Homily by St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan. Bk. x Comm. on Luke xxiv

Homily by St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan. Bk. x Comm. on Luke xxiv

Continuation of the Holy Gospel according to Luke

Luke 24:36-47

At that time: Now while they were speaking these things, Jesus stood in the midst of them, and said to them: Peace be to you; it is I, fear not. And so forth.

We see here the marvelous nature of the Lord's glorified Body. It could enter unseen, and then become seen. It could easily be touched, but Its nature is hard to understand. The disciples were afraid and supposed that they had seen a spirit. And therefore, the Lord, that He might show us the evidence of His Resurrection, said: Handle Me, and see; for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have. Therefore, it was not by being in a disembodied state, but by the peculiar qualities of the risen and glorified Body that He had passed through closed doors. John xx. 19. For that which is touched or handled is a body.

We shall all rise again with our bodies. But it is shown to be a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. 1. Cor. xv. 44. The spiritual body is the finer, and the natural body is the grosser, begotten as yet by the corruption of earth. Was not that a real Body, wherein remained those marks of His Wounds, those holes of the nail-prints, which the Lord bade His disciples to handle? Hereby, also, He hath not only strengthened our faith, but also quickened our love, since we know that it has been His will to carry to heaven those Wounds which He bore for our sake, and wherewith He would not make away; but plainly shown to His Eternal Father the price of our freedom. It is as marked with these Wounds and embracing the trophy of our salvation that the Father said to Him, Sit Thou at My right Hand: and it is, like Him, marked with their wounds, that He has shown us that the Martyrs, whose Crown He is, are, and will be with Him there.

And now, if our Lesson from Luke here fails, let us have recourse to John, and consider how that, according to him, xx. 20, then were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord, and received the grace of faith. According to Luke, He upbraided them with their unbelief, but according to John He said also, Receive the Holy Ghost. Luke, not John, has, Tarry  in the city of Jerusalem, until you endued with power from on high. Indeed, to me it seems as though the one Evangelist had busied himself with the greater and higher matters, and the other with the narrative, and such things as are more human: the one with the course, the other with the essence, of history. For as it is impossible to doubt the word of him who testifies of these things, John xxi. 24, and who saw these things, and concerning whom we know that his testimony is true, xxi. 24, so is it sinful to think of negligence or falsehood as attaching to the other, even Luke, who earned the title of Evangelist, although he was not an Apostle, and therefore we hold that both are truthful, neither are they at variance one with the other, either in the difference of the words they use, or in the sacredness of their characters as Evangelists. For though Luke said that at the first the Apostles believed not, yet he records that afterward they believed: and although, if we regard only the first fact, the Evangelists seem divergent one from the other, yet, when we consider what comes afterward, we see that they are at one.