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SERMON 18 On Simon Peter’s Mother-in-law1 he attentive listener to today’s reading has learnt why the Lord of heaven entered the earthly dwellings of his servants. But it is no marvel if he who in his mercy had come to help all people did not disdain entering all places. When Jesus had come, it says, to Peter’s house, he saw his mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever (Mt 8.14). You see what it was that moved Christ to enter the house of Peter: certainly it was not the desire to have a meal but the illness of the one in bed; not the need to eat, but the opportunity for healing;2 a work of divine power, not an extravagant human banquet. In Peter’s house not wine but tears were flowing; there the family was not worrying about a banquet, but about the one who lay ill; there a fever, not gluttony, was raging. So Christ entered there not to take a meal, but to restore life. God seeks human beings, not human things; he desires to give heavenly goods, he does not long to obtain earthly goods. So Christ came to retrieve us, not to acquire what belongs to us.3 2. When he had come, it says, to Peter’s house, he saw his mother-inlaw lying in bed with a fever. Entering Peter’s house Christ saw why he had come, he did not attend to the quality of the house, nor the crowds of those coming to meet him, nor the procession of those gathering to greet him, nor the family members surrounding him, and certainly not the elaborateness of the furnishings, but he gazed intently at the groaning of the one who was ill, he directed his attention to how high her fever was, he noted how dangerous and desperate was her condition, and 1. Mt 8.14–16. 2. The Latin salutis carries the meaning of “salvation” as well as “healing.” 3. Recepturus nos, non nostra quaesiturus. 83 immediately he stretched out his hand to exercise his divinity. Christ did not recline for human sustenance until the woman who was lying prostrate arose for divine purposes.4 3. He held her hand, it says, and the fever left her (v.15). You see how the fever leaves one whom Christ held; infirmity has no footing wherever the Author of salvation stands near; death has no access to the place where the Giver of life has entered. He held her hand, it says. What was the need to touch, when the power to command was present? But Christ held the hand of the woman to give life, since from the hand of a woman Adam had received death. He held her hand, so that what the hand of the presumptuous one5 had lost, the hand of the Author would restore. He held her hand, so that the hand which had plucked a death sentence might receive pardon. 4. And she arose, it says, and began to wait on him (v.15). Did Christ need the service of the woman, and a woman at that who was well along in years, of a very old age, and having borne children ? In Peter’s house was there not a young slave, a servant, a relative, a neighbor, or at least his wife who could do the serving in place of her mother? And in short, didn’t Peter consider it shameful for himself that an elderly woman, that his motherin -law, should do for the Master what a disciple ought to have done? Brothers, Christ did not need human service from her upon whom he had exercised his divine power; but he allowed her to serve him as a proof that she had recovered her health. Christ puts diseases to flight in such a way that the next moment he restores one’s former strength. Where skill works the cure, there no fatigue from the infirmity remains; where power cures, there debility leaves no trace. 5. But lest any of the spiritual meaning6 in this reading be 84 ST. PETER CHRYSOLOGUS 4. The “divine purposes” in question are more clearly indicated in sections 4 and 7 of this sermon as a manifestation of a divine act of healing and as sancti- fied good works. 5. The Latin poet Sedulius in his Paschale Carmen 2.4 refers to Adam as praesumptor (CSEL 10.44). A. Olivar...

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