Selected Sermons, Volume 2

SERMON 14: On the Fortieth Psalm

SERMON 14 On the Fortieth Psalm1 or those experienced in battles the military trumpet signals discipline, but for those who are inexperienced it gives only a terrifying sound. The trumpet , the commander of wars, gives strength to her own, but gives fear to the enemy. The one who wages war without a trumpet is not a soldier; he is driven by fury, not by the battle; he does not act courageously, but perilously; he is looking to perish , not to conquer. We have said this so that the soldier of Christ might understand why a refrain has been provided from heaven. Stationed in the battlefield of the world we fight with the devil, we stand our ground against the vices. And so whenever the prophet’s blare sounds in our ears, it makes us cautious in periods of peace, brave in deployment, and invincible in battle. 2. For today the blessed psalmist prompts our understanding through the heavenly acclamation: Blessed is the one who has understanding for the needy and the poor (v.2[1]a). And what is there to understand where poverty is evident? It is the power of understanding if deep matters should be examined, if what is hidden should be perceived, if what is covered should be laid bare; however, what is apparent to the eyes, what is out in the open, and what is self-evident are not things to be understood, but to be seen. When someone is shivering in his nakedness, emaciated by hunger, parched with thirst, weary with exhaustion , pale from want, who has to struggle to understand that 1. LXX numbering. In Hebrew, this is Ps 41. According to F. Sottocornola, L’anno liturgico, 68 and 76, the exhortation to acts of mercy in this sermon, together with the theme of spiritual warfare, suggests that this was delivered during Lent, when such topics were prominent in Chrysologus’s preaching; his other sermons on the Psalms are all Lenten. 66 the person is in need? And if there is no struggle to understand this, what benefit does a person with understanding enjoy? Let us pray, brothers, that the very one who so clearly points out that he is to be understood in the poor person2 may allow us to understand what we must. 3. That the very one who arrays the sky is naked in the poor person, that the Fullness of the universe hungers in the hungry, and that the Fountain of fountains thirsts in the thirsty, how is this anything but something great and blessed to understand? That poverty encompasses him whom the heavens cannot contain ; that he who enriches the world is in need in the needy person; that the Giver of all things seeks a crumb of bread and a cup of water; that, out of love for the poor, God so humbles himself not merely to be mindful of the pauper, but even to be the pauper himself: the very one whom God grants to behold this, does behold it. 4. But how he either transfuses the poor person into himself or fuses himself into the poor person, let him now tell us: “I hungered,” he said, “and you gave me to eat.”3 He did not say: “The poor person hungered, and you gave him to eat,” but “I hungered, and you gave me to eat.” He declares that what the poor man has received has been given to him; he says that he eats what the poor man consumes; he affirms that what the poor person drinks is poured into him. Oh, what results love for the poor produces! God is glorified in heaven from what causes shame to the poor person on earth; and he deems as an honor for himself what is considered the poor person’s disgrace . It would have been sufficient for him to have said: “You gave me to eat,” and “You gave me to drink,” but he prefaces it with: “I was hungry, I was thirsty,”4 because it would have been a paltry love for the poor to have assumed5 the poor person, and not SERMON 14 67 2. See Mt 25.40. 3. Mt 25.35. 4. Ibid. 5. From suscipere. Chrysologus is making a Christological statement here. In the Person of Jesus the Word assumed or took upon himself a poor man with all liabilities and sufferings entailed in being poor. For numerous examples of Chrysologus’s use of this verb...