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SERMON 87 A Second 1 f the light has been kept dim by excessive pain and a long illness, unless it is allowed back in gradually , the light becomes an enemy, when of course sunlight was created for the benefit of the eyes and to be pleasing to the eyes, and it is by means of them, as we are well aware, that sunlight is either transmitted or denied to the rest of the body. So too when minds have been kept in the dark through suffering a lengthy bout of unbelief, if faith suddenly shines with all its brillance, the darkness of unbelief grows even more pervasive, unless instead the clarity of faith is restored little by little.2 By a longstanding habit nature always either progresses or regresses. This is why the Lord, in order to illumine the mystery of the Virgin birth for hearts by that time blinded by the dark cloud of faithlessness, arranged beforehand for a conception from what was a hopeless and aged sterility. Consequently, whoever saw bodily members that had withered away from a long old age come back to life, and, after the passage of a great many years of life, begin to bloom again in the prime of puberty, and the very nature that was in the evening of life awakened to signify that the one being born would be the Lord’s servant; whoever saw these things would then be in a position to believe that after birth the flower of purity, the honor of bodily integrity, the distinction of chastity, and the seal of virginity could remain 68 1. (Angle brackets here indicate an addition to the title in Olivar’s CCL text.) This sermon was preached in December some time before Christmas. See nn. 5 and 6 below. 2. This emphasis on the capacity of human vision to absorb only a little light at a time is given also in Sermons 64.1 (FOTC 109.255) and 146.1 (FOTC 17.238). and be preserved by the Creator when he himself would come forth from the womb. 2. The image we presented at the beginning had to do with eyes which were made weary by a lengthy illness in which we indicated that human eyes which are unfortunately accustomed to the night and darkened, are only gradually opened and drawn back to the light. To illustrate that the very authority about which we are now speaking fits and corresponds with this image, the Lord lit a lamp containing his light and sent it on ahead in John, so that after having received a glimmer of the light they might now be capable of tolerating the very radiance of the divine Sun, and take in the very splendor of divinity, as he says about John: “He was a burning lamp.”3 The Lord intended that John might break open the dense darkness of the night with a gentle light, so that he himself might restore the day that does not know night to those who now long to come into light everlasting. This is how a dimly shining star makes the Magi, who were still inhabitants of the night4 and entirely lacking in sight, used to the light, and gradually draws them to the very source of light and days. Brothers, since the seasons like a four-horse chariot persevere in running the laps of the entire year, and invite us again to the feast of the birth of our Lord,5 and are already restoring our joy, it is certainly fitting that we now speak about the birth of John and about the pregnancy of a barren woman. Then by these brief remarks about believing we may be able to make our way amid the lights of winter,6 which are dim in the midst of clouds and fog, and, by the guidance of a star going before us and illuminating our way, to arrive where the childbirth is without labor-pains, where the One who is brought to birth is himself the Creator of his mother, and where the One who is being born is the very Origin of the one who bore him. 3. There was a certain priest named Zechariah, the evangelist SERMON 87 69 3. Jn 5.35. 4. The Magi are described with the same language in Sermon 157.1. 5. This is a clear indication that this sermon was preached sometime in December shortly before Christmas. See F. Sottocornola, L’anno...

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