Sermon VI. On the Kiss of the Lord's Feet

"Let Him kiss me with the kiss of His Mouth."

In order to connect the present with my last discourse, I wish you, my brethren, to recall what I said yesterday, namely, that only the supreme and all-pervading Spirit is independent of bodily service and agency in all that He wills to do or to be done. Let us, then, confidently vindicate for God alone a perfect immateriality, just as in Him alone we recognise a perfect immortality.¹ Let us be convinced that He alone amongst all spirits transcends corporeal nature to such an extent, that for no operation whatsoever is He in any sense dependent on material instruments. His mere spiritual fiat is adequate to the accomplishment of all He wills to effect and when He wills. Therefore, that Divine Majesty alone stands in need of no co-operation of bodily members either for His own sake or for the sake of His creatures. To His almighty Will accomplishment always answers promptly and immediately, everything exalted bends, everything contrary yields, everything created renders obedience, without His requiring thereto the assistance of any intermediate agency, spiritual or corporeal. Without a tongue He teaches and admonishes, without hands He gives and holds, without feet He runs to the help of those who are perishing. So He acted even with the generations of the olden time. Men were constantly enjoying His benefits, but of their Benefactor Himself, they had no knowledge. Even then was He "reaching from end to end mightily"; yet they did not observe Him, because He was at the same time "disposing all things sweetly." And so they rejoiced in the gifts of God, whilst the Lord of the Sabbath, as judging all with tranquillity, remained entirely unknown and unnoticed. From Him they were, but they wrere not with Him. By Him they lived, but they lived not to Him. From Him they had understanding, but not of Him, apostates, ingrates, fools that they were! Hence it came to pass that they attributed their being, their life, and their intelligence, not to the Creator, but some to nature, others more stupidly, to chance. Many also ascribed to their own industry and virtue what were but multiplied gifts from above. The evil spirits, too, by their own craft, were credited with the authorship of innumerable divine benefactions, as well as the sun and moon, the earth and the water, and even the works of human hands! Plants, trees, the most minute and contemptible seeds Were Worshipped as gods!

Alas, my brethren, it was thus that men lost and "changed their glory into the likeness of a calf that eateth grass '*! But God, compassionating their ignorance, deigned to issue forth from His hill of clouds and shadows and "hath set His tabernacle in the sun." He presented Himself in flesh to those who relished only things of the flesh, in order thereby to lead them to relish the things of the spirit. For whilst in the flesh He did not the works of the flesh, but the works of God, commanding nature, over-ruling her laws, stultifjdng the wisdom of men, and beating down the tyranny of demons; and in this way He clearly showed that it was by His power such miracles had ever been performed, even in the times previous to His coming. Thus, I say, by publicly and powerfully working wonders, in the flesh and by the flesh, by announcing the truths of salvation, and by enduring the indignities of His Passion, He made it plainly manifest that it was He Who powerfully, if invisibly, created the world, Who wisely governs it and lovingly protects it. And when He preached the Gospel to the ungrateful, and offered signs to unbelievers, and prayed for His executioners, did He not thus evidently indicate that He is the same Who, with the Father, makes His sun to rise daily "on the good and the wicked and rains upon the just and the unjust "? This is what He said Himself: "If I do not the works of My Father, believe Me not."

Behold, my brethren, He Who without words teaches the angels in heaven, now opens His Mouth of flesh to teach the disciples on the mount! Behold, at the touch of His corporeal Hand, lepers are cleansed, sight is given to the blind, hearing to the deaf, speech to the dumb, and the sinking Apostle is raised to security; and thus He stands revealed as the Benefactor to Whom the Prophet David had said long before, "Thou openest Thy Hand and fillest with blessing every living creature" and, "When Thou openest Thy Hand they shall all be filled with good." Behold, the Magdalen, now penitent and prostrate at His Feet of flesh, hears the sentence of pardon, "Thy sins are forgiven thee." And by this she recognises Him of Whom she had read what was Written centuries earlier, "The devil shall go out before His Feet." For where her sins were pardoned, there doubtless the devil was expelled from her heart. Hence, the Saviour said, speaking generally of all penitents, "Now is the judgment of the world, now the prince of this world shall be cast out." That is to say, God will forgive sins when humbly confessed, and so Satan shall lose the dominion which he had usurped over the sinner's heart.

Again, He walks on the waves with His bodily Feet, as the Prophet sang of Him before He had as yet revealed Himself in the flesh, "Thy way is in the sea and Thy paths in many waters." As if he should say, "Thou shalt trample down the swelling ambitions of the proud, and bridle the fluctuating passions of the flesh," which, indeed, He does by justifying the wicked and humbling the high-minded. Yet, because this is done invisibly, the carnal man cannot perceive by

Whom it is accomplished. Hence the Psalmist adds, "and Thy footsteps shall not be known." Hence, also, the Father said to the Son, "Sit Thou at My right hand until I make Thy enemies Thy footstool," that is, "until I make all who despise Thee submit to Thy will, either unwillingly and to their destruction, or voluntarily and to their bliss." But this work of the Spirit was not perceptible to flesh, for "the sensual man perceiveth not these things that are of the Spirit of God." Therefore it was necessary that the contrite Magdalen should prostrate herself bodily at His bodily Feet, and, kissing these same Feet with her bodily lips, so obtain the pardon of her sins. And thus can "this change of the Right Hand of the Most High," whereby He marvellously, though invisibly, justifies the impious, be made manifest even to carnal minds.

I must not, however, pass over those spiritual Feet of the Lord, which it is necessary that the penitent should, in the first place, kiss spiritually. For well I know, my brethren, how piously curious you are with regard to such matters, and how you would like to let nothing go unscrutinised. Nor does it seem to me that We should gain nothing by knowing what are those Feet, wherewith Holy Scripture represents God at one time as standing, as in the verse, "We shall adore in the place where His Feet have stood"; at another as walking: "I will dwell with them and will walk amongst them"; and at still another as running: "He exulted as a giant to run His course." If, then, the Apostle considered it right to refer the Head² of Christ to His Divinity, it ought not to appear unreasonable in me if I understand His Feet as signifying His

Humanity. These Feet I consider to be mercy and justice. The two words are familiar enough to you. They occur together, if you remember, in numerous passages of Scripture. Now, that the Lord assumed the Foot of mercy together With the Flesh to which He is united, is evident from the Epistle to the Hebrews. Therein we read that Christ "was tempted in all things like as we are, without sin," "that He might become merciful." As regards the second Foot, which I take to mean justice, does not the Incarnate Word Himself plainly imply that it also was assumed with and belongs to the Humanity, where He declares that the Father has given Him "power to do judgment because He is the Son of Man"?

Moving evenly, therefore, on these two spiritual Feet, under the guidance of the Divinity as Head, the invisible Emmanuel, "born of a woman, made under the law," revealed Himself on earth and conversed amongst men. With these same Feet He is still, though spiritually now and invisibly, "going about doing good and healing all that are oppressed by the devil." With these, I say, He walks through living souls, constantly illuminating them, and searching the "hearts and reins" of the faithful. But, see, lest perchance these should be the Legs of the Bridegroom, which, in a following verse, the Bride praises so magnificently, comparing them, if I remember aright, to "pillars of marble, set upon bases of gold." This description is extremely beautiful, because "mercy and truth," that is to say, justice, signified by the Legs, "have met" in the Incarnate Wisdom of God, and gold is the symbol of wisdom. Furthermore, "All the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth."

Happy the man, my brethren, in whose soul the Lord Jesus sets both these Feet of His! By two signs you may recognise him, for one so privileged must of necessity bear upon him the impress of the divine footsteps. These footprints are hope and fear; the latter impressed by justice, the former by mercy. Truly "the Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear Him, and in them that hope in His mercy," because "fear is the beginning of wisdom," as hope is its development. As for the consummation of wisdom, We must pronounce that to be charity. Such being the case, you will understand that there is no small advantage in this first kiss, which is given to the Feet. Only you have to make sure of kissing both, omitting neither. When you feel a sincere sorrow for your sins, and a fear of the divine judgment, you have pressed your lips to the Foot of truth and justice. And if you moderate your terror and grief by the consideration of the divine goodness and by the hope of obtaining pardon, be assured that you have also kissed the Foot of mercy. But to kiss one without the other is not expedient. The thought of justice a] one will cast you into the gulf of despair, whilst a deceptive reliance on mercy will engender a most dangerous sense of security.

Even to me, miserable as I am, it has sometimes been given to sit at the Feet of the Lord Jesus, and to embrace, with all devotion, now one, now the other, in so far as His gracious mercy deigned to permit. But whenever, under the sting of my conscience, I lost sight of the divine mercy, and clung a little too long to the Foot of justice, immediately I became oppressed with an indescribable terror and a miserable confusion, and, enveloped in a most horrible darkness, I could only cry tremblingly "from out of the depths," ' Who knoweth the power of Thy anger, and for Thy fear can number Thy wrath? "Yet if, leaving the Foot of justice, I should chance to lay hold on that of mercy, such carelessness and negligence took instant possession of me, that I straightway grew more tepid at prayer, more slothful at work, more ready for laughter, more imprudent in speech — in short, my whole being, body and soul, showed evidence of greater inconstancy. Therefore, taught by experience, no longer judgment alone or mercy alone, but both "mercy and judgment I will sing to Thee, O Lord." "Thy justifications I will never forget." Both these, Thy mercy and Thy justice, shall be "the subjects of my song in the place of my pilgrimage," until, mercy having been exalted over justice, misery "shall shut her month," so that thenceforward only "my glory may sing to Thee and I shall not regret."

Footnotes

1. The Saint evidently means that God alone possesses both intrinsic and extrinsic immortality. The former, common to all spiritual substances, is simply immunity from death by corruption of essence. The latter means indestructibility by external force, and is incommunicable to creatures, being but another name for self-existence. St. Thomas (Summ. Theol., p. I. q. LI.) comments on this passage, and shows that it does not necessarily exclude the view of the immateriality of the angels. — (Translator.) 4i ↩

2. The allusion is to 1 Cor. xi. 3: "But I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God." The Saint's interpretation is merely an accommodation. — (Translator.) ↩