Today the blessed Evangelist as he tells us of the restoration
to life through Christ of the only son of a widow who, lying clothed in
funeral bands upon the bier of death, and with a multitude following, was
on his way to the grave, touches our hearts, moves our souls, and fills
our ears with fear and wonder. But let the unbelieving wonder, the Jews
be astonished, and let the world fear. But as for us, why should we wonder:
we who believe that the dead of every age shall at the voice of Christ
rise again from their graves?
The dead, says Isaias, shall rise, and they that are in the
tombs shall rise again (xxvi. 19; Sept.). And the words of the Lord
are: The hour will come when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son
of God; and they that hear shall live (Jn. v. 25). To this the Apostle
adds: In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet;
for the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall rise again incorruptible
(I Cor. xv. 52).
What is this trumpet, which declares war against hell, rolls back the
stone from the tomb, thunders forth life to the dead, and gives to all
as they rise from their graves victory amid light everlasting? What is
it? It is that to which the Lord referred above: The dead shall hear
the voice of the Son of God. Not this the trumpet that from a horn
of wood or brass gives forth a mournful bellow, calling to war, but the
Voice that comes from the heart of the Father, from the mouth of the Son,
the call to life to those that are in heaven and in hell.
And, at the last trumpet. The trumpet that in the beginning called
the world from nothing, the same on the last day shall recall the world
from death; and that which in the beginning raised man from the slime,
the same at the end shall recall him from the dust. Brethren, we believe
this: that the trumpet of the divine voice separated light from darkness,
brought together this globe, purified the elements, divided the world,
raised the firmament on high, made the earth appear, placed a boundary
to the sea, submerged the deeps, set all things in order and harmony, and
commanded their continuing obedience. And that this world might not be
a horrid emptyness, He furnished it with inhabitants and established each
in their various places. In the heavens He placed His Angels, who live
by the spirit only; on earth the varying kinds of living beings. He set
winged creatures to fly in the air, and in the waters creatures both great
and small, so that a multitude might dwell there. And in a wondrous way
He so united the whole mass of these separate elements that there should
be no confusion; yet so that the separateness of each thing might not sunder
this unity.
Hence is it that the sequence of day and night is so ordered that labour
follows rest and rest comes after labour. Hence also the sun and moon each
in turn encompasses the limits of the world, so that the sun with its recurring
light may give a greater brightness to the day and the moon with its pale
light may not leave the night in total darkness. Hence too the stars in
their courses vary in their hour of rising, to mark the time by night and
guide the traveller. Hence the seasons that come and go, and begin again
to be as they are about to end. Hence seeds put forth, bud, mature, grow
old, fade, die and are buried again in the life-giving furrow, and dissolving
through corruption, from their salutary death return to life again; from
corruption perpetually recurring, their natures are again renewed.
And if brethren, the Voice of God, the trumpet of Christ, through the
days, the months, the seasons, the years, calls and recalls, leads forth
and leads back, bids to be and bids not to be, gives to death and restores
to life, why shall He not do once in us that which He does without ceasing
in all other things? Or does the divine power fail only with us: with us
for whom alone the Divine Majesty of God has done all that we have said?
Man, if for thee all that God has made, returns from death to life,
why should you not live again from death through God? Or does God’s Creation
fail in thee alone: for whom every creature daily lives, moves, is changed,
renewed? Brethren, this I say, not with any desire to make nothing of the
power of the wonders of Christ, but that I may exhort you, that by the
example of this one rising from the dead, we may be roused to faith in
the resurrection of all men, and may believe that the Cross is the plough
of our body, faith its seed, the grave its furrow, dissolution its bud,
time its period of waiting; so that when the spring of the Lord’s Coming
shall smile on us, the full green of our bodies shall rise again in a life—giving
harvest, that will know no end, no old age, that shall not be bound into
bundles, nor suffer the winnowing flail. For leaving our former straw in
death, the new fruit of our glorified body shall rise again in the harvest
of eternal life.
If at the earthly tears of one widow Christ was so moved that He came
to meet her on the way, to dry the tears of grief falling from her eyes,
to strike again at death, to bring back a man, to raise a body, to bring
back life, to change weeping into joy and change a sorrowful burial into
a festival of birth, to give back living to his mother one already lying
upon the bier of death, what will He not do, now glowing in His strength,
in answer to the unceasing prayer of His Church, to the sweat of blood
of His Spouse? For the Church pours forth her tears in unceasing supplication,
and through her martyrs a sweat of blood, that Christ meeting her shall
restore her only son, the Christian people, whom so many generations bear
to death, from the bier of mortality to the everlasting joy of the Heavenly
Mother.
But as the time of Christ’s Birth has come, and the Heavenly Wonder
a Virgin was to bring forth now shines forth, and now that, not a star,
but the Risen Sun Itself announces the birth of the Divine King, let us
hasten all to adore Him, and let us with sacred gifts confess that our
God and King has come forth from the Virginal temple. Let us offer gifts;
we must offer a public gift to the New Born King; let us offer gifts: for
he who does not give, adores in vain. The Magi teach us this, who laden
with gold, kindled with incense, sanctified with myrrh, bow down before
the cradle of Christ. But what if that which the Magi did, a Christian
will not do? What if amid the joy of Christ Newborn, the poor weep, the
captive groans, the stranger weeps and the exile laments? The Jewish people
ever honoured the sacred festivals with a tenth of what they possessed.
What must a Christian think of himself who honours them with not even a
hundredth?
Brethren, let no one think I am saying this for the sake of rhetoric,
and not with a mind that grieves. I do grieve. I grieve indeed when I read
that the Magi filled the cradle of Christ with gold, and see Christians
leave the altar of Christ’s Body bare; and this at a time when the hunger
of the poor, the sorrowing multitudes of captives spread far and wide.
Let no man say, ‘I have nothing’; since God asks of you, not what you
have not, but what you have. For the two brass mites of the widow were
received as acceptable to God. Let us be generous to the Creator, that
His creation may be generous to us. Let us help our neighbour in his need,
that we may be delivered in our necessities. Let us heap high the altar
of God, that He may fill our barns with a plentiful harvest. And if we
do not give, let us not complain if we do not receive. May our God Himself
give you in abundance His present and His future blessings, through Jesus
Christ our Lord, to Whom be all honour and everlasting glory, together
the Holy Spirit, now and forever, and throughout all ages and ages.
Amen.
