is exercised, and which "penetrates the intimacy of the spirit and the marrow." (Hebr., IV, 12), then flesh and soul, renewed by the mysteries of regeneration, forgetting what they were, beginning to be what they were not, separating from the company of the old vice so loved that he was until then, and break all connection with their prodigal posterity. Thus, the parents are divided against the children, the movement of intemperance being denied by the temperance of the body and the soul avoiding the trade of the fault, while there is no room for this foreigner, coming from without, the voluptuousness. The children are also divided against the parents, when the inveterate vices are concealed from the senile censorship of the renewed man, and the young voluptuousness so far escapes the discipline of a serious house. And nothing forbids thinking that those too are separating who want to become better than their parents, especially since lower He said: "If one comes to me without hating father and mother, son, brothers and sisters, and even his life, one cannot be my disciple "(Lk, XIV, 26). Thus, according to the obvious interpretation, the son who follows Christ has the advantage over the pagan parents: for religion prevails over the duties of affection.

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