Sermon XXX. On the Mystical Vineyards, and Concerning the Prudence of the Flesh

"They have made me keeper in the vineyards; my vineyard I have not kept."

"They have made me keeper in the vineyards." Who? Is it they of whom thou hast just been saying that they fought against thee? Attend, my brethren, and see if she does not now confess that the authors of her suffering have been also the cause of her advancement. Nor should this surprise us, whenever it happens that the motive of their fighting against her is the desire of her amendment. For who doer not know that many are often fought against from motives of love and to their own advantage? How many do we daily see going forward to better things, elevated to higher things, on account of the charitable onslaughts of their superiors! This being evident enough, let me now show, if I can, how even when the sons of her mother have fought against the Church, and that, not with a view to her advantage, but from a spirit of enmity, yet their opposition, far from being hurtful, on the contrary has been profitable to her. For we experience a peculiar pleasure, whenever they, who intend our hurt, subserve our interests against their will. The interpretation just given embraces both these senses, because there have not been wanting to the Church either ill-disposed or well-disposed opponents, fighting against her from opposite motives. But she has derived benefit from all. She boasts of having profited so much from the sufferings caused her by her antagonists, that instead of the one vineyard which they seemed to have taken from her, she now has the joy of being set over many. "Those who fought against me and my vineyard," she seems to say, "and who cried ' Raze it, raze it, even to the foundation thereof/ have done me the service of enabling me to exchange one vineyard for many." This is the meaning of the words added, "My vineyard I have not kept." As if she wanted to explain how it happened that she is now appointed keeper, not of one, but of many vineyards. Such, I take it, is the literal sense of the text.

But if we take these words of the Spouse in their obvious signification, content with the meaning which appears to lie upon the surface, we shall imagine ourselves reading in the Holy Scriptures of those material and earthly vineyards, which, as we see, daily receive of the dew of heaven and of the fatness of the earth wherewith to produce the wine that ministers to luxury. And thus we shall seem to have extracted from the inspired utterance, so holy and so divine, nothing, I do not say worthy of the immaculate Bride of Christ, but even befitting any ordinary bride of any ordinary bridegroom. For what is there in common between spouses and the keepers of vineyards? And even granting that there are some points of agreement, how shall we show that the Church has ever been appointed to the guardianship of vineyards? "Doth God take care for" vineyards? But if we adopt a spiritual interpretation, and understand the vineyards to mean the different churches, that is, the different faithful peoples, according to the words of Isaias, "The vineyard of the Lord of Hosts is the house of Israel," then perhaps we shall begin to see clearly how it is no dishonour to the Spouse to be appointed "keeper in the vineyards."

This even appears to me to contain no unimportant prerogative. And you, my brethren, will be of the same opinion if you take the trouble to consider carefully how the Church extended her territory into such spacious vineyards throughout the whole world, from that day on which the sons of her mother fought against her at Jerusalem, and thrust her out, together with her new plantation. I speak of the "multitude of believers," who, as we read, "had but one heart and one soul." And that primitive plantation is the vineyard which the Spouse acknowledges she has not kept; but "it shall not be reputed as folly unto her." For it was not so rooted out of Jerusalem as not to be planted elsewhere, and "let to other husbandmen that should render the fruit in due season." Manifestly, then, it perished not, but peregrinated. It even increased and extended, as having a blessing from the Lord. Then, lift up your eyes, and see whether or not "the shadow of it covered the hills, and the branches thereof the cedars of God"; whether or not "it stretched forth its branches unto the sea, and its boughs unto the river." And no wonder. For it is "God's husbandry, God's building." It is He Who fertilises it, propagates it, prunes and purges it, "that it may bring forth more fruit." When shall that, which His Right Hand has planted, be deprived of care and cultivation? Certainly, the vineyard where the Lord is the Vine, His apostles the branches, and His Father the Husbandman, shall never be allowed to suffer from neglect. Planted in faith, rooted in charity, purged with the hoe of discipline, fertilised with the tears of penitence, watered with the word of preaching, it shall thus abound with the wine, not of luxury, but of gladness, the wine which produces all manner of spiritual pleasure, without any uprisings of carnal passion. This assuredly is the wine which "rejoiceth the heart of man," of which, no doubt, even the angels drink with delight. For such is their thirst for the salvation of men that the conversion and the penance of sinners are to them a new source of joy. The wine they love best are the tears of contrition, because in these tears they discover the very odour of life, the relish of grace, the flavour of forgiveness, the joy of reconciliation, the health of reviving innocence, and the sweetness and peace of a tranquillised conscience.

Therefore, from that one vineyard, which appeared to have been destroyed by the tempest of savage persecution, how many others have been propagated and have flourished throughout the world! And in all these the Spouse has been made the keeper, so that she may not grieve for not having kept her first. Be comforted, O daughter of Sion! If "blindness in part hath happened in Israel" what dost thou lose thereby? Admire the mystery; but do not be discouraged at the loss. Widen thy bosom, and gather in the "fulness of the gentiles." Say to the cities of Juda, "To you it be-hoved us first to preach the word of God; but because you reject it and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold we turn to the gentiles." God indeed proposed to Moses that if he would consent to dismiss the prevaricating people and to leave them exposed to the divine vengeance, he would himself become the father of a great nation. But the holy Lawgiver refused. Why? On account of the exceeding love which held him strongly bound to that people, and because he sought not the things that were his own, but the honour of God, and the profit of many. So great was the charity of this man of God.

It seems to me, however, that, by a secret dispensation, this destiny, on account of its greatness, was providentially reserved to the Spouse, so that she, and not Moses, might grow into a mighty people. For it would not be right for the friend of the Bridegroom to snatch away the blessing that belonged to the Bride. Therefore, not to Moses, but to the newly-wed Bride, was it said, "Go ye into the whole world and preach the Gospel to every creature." She, I say, was certainly sent to grow into a great nation. Could she, indeed, have been destined to expand into a greater than the whole? And as she came bearing peace and offering grace, the whole world readily yielded to her sway. But not as grace, so also the law. With how great a difference of aspect the sweetness of the former and the austerity of the latter present themselves to the conscience of each! Surely no one can regard with the same sentiments that which condemns and that which consoles, that which holds to account and that which pardons, that which punishes with severity and that which embraces with love. We have not an equal welcome for the shadow and for the light, for wrath and for peace, for judgment and for mercy, for the figure and for the substance, for the rod and for the inheritance, for the curb and for the kiss. Heavy are the hands of Moses, as Aaron and Hur can bear witness."¹ Heavy, too, is the yoke of the law, according to the testimony of the apostles, who declared that neither themselves nor their fathers could bear it. A heavy burden and a light reward, since it is the earth that is promised! Therefore Moses was not destined to grow into a great people. But thou, O mother Church," having the promise of the life which now is and of that which is to come,"dost easily win acceptance from all, by reason of thy twofold offer of a sweet yoke here and a supernal kingdom hereafter. Driven forth from Jerusalem, thou art received by the world, because thy promises are more attractive than thy laws are repelling. Why dost thou still lament the loss of a single vineyard, for which thou hast been so superabundantly compensated?" Because thou wast forsaken, and hated, and there was none that passed through thee,"saith the Lord, by His Prophet Isaias, M I will make thee to be an everlasting glory, a joy unto generation and generation; and thou shalt suck the milk of the gentiles, and thou shalt be nursed with the milk of kings; and thou shalt know that I am the Lord, thy Saviour, and thy Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob." It is in this sense, therefore, the Spouse declares that she has been made keeper in the vineyards, and that she has not kept her vineyard.

Whenever I read these words, my brethren, I am wont to reprove myself for undertaking the charge of other souls, who am not able to take care of my own. For I take vineyards as signifying souls. If this interpretation approves itself to you, consider whether I may not also and consequentially regard faith as the vine, the virtues as the branches, good works as the grapes, and devotion as the wine. For as the branches cannot be without the vine, so neither can the virtues exist without faith. "Without faith," says St. Paul, "it is impossible to please God," and perhaps impossible to avoid displeasing Him; "for all that is not of faith is sin," as St. Paul teaches.² Therefore, those who "made me keeper in the vineyards" should have considered this, viz., how I had kept my own. But, alas I how long a time it lay neglected, forsaken, and reduced to a wilderness! Certainly, no wine was produced in it, the branches of virtue having withered on the barren stock of faith. For faith was still there, but dead. How could it be otherwise without works? Such was I when living in the world. After my conversion to the Lord, I confess that I began to keep my vineyard somewhat better, yet still not as I ought. For who is sufficient for this? Not even the holy Psalmist, since he declares that "Unless the Lord keep the city, he watcheth in vain that keepeth it." To what snares I remember to have even then exposed myself, snares set by him, whose practice it is "to shoot in secret the undefiled"! How much of the produce was carried off from the vineyard of my soul by various cunning artifices, at that very time when I began to apply myself with greater vigilance to the keeping and the caring of it! How many clusters of the excellent grapes of good works were either blighted by anger, lost by boasting, or begrimed with the smoke of vainglory! How many temptations I endured from gluttony, from the spirit of sloth, "from pusillanimity of spirit and the storm"! Such was I then. And, nevertheless, they "made me keeper in the vineyards," not considering what I was doing or had done with my own, nor attending to the master, St. Paul, who censured their conduct with the words, "But if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the Church of God?"

I am amazed, my brethren, at the audacity of some, who, as we see, can gather nothing in their own vineyards but "thorns and briers," and who yet have the daring to intrude themselves into the vineyards of the Lord. No keepers, no husbandmen they, but "thieves and robbers." Let us say no more about them. But alas for me even now, because of the danger to my vineyard! Nay, the danger is now greater than ever before, because, having to watch over many, I am compelled to be less diligent and less solicitous with regard to my own. I am not permitted to "make a hedge round about it "nor to "dig in it a press." Alas! "the hedge thereof "is "broken down, so that all who pass by the way do pluck it "! It lies exposed to sadness; it is open to anger and to impatience. The busy "little foxes "of "present necessities "lay it waste. Anxieties, suspicions, and solicitudes rush in upon it from every side. Rarely has it an hour's respite frome wrangling crowds and vexatious disputes. I have nc power to prevent, no means of avoiding such invasions I have not so much as time to pray. With what rail of tears shall I be able to irrigate "the sterility of my soul "? I meant to say "the sterility of my vineyard," but the familiar words of the psalm slipped from my tongue. However, the sense is the same. Nor do I regret a mistake which reminds me that the language I am using is figurative, and that there is question here, not of a material vineyard, but of a spiritual soul. Therefore understand "soul "when you hear "vineyard." For the sterility of the former is bewailed under the image and name of the latter. Therefore, with what tears, I ask, shall I irrigate the sterility of my vineyard? All its branches are withered "through poverty." They hang without fruit, because of the lack of moisture. O good Jesus! Thou knowest what faggots of dry twigs I make of them and burn in daily sacrifice to Thee with the fire of a contrite heart. Let "an afflicted spirit "be a sacrifice to Thee, I implore. "A contrite and humbled heart, O God," do "not despise."

Thus have I, my brethren, according to my imperfection, applied my present text to myself. But perfect will the man have to be who can say in a different sense, "My vineyard I have not kept." I mean, in that sense in which the Saviour says in the Gospel, "He that shall lose his life for Me, shall find it." He is truly qualified and worthy to be made "keeper in the vineyards," who is not turned aside or prevented by the care of his own vineyard from diligence and solicitude with regard to those of his brethren which may be committed to his charge; because he seeks not the things that are his own, nor what is profitable to himself, "but to many." For this reason, doubtless, St. Peter was made keeper in the many vineyards which were of the Circumcision, because he was a man prepared "to go to prison and to death." Thus he showed how little he was held captive by the love of his own vineyard, viz., of his own interests, in such a way as not to be able to look aftei those others entrusted to his care. With good reason was St. Paul also made keeper of such a forest of vineyards amongst the gentiles. For neither was he found over-anxious in the care of his own. So far from it, indeed, that he was "ready not only to be bound, but to die also in Jerusalem, for the name of the Lord Jesus." For, as he said elsewhere, "I fear none of these things, neither do I count my life more precious than myself." Excellent valuator, who judges nothing of all that belongs to him to be preferable to himself!

Yet how many have rated of more worth than their own salvation a little of that vile thing we call money! St. Paul would not give such a preference even to his life. "Neither," says he, "do I count my life more precious than myself." Dost thou, therefore, O Paul, make a distinction between thy life and thyself? Justly couldst thou declare thyself to be of more value than anything that is thine. But how is thy life not rather thyself than thine? I take it, my brethren, that when he said this, the Apostle was "walking in the spirit" and mentally "consenting to the law of God, that it is good." Therefore, he deemed it right to designate his mind, as his principal and noblest part, by the name of "self" rather than by any other title. The remaining (sensitive) part of his soul, which is evidently of an inferior nature and is wedded to the lower and baser essence, that is, to the body, not only by the office of imparting to it life and feeling, but also by the instinct to foster and nourish it — this sensual and carnal element, I say, St. Paul, as a spiritual man, considered unworthy to be called "self." He judged it better to reckon it amongst the things that belonged to him, than to speak of it as if it adequately represented his personality. "When I speak oi myself," he seems to say, "think of that which is most excellent in me, and in which I stand by the grace of God, namely, my mind and reason. But when I talk of my life, I mean the inferior part of my soul which is employed in animating the body, and constitutes with it the principle of concupiscence. That, I confess, I once made myself to be, but now I do so no longer. For I do not now walk according to the flesh but according to the spirit. ' I live, now not I, but Christ liveth in me.' It is not I that live according to the law of my members, but it is I that live according to the law of my mind. And what if, even still, the inferior part of my soul lusts after the things of the flesh? ' It is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.' And hence, not me, but mine, should I call that in me which still savours of the flesh, and which is nothing else than my sensitive life or soul." For in truth, her carnal affection is a part of the soul, as is also the life which she communicates to the body. This life of his sensitive soul, then, is the life or soul which St. Paul despises in comparison with himself, being "ready not only to be bound, but to die also in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus," and so to lose his life, according to the counsel of Christ.

Do you also, my brethren, give up your own wills, completely renounce all that gratifies the body, crucify your "flesh with the vices and concupiscences" thereof, and "mortify your members which are upon the earth." So shall you prove yourselves imitators of the Apostle because, like him, you will not have counted your lives more precious than yourselves. So shall you prove yourselves to be disciples of Christ, by losing your lives in this salutary way, as He recommends. And truly it is a more prudent course to lose it in order to save than to save it in order to lose it. "For, who-soever will save his life shall lose it." What have you to say to this, you who are so fastidious with regard to your meals, so careless about your morals? Hippo-crates and his disciples teach us to save our lives in this world. Christ and His apostles command us to lose them. Which of the two do you select for your master? But he makes it plain what leader he follows who brings forward such objections as these to the food provided for him by his superiors: "That is bad for the eyes, that causes headache, this injures the breast, that disorders the stomach." We may presume that each person speaks according to what he has learned from his master. Now, I ask, have you found such distinctions of meats in the writings of the prophets or apostles? Assuredly, it was flesh and blood, and not the Spirit of the Father, that revealed to you this wisdom. For it is the wisdom of the flesh, and hear what our spiritual physicians think ot it. "The wisdom of the flesh," they tell us, "is death." Also, "the wisdom of the flesh is the enemy of God." Ought I to have proposed to you the doctrine of Hippocrates, or of Galenus, or that of the school of Epicurus, instead of the Gospel truth?³ But I am a disciple of Christ, and I am addressing Christians. Therefore, I should have sinned if I introduced any teaching foreign to the Gospel. Epicurus makes sensual enjoyment the supreme good. Hippo-crates prefers a good condition of bodily health. But my Master preaches the contempt of both the one and the other of these things. Those philosophers seek with all diligence, and exhort us to seek, for the means of sustaining or of making pleasant the soul's life in the body, the very thing which, according to the teaching of the Saviour, we ought to be prepared to lose. symptoms of each malady, and to "follow nature." He was the first to recognise the importance of well-regulated diet as a remedy.⁴ What else, my brethren, sounded in our ears from the school of Christ when it was just now proclaimed that "He who loveth his life shall lose it"? He shall lose it, the Lord says, either by laying it down, as a martyr, or by afflicting it, as a penitent. Although it is a kind of martyrdom to "mortify by the spirit the deeds of the flesh," a martyrdom less cruel indeed in its terrors than that which dismembers the body with violence, yet more painful by reason of its duration. Do you not perceive that these words of my Divine Master condemn the wisdom of the flesh, whereby we are relaxed in the luxury of sensual pleasure, or we devote excessive attention even to the preservation of our bodily health? That it is not true wisdom which leads to luxury you surely must have learned from holy Job, where he tells us that such wisdom "is not found in the land of them that live in delights." But he who discovers it cries out, "I loved her above health and beauty." And if wisdom is to be preferred to health and beauty, how much more to sensuality and turpitude? But what will it avail us to abstain from the pleasures of the flesh, if we make it our daily engrossing care to study the diversities of constitutions and the distinctive properties of the various kinds of food? "Pulse," thou complainest, "produces flatulency, cheese causes indigestion, milk gives me headache, my chest will not suffer me to drink cold water, cabbage makes me melancholy, I always feel choleric after onions, fish from the lake or from muddy water does not agree with my constitution." What! In all rivers, fields, gardens, cellars, thou canst find scarcely anything fit to be thy food!

Remember, I pray thee, that thou dost belong, not to the medical, but to the monastic profession; and that thou shalt be judged by thy fidelity to thy religious engagements, not in accordance with the state of thy bodily health. Have mercy, I beg of thee, first, on thy own peace of mind, then on those who have the laborious office of ministering to thy taste. Be kind to the oppressed community. Be kind to conscience. I say "to conscience," not meaning thine, but thy brother's, the conscience of him, namely, who, sitting beside thee, partakes of what is set before him, and feels inclined to murmur at thy singular mode of fasting. For he is scandalised either at thy detestable superstition, or at the hardness which he may be tempted to impute to him who has the duty of providing for thee. Thy singularity, I repeat, is a cause of scandal to thy brother, who will either judge thee to be fastidious, when he sees thee abstaining from the common food, and seeking for superfluities, or certainly he will accuse me of cruelty, because I do not make the necessary provision for thy sustenance. Vainly do some seek to flatter their delicacy with the example of St. Paul, who tells his disciple not to drink water, but to use a little wine for his "stomach's sake" and his "frequent infirmities." For, in the first place, they ought to take notice that the Apostle is not here recommending such a drink for himself, and that the disciple has not asked it for himself. In the second place, it should be observed that the prescription is not for a monk but for a bishop, and a bishop whose life was very necessary to the Church, then so young and tender. This was St. Timothy. Give me another St. Timothy, and I will offer him gold to eat and balsam to drink. But it is thou that dispensest thyself, and treat est thyself with such tenderness. It makes me suspicious, I confess, to see thee thus indulgent to thyself. And I feel apprehensive lest thou shouldst be deceived by the wisdom of the flesh, masquerading under the name and colour of discretion. At any rate, as thou art so pleased to have the Apostle's authority for drinking wine, I would remind thee, lest thou shouldst forget, that St. Paul uses the adjective "little." But enough of this. Let us now return to the Spouse. And let us learn from her not to keep our own vineyards but to lose them for the profit of others. This is especially necessary for superiors, who manifestly have been made "keepers in the vineyards" of the Bridegroom of the Church, Jesus Christ, Our Lord, Who is over all things, God blessed for ever. Amen.⁵

Footnotes

1. "And Moses's hands were heavy; so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it, and Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands on both sides"(Exodus xvii, 12). — (Translator.) ↩

2. The holy Preacher does not mean that every action not proceeding from a motive of faith is thereby sinful — the sense in which Michael Baius understood the words of St. Paul, and which was condemned by Pope St. Pius V. He simply says that where faith is absent it is morally impossible to avoid displeasing God by sin. — (Translator.) ↩

3. Hippocrates (460-361 B.C.), a native of Cos, has been called the Father of medical science. Instead of the superstitious practices and jugglery in which the healing art consisted before his time, he recommended two simple rules, viz., to study the ↩

4. Claudius Gallenus, born at Pergamos, a.d. 130, was also a distinguished physician. His cures were so wonderful that they were attributed to magic. He is said to have written no fewer than 300 books on various subjects connected with his profession. His death occurred a.d. 200 at Rome, where he had been held in the highest esteem by the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. ↩

5. Epicurus (341-270 b.c), a native of Samos, was a materialistic philosopher, and the Founder of the system which bears his name. Philosophy he defined to be the art of making life happy — that is, the present life, for he had no faith in a future. And since a happy life means a pleasant life, he recommends us to aim at securing the maximum of pleasure with the minimum of pain. For this it is necessary to restrain our desires within the limits of possible gratification. By pleasure Epicurus does not mean, as he is so often represented to mean, bodily satisfaction alone, nor even chiefly. In his system the highest place is given to intellectual enjoyment or mental repose, to which everything else is to be subordinated. And if he counsels indulgence of desires, it is with moderation and lest unsatisfied appetites should disturb the mind's tranquillity. The system of gross sensualism, frequently confounded with epicureanism, differs widely from the principles laid down by the Sage of Samos, and is in reality the Hedonism of Aristippus, who flourished in the latter half of the fifth century, B.C. — (Translator.) ↩