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SERMON 71: A Fifth on the Lord’s Prayer
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SERMON 71 A Fifth on the Lord’s Prayer1 rothers, he who has bestowed upon you the gift of faith has also taught you how to pray,2 and he has fitted the whole formula3 of supplication into a few words, because when asking something of his father, a son does not have the arduous task of making a lengthy petition. For just as need forces a child to make a request, so too charity compels a father to give. Therefore, the Father, who gives willingly , shows us not so much that he should be asked as what should be asked for, in order that the son should please him by asking for what is right, since he can displease him by making a request for what is foolish. Listen to the Father, and believe that you are already his children, so that you may obtain without delay what you are asking for. 2. Today it is made clear to you what faith can accomplish, what belief can do, and how great it is to profess it. Notice that the threefold profession of faith in the Trinity4 has raised you up from earthly servitude to the status of an offspring of heaven . Notice that the faith that has spoken of God as Father has today for your benefit acquired God as your Father. Notice that the voice that has professed faith in the Son of God has made you adopted sons of God.5 Notice that the belief that has proclaimed God the Spirit has transformed you out of the mortal 285 1. Mt 6.9–13. See Sermon 68, n. 1. 2. See Sermon 69.2 and n. 12. 3. Forma. See Sermon 67.1 (FOTC 17.115), Cyprian, The Lord’s Prayer 2 (FOTC 36.127–28), and Chromatius of Aquileia, Sermon 40 (CCL 9A.172). 4. The explicit Trinitarian references in this section point to the profession of faith in the Trinity and to the Trinitarian formula of the baptismal ceremony. 5. Filial adoption is likewise indicated also in section 11 of this sermon, as well as in Sermons 68.3 and 69.3. 286 ST. PETER CHRYSOLOGUS substance of flesh into the living substance of spirit. Who is found worthy to declare such bountiful kindness? God the Father deems human beings worthy of being heirs, God the Son does not disdain having his mere servants as coheirs ,6 God the Spirit welcomes flesh to partake of divinity;7 heaven is made the possession of earthlings, and those who had been consigned to the underworld administer justice in the celestial realm, as the Apostle attests when he says: “Or do you not know that we shall judge angels?”8 So call God your Father, and even now believe that although you are not yet born,9 you are, nevertheless, already designated as his children, and see to it that you possess a life reflective of heaven, that your behavior be divine, and that God’s pattern be revealed in its entirety in your pattern of life, because the heavenly Father enriches with divine gifts those children that correspond to their lineage, but backsliders he reduces once again to penal servitude. 3. Our Father who art in heaven (Mt 6.9). We would be overwhelmed in our awareness of being slaves, we would disintegrate in our earthly condition, if the authority of the Father himself and the Spirit of his Son were not rousing us to make this acclamation. “God sent,” it says, “the Spirit of his Son into our hearts crying out, ‘Abba, Father!’”10 Our mind grows faint, our flesh falters at divine matters, if God who gives the command were not to carry out himself what he commands to be done. When have mortals dared to call God their Father, except now, when the deepest recesses of the human being are enlivened by power from heaven? Our Father who art in heaven. O man, what do you have in common with earth, you who profess that your lineage comes from heaven?11 Therefore, manifest a heavenly manner of life 6. See Sermon 69.3 and n. 13. 7. In Sermon 60.14 Chrysologus holds that it is through membership in the Church that one partakes of divinity. See also Sermons 57.13 and 67.2 (FOTC 17.109, 115). 8. 1 Cor 6.3. 9. Nondum natos. See Sermon 69.6 and n. 20. 10. Gal 4.6. 11. This notion of having...