Third Sermon for Easter: On the Seven Species of Spiritual Leprosy on Account of Which We Have to Wash Seven Times in the Spiritual Jordan, and on the Seven Gifts of the Holy Ghost Represented

BY THE SEVEN APPARITIONS OF THE RISEN CHRIST.

“ Go, wash seven times in the Jordan, and thou shalt be made clean.” —4 Kings v. to,

It is the practice of medical doctors to begin the cure of their patients with purgatives and afterwards to make use of restoratives, so that the sick body is first relieved of its noxious humours, and then strengthened with nourishing food. The same order of treatment has been adopted in the healing of our souls by the Lord Jesus Christ, our Spiritual Physician, Whose whole earthly life is for us the medicine of salvation. For before His passion He subjected us to seven different purifications, and nourished us as often with strengthening aliments after His resurrection. Our divine Eliseus ordered the spiritual leper, Naaman, to wash seven times in the Jordan (4 Kings v. 10), a name which signifies “ descent.” For in the descent of our Lord Jesus Christ, that is to say, in the humility of the life which He led before His passion, we are cleansed and purified ; whilst the glorious life which He lived on earth for forty days after His resurrection reanimates and refreshes us as with sweet and nutritious food. Pride, my brethren, has infected us with a sevenfold leprosy, in the proprietorship of earthly goods, in the glory of vesture, in bodily gratifications, in two ways with regard to the mouth, and in two ways with regard to the heart. The first may becalled the “leprosy of the house ” (Lev. xiv. 36). From this we may be purified by bathing in the Jordan, that is, by steeping our souls in the thought of the descent of Christ. For we shall thus realise how He Who was so rich became so poor for our sakes; how He descended from the unspeakable riches of His heavenly home, and, appearing upon earth, would not have even the wealth—such as it is—of this world, but came in such utter poverty that immediately after His birth He had to be laid in a manger, “‘ because there was no room for Him in the inn ” (Luke ii. 7). In short, who does not know that “the Son of man had not where to lay His head”’ (Matt. viii. 20)? How can the riches of earth become an object of desire to him who bathes himself thoroughly in this mystery by assiduous meditation? Surely it must seem to be a great abuse, yea, a most monstrous perversity, that a vile little worm, wants to be wealthy, when, for its sake, the God of Majesty and the Lord of Hosts has willed to make Himself poor.

By the leprosy of the garments (Lev. xiii. 47) I mean all the foolish pomp and vanity of the present life. From this also thou shalt be cleansed by washing in the Jordan, that is, by pondering how Christ the Lord was wrapped in poor swaddling clothes, was made “the reproach of men and the outcast of the people” (Ps. xxi. 7). The leprosy of the flesh likewise can be cured by washing in the Jordan, for he who meditates

SEVEN SPECIES OF SPIRITUAL LEPROSY zor diligently on the passion of Christ will be ashamed to indulge in bodily pleasures. The mouth, as I have said, is infected with two kinds of leprosy, For whenever any adversity befalls us, we begin to murmur, and our words of impatience flow out like the corruption from a leprous sore. From this we shall be purified if we turn our thoughts to Him Who was “led as a sheep to the slaughter ” and “ opened not His mouth ” (Is. liii. 7), and who “ when He was reviled, did not revile, when He suffered He threatened not ” (x Peter ii. 23). In prosperity, again, in spite of what St. Paul says, “Not he who commendeth himself is approved, but he whom God commendeth ” (2 Cor. x. 18), in spite of this we do in fact commend ourselves, and not “in much patience ” (2 Cor. vi. 4) but rather with much impudence. Thus we contract another species of leprosy of the mouth, the leprosy of boastfulness. If we desire to be cleansed from this also, we must wash ourselves again in the Jordan, by imitating Him Who sought not His own glory (John viii. 50) : for when the demons were proclaiming Him to be the Son of God, He commanded them to be silent (Luke iv. 34, 35), and He also forbade the blind men whose eyes He had opened to publish the miracle abroad (Matt. ix. 30).

The heart, likewise, is the seat of a twofold leprosy, namely, self-will and obstinate attachment to one’s own judgment. Most malignant are both these species of leprosy, and so much the more dangerous for that they are interior. Now by self-will I mean a will that is not common to us with God and our fellow-men, but exclusively our own: when we will whatever we ~ will, not for the glory of God or the profit of our neighbour, but solely for our own sakes,—not with any intention of pleasing the Lord or benefitting our brethren, but simply of satisfying the desires of our own hearts. To this vice charity, which is God (x John iv. 8-16), is directly opposed. For self-will is at enmity with God and wages against Him a most relentless war. What indeed does God hate or punish but self-will ? Let there be no self-will, and there shall be no hell. For is not self-will the very fuel upon which hell-fire shall for ever feed? And even now, whenever we endure inconvenience from cold or hunger or any other such natural cause, what is made to suffer but self-will? But if we voluntarily submit to these pains, our wills are now made common. Nevertheless there yet remains a certain infirmity and, as it were, prurience of the will, which comes from what is proper to ourselves, and it is this which makes us still liable to all kinds of suffering until it has entirely disappeared. I call it an infirmity or weakness of the will, not the will itself, because the name “ will ” properly designates the power whereby we give deliberate assent or exercise acts of free choice. As for those desires and concupiscences to which we are involuntarily subjected, they are rather a corruption of the will than the will itself. Hear now, ye slaves of self-will, with what fury this same self-will attacks the Lord of Majesty ; hear, and be afraid. By making itself its own, it revolts and withdraws itself from His dominion Whom, as its Creator, it is bound in justice to serve. Perhaps it is content with doing Him so much injury? Not at all. It must needs go further and, so far as it has the power, it appropriates and plunders everything that belongs to God, For what bounds does human cupidity ever

| SEVEN SPECIES OF SPIRITUAL LEPROSY 203 fix for itself ? Take the man who by usury has acquired a modest fortune: would he not likewise endeavour to make the whole universe his own, if only it were possible, if only the power were not wanting to his good-will? I say it boldly: the whole wide world would not be enough for the man who is the slave of self-will. And would to God it were satisfied with appropriating ali such created things, and did not, horrible to say! attempt to lay violent hands upon the Creator Himself. As a matter of fact, however, self-will, so far as depends upon it, annihilates the Lord of glory. For it would certainly beglad that God lacked either the knowledge of its faults or the power or the will to punish them. It wishes consequently that He should not be God, since, if it had its way, it would have Him to be either ignorant or impotent or unjust. How cruel and abominable is that malice which could wish to see God deprived of His wisdom, or of His power, or of His justice! Oh, surely then, self-will is a cruel beast, a most treacherous wild animal, a rapacious wolf, the fiercest of lionesses. It is that most horrible leprosy of the soul, on account of which we have to wash ourselves in the Jordan by the imitation of Him Who came not to do His own will (John vi. 38), and Who said in His passion, ‘“‘ Not My will but Thine be done” (Luke xxii. 42).

But bad as this is, the leprosy of undue attachment to one’s own judgment is still worse, in proportion as it is more secret. And what adds to the danger of this latter kind is that the more it increases the healthier its victim considers himself to be. It is the form of leprosy proper to them who “have a zeal of God but not according to knowledge ” (Rom. x. 2), who follow out their error and remain obstinate in it, refusing to take counsel of anyone. Persons thus infected become the destroyers of concord, the enemies of peace, being void of charity, swollen with vanity, lovers of themselves, great in their own conceit, “‘not knowing the justice of God and seeking to establish their own” (Rom. x. 3). What greater pride can be imagined than that a single individual should prefer his own judgment to the opinion of the entire community, as if he alone possessed the Spirit of God? “It is like the sin of witch-craft to rebel, and like the crime of idolatry to refuse to obey ” (x Kings xv. 23). What say ye to this, ye that repute yourselves more religious than your neighbours, ye that will not be “as the rest of men ” (Luke xviii. 11)? For behold, you are become as magicians and idolators, if yet you allow even the Holy Spirit, Who inspired these words, to be more worthy of credit than yourselves. Nor at variance with this is the testimony of Truth, which He spoke, saying, “ If he will not hear the Church, let him be to thee as the heathen and the publican ” (Matt. xviii. 17). But where can such leprosy be purged away except in the Jordan? Plunge in there, whosoever thou art that findest thyself to be infected with this foul disease, plunge into the Jordan, I say, and consider how the ‘“ Angel of the great counsel ” acted ; how, in preference to His own counsel, He followed the counsel or rather the will of a single woman, I mean the Blessed Virgin, and of a poor tradesman, St. Joseph. Thus, on one occasion, when He was found “in the midst of the doctors, hearing them and asking them questions ” His Mother gently rebuked Him, saying, “ Son, why hast Thou done so to us? Behold thy Father and I

SEVEN SPECIES OF SPIRITUAL LEPROSY 205 have sought Thee sorrowing.” To which He answered, “ How is it that you sought Me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business? And they understood not the word that He spoke unto them.” What, therefore, did the Word do? He remained not in Himself, but “ He descended ” to such a degree that He “ was subject to them” (Luke ii. 46-51). Who now will not be ashamed to remain obstinately in his own counsel after seeing Wisdom incarnate forsaking His? And Christ seems to have so changed His counsel, in obedience to His parents, that the work which He had begun at this time, when He was in the twelfth year of His age, He postponed until His thirtieth. For from this until He attained His thirtieth year you will hear nothing concerning either His works or His teaching.

But perhaps we ought to inquire of Himself in what way He renounced His own will and His own judgment. O Lord, as to that will, concerning which Thou didst pray that it should not be done, if it was not a good will, how was it Thine? And if it was a good will, wherefore didst Thou renounce it? Similarly, with regard to the judgment or counsel, if it was not good, how could it have been Thine? And if good, why ought it to have been forsaken? The truth is that both the will and the judgment were good and both were His; they were abandoned, nevertheless, but only to give place to what was better. For it was not becoming that what was private and individual should prejudice what was common. It was therefore the will of Christ, and a good will, which found expression in the words, ‘My Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from Me” (Matt. xxvi. 39). But better was that other will whereof He said, “ Thy will be done ” (Luke xxii. 42). I say it was better, because it was common, belonging not alone to the Father, but also to Christ—‘‘ He was offered because it was His own will ” (Is. liii. 7)—and even tous. For “ unless the grain of wheat falling into the ground die, itself remaineth alone. But if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit ” (John xii. 24-25). Now this was the will of the Father, that He should have whom He might adopt as sons; it was the will of Christ, ‘‘that He might be the first-born amongst many brethren ” (Rom. viii. 29); and the same was our will, because it was much to our advantage that we should be redeemed. With regard to judgment the same remarks apply. It was undoubtedly a judgment of Christ, and a good judgment, that which He expressed in the words, “ I must be about My Father’s business.” But because His parents did not understand, He changed His counsel, in order to cleanse us from the leprosy of undue attachment to our own judgment. He gave us an example, that as He has done so we should do also (John xiii. 15). He knew indeed from the beginning what He was going to do; but He desired to give us this pattern of humility, and to prepare in His own Self a divine Jordan wherein we could wash ourselves clean from this worst kind of leprosy. Therefore, let both these classes of lepers, the self-willed and the self-opinioned, attend and “hear what the Spirit saith to the Churches ” (Apoc. ii. 7). In one short verse He condemns both the leprosy of the will and that of the judgment, declaring by the Apostle, “ The wisdom that is from above, first indeed is chaste ”—to exclude the impurity of self-will— “then peaceable” (James iii. 17)—to exclude the obstinate resistence of self-judgment.

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Now, when the sick man has been purified from these seven leprosies, as by seven immersions in the Jordan, let him seek for seven dishes of strengthening food, by which I mean the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost (Is. xi. 2, 3). And just as we discover seven purifications in the life of our Lord before His passion, in the same way we can find the seven gifts of the Spirit in the seven apparitions recorded to have taken place after His resurrection. Thus the spirit of the fear of the Lord is represented to us in the first apparition, when, on the arrival of the holy women at the sepulchre, “an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and behold there was a great earthquake,” so that, being overwhelmed with fear, they (the women) required to be consoled by the angel (Matt. xxviii. I-5). The apparition to Simon was in the spirit of piety (Luke xxiv. 34), because it was indeed a great condescension of piety and truly worthy of the Lord Jesus, that He vouchsafed to show Himself particularly and sooner than to the rest to that Apostle who was confounded beyond the rest with the guilt of his conscience, by reason of his triple denial; so that, “where sin abounded, grace might more abound” (Rom. v. 20). It was in the spirit of knowledge that “He expounded the Scriptures”’ to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, “ beginning at Moses and all the prophets ” (Luke xxiv. 27). In the spirit of fortitude He entered the chamber where the disciples were assembled, the doors being shut, and “‘ shewed them His Hands and His Side” (John xx. 19, 20), just as veteran soldiers are wont to point out the dents on their shields in proof of their valour. In the spirit of counsel He told the Apostles, who had been fishing all night and caught nothing, to “ cast the net on the right side of the ship ” (John xxi. 6). With regard to others of His disciples, “ He opened their understanding that they might understand the Scriptures ”’ (Luke xxiv. 45), and that in the spirit of understanding. Finally, He manifested Himself to His followers in the spirit of wisdom on that fortieth day, when, “ whilst they looked on, He was raised up ” (Acts i. 9), and they saw ‘‘ the Son of Man ascend up where He was before ”’ (John vi. 63). For until that day He had sought “ by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believed ’’ (x Cor. i. 21); but now His wisdom began to be revealed to them, after He had ascended in their sight to the Father.