Sermon for the Rogations: On the Three Mystical Loaves

“ Which of you shall have a friend and shall go to him at midnight and shall say to him: Friend, lend me three loaves.

“ Because a friend of mine is come off his journey to me, and I have not what to set before him.

“And he from within should answer and say: Trouble me not, the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed: I cannot vise and give thee.

“ Yet if he shall continue knocking, I say to you, although he will not rise and give him because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him as many as he needeth.

“ And I say to you: Ask and it shall be given to you ; seek and you shall find ; knock and it shall be opened to you.

“ For every one that asketh, veceiveth ; and he that seeketh, findeth ; and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened.’ —Luke xi. 5-10.

“Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go to him at midnight, and shall say to him: Friend, lend me three loaves.’’ How is it, my brethren, that he who announces the arrival of one friend is not content with demanding a single loaf of bread? Shall we suppose he considers his friend so voracious that one loaf would not be enough to satisfy his hunger ? But it seems absurd to place three loaves of bread before a single guest. Take it, then, that the traveller has come with his wife and his servant, and that the friend wants one loaf for each. And further, it is my opinion that this friend who comes to me is none other than myself. For there can be no one nearer and dearer to me than my own self. My friend, therefore, comes “ off his journey to me,” when renouncing the things of this world, I “ return to my heart,” according to what is written, “ Return, ye transgressors, to the 224

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ON THE THREE MYSTICAL LOAVES 225 heart ’’ (Is. xlvi. 8). It is then a man begins to be in truth his own friend, when he comes home to himself _ from his wanderings abroad, because, as the Psalmist says, “ He that loveth iniquity, hateth his own soul ” (Ps. x. 6). Accordingly, it is on the day of my conversion that the friend has come “ off his journey to me.” He has come from “a far country ” where he used to “feed swine ° and to long with insatiable appetite for “the husks the swine did eat’ (Luke xv. 15, 16). He has come oppressed with hunger, weakened by privation, worn out from fasting. He has come because it is necessary for him to find a friend: but alas! he has elected to put up with so poor a host as I, and so has entered a house that is empty of bread. Now, what ought 1 to do for this friend, so wretched and miserable, because in truth “ I have not what to set before him ” ? He is my friend, I acknowledge, but I am only a poor mendicant. Friend, wherefore art thou come to me, in thy so great necessity ? I am a poor beggar and there is no bread in my house. To this he makes answer: “ Run, then, with all haste and arouse that noble Friend of thine ‘ greater charity than Whose no man hath’ (John xv. 13) or greater riches. ‘ Ask, seek, knock: for every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh, findeth ; and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened’ (Matt. vii. 7, 8). Cry aloud to Him and say, ‘ Friend lend me three loaves.’ ”’

Now, my brethren, what are these three loaves ? Would to God we were accounted worthy to receive them! For perhaps of them also it can be said that “ no man knoweth them but he that receiveth ” (Apoc. ii. 17). It appears to me, nevertheless, that the three loaves we ought to ask for are those of truth, charity,

Il, 16 and strength. Of these loaves I confess that I am in want, when my friend, accompanied, as I have remarked, by his wife and servant, comes “ off his journey to me.” For my understanding—which I may call the husband—fails me through ignorance of truth; and my will—that is, the wife—languishes from want of love ; and my body—which is the servant—faints because it has no strength. My understanding knows not sufficiently what ought to be done, my will loves not the good revealed to it through the understanding ; whilst “the corruptible body is a weight upon the soul” (Wisdom ix. 15), so that we cannot always do the good which we will (Rom. vii. 19). “‘ My heart is withered —and my body too—because I forgot to eat my bread ” (Ps. ci. 5). Yes, this is doubtless the reason: because I should not be now in so miserable a state, had my understanding been constantly exercised in the investigation of truth, my will in the aspirations of charity, and my body in the practice of good works. Lend me, therefore, O my Friend, lend me three loaves, that I may know, that I may love, and that I may do Thy will. For my true “life is such, and the life of my spirit in such things as these ” (Is. xxxviii. 16). Hence the Psalmist says, ‘‘ Sing to the Lord, all ye His saints, and give praise to the memory of His holiness: for wrath is in His indignation, and life in His good will ” (Ps. xxix. 5, 6).