First Sermon for the Sixth Sunday After Pentecost: On the Three Days and the Seven Loaves

“ I have compassion on the multitude, for behold they have now been with Me three days and have nothing to eat.’— Mark viii. 2.

“T have compassion on the multitude, for behold they have now been with Me three days and have nothing to eat.” The Gospel, dearest brethren, has been written in order that it may be read; and we read it for no other object than that we may find in it motives for reasonable sorrow or reasonable joy. The men of this world feel a vain consolation in the abundance of material possessions and a grief just as vain in the want of them. But the Gospel is the mirror of truth: it flatters no man and deceives none. Each one of us sees himself reflected there just as he is; he will not be made to “ tremble for fear where there is no fear” (Ps. xiii. 5), nor will he be encouraged to be “glad when he has done evil” (Prov. ii. 14). But “what saith the Scripture ? ” (Rom. iv. 3). “If aman be a hearer of the word and not a doer, he shall be © compared to a man beholding his own countenance in © a glass. For he beheld himself, and went his way, and presently forgot what manner of man he was” (James i. 23, 24). Do not, O my brethren, do not, I beseech, you, permit this to be applied to yourselves. Rather let us examine ourselves closely by means of the passage we have just heard from the Holy Scrip-

THREE DAYS AND SEVEN LOAVES 325 ture, so that we may profit by the same, and correct whatever it shall reveal to us as requiring correction in our character or conduct. This is what the Prophet prayed for, saying to the Lord, “Oh, that my ways may be directed to keep Thy justifications!” And he immediately added, “Then shall I not be confounded when I shall look into all Thy commandments ” (Ps. cxviii. 5, 6). As for myself, dearest brethren, I have no cause to be confounded on your account, but every reason to glory, because you have followed the Saviour into the desert (Matt. iv. 1), you have fearlessly ‘‘ gone forth to Him without the camp ” (Heb. xiii. 13). Nevertheless I feel somewhat apprehensive lest anyone of you should haply yield to discouragement during the three days of waiting and go back to the Egypt of this wicked world either in heart and desire, or even in body. Not without reason, therefore, does the Scripture call out to us, saying, “ Expect the Lord, do manfully, and let thy heart take courage, and wait thou for the Lord”’ (Ps. xxvi. 14). “But how long,” thou mayest ask, “am Ito wait?’ Doubtless, “ until He have mercy on thee ” (Ps. cxxii. 2). And if thou desirest to know when that will be, listen to what He says Himself, “I have compassion on the multitude, for behold they have now been with Me three days ” (Mark viii. 2). It is necessary, therefore, that thou shouldst advance three days’ journey into the desert if thou wouldst offer to thy God a pleasing sacrifice (Exod. iii. 27); and if _ thou desirest to be filled with the miraculous loaves, thou. must remain three days with thy Saviour. The first of these days is the day of fear, the day which clarifies and enlightens thy darkness, that is, the interior darkness of thy conscience, and at the same time reveals to thy gaze the fearful chastisements of hell, the place of “ the exterior darkness ” (Matt. xxii. 13, xxv. 30). For, as we all know, it is the thought of hell that is wont to influence us in the first stages of our conversion to God. The second day is the day of mercy, wherein we find consolation in the memory of the divine compassions. And the third day I call the day of reason, because in it truth manifests itself to the mind in such a way that without any contradiction and as by natural right the rational creature subjects himself to the Creator, the servant becomes obedient to the voice of his Redeemer.* When we shall have arrived at this point we shall be made to sit down (John vi. I) in order that charity may be “set in order in us” (Cant. ii. 4). Then the Lord will “ open His hand and fill with blessing every living creature”’ (Ps. cxliv. 16). But inasmuch as Christ told His apostles to “ make the men sit down ” (John vi. ro), and since I—although worldly enjoyment, the nuptial couch of holy and divine love.” —(Translator.)

THREE DAYS AND SEVEN LOAVES 327 to my great confusion—occupy, at least in some sense, the position of the apostles in your regard; therefore, dearest brethren, I invite you to seat yourselves, so that, being refreshed with the bread of benediction, you may not “ faint in the way ” (Mark viii. 3). Otherwise compelled by a most miserable necessity, you may have to go down into Egypt (Gen. xlii. 2), and there to endure the mockery of those who did not, like you, follow the Saviour to the desert. They themselves are indeed miserable enough, in that they refused to accompany you in “the exit from Egypt (Ps. cxiii. 1); but obviously the most miserable of all men are those who, after participating in the weariness of the journey through the wilderness, have in the end no part in the refection.

Now, my brethren, if whilst the rest sat down as commanded, there were some who concealed themselves behind bushes or other sheltering objects, is it not manifest to all that these must remain hungry and empty? And the same is true of such as wander idly about, through levity or curiosity, instead of sitting down with the others; and also of such as sit down indeed, yet not in order nor with the rest. Therefore I exhort your charity and admonish you ail and each with fatherly solicitude not to manifest any predilection for holes and corners, not to love the darkness nor to be looking about for hiding-places, for “every one that doth evil hateth the light, and cometh not to the light that his works may not be reproved”’ (John iii. 20). Neither let me find amongst you any of those who are “carried about with every wind of doctrine ” (Ephes. iv. 14), who are unstable and restive, having nothing solid in them, nor anything serious, “ but like the dust which the wind driveth from the face of the earth ” (Ps. i. 4). But what shall I say of those others whose “ hand is against all men and all men’s hands against them ” (Gen. xvi. 12)? They are the men who dissociate themselves from their brethren, “ sensual men, having not the Spirit” (Jude 19). For “no man, speaking by the Spirit of God, saith anathema to Jesus ’’* (1 Cor. xii. 3). Beyond question, this vice of singularity is one of the worst and most ruinous of pests, since by it the obstinacy of a single individual disturbs the peace of the entire community, becomes the cause of dissension to all and a fruitful source of scandal. Hear what the Prophet says, speaking of the vineyards of the Lord, “The singular wild beast,” he wails, “hath devoured it” (Ps. Ixxix. 14). Therefore, dearest brethren, I most earnestly beg and implore of you to shun all dissimulation and all the angularities of self-will. Shun also disquietude and the spirit of levity; shun obstinacy; and shun the most hateful vice of singularity, unless—which God forbid!—you desire to see your souls defrauded of the nourishment of the bread of benediction.

And now, dearest brethren, not to detain you any longer, the following are the seven spiritual loaves wherewith your souls ought to be nourished. The first loaf is the word of God, in which, as the Lord Himself bears witness, the life of man consists (Matt. iv. 4). The second loaf is obedience. Hence Christ said to His

THREE DAYS AND SEVEN LOAVES 329 disciples, “ My meat is to do the will of Him That sent Me” (John iv. 34). The third is holy meditation, whereof it is written, “ Holy meditation will preserve thee,’’* and in another place it seems to becalled ‘‘ the bread of life and understanding ” (Ecclus. xv. 3). Then we have the “ bread of tears”’ (Ps. lxxix. 6), and the bread of penitential toil. You will not be surprised, my brethren, that I speak of toil and tears as bread, unless perchance you have forgotten the words of the Psalmist, “ How long wilt Thou feed us with the bread of tears ? ” and what he says in another place, ‘‘ Thou shalt eat the labour of thy hands: blessed (therefore) art thou, and it shall be well with thee ” (Ps. cxxvii. 2). The sixth of our loaves is the sweetness of brotherly concord, a loaf that is made from a multitude of different grains and leavened by the grace of God. The seventh and last is the Holy Eucharist, according to the words of Christ, “The bread that I will give is My Flesh for the life of the world”’ (John vi. 52).