The Sunday Sermons of St. Bonaventure

Sermon 7: Sunday within the Octave of Epiphany

The Sunday SermonS of ST. BonavenTure 120 sermon 7: sunday wiThin The oCTave of ePiPhany 1. Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you in sorrow. Luke 2:48. [Protheme] Without me you can do nothing. John 15:5. The words proposed in the second verse are the words of divine truth that speak in the Gospel of John to those who are solicitous in the careful examination of Sacred Scripture; they certainly appear to contain within them a tacit refutation made against those who in this process presuppose their own ingenuity and impute to their own imaginary powers the good that God reveals to them. Scripture speaks of their shame, saying: they fornicated with their works.120 According then to the Apostle in 2 Corinthians 3:5: We are not sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as from ourselves. Therefore let us then have faithful recourse to him who gives abundantly to all and does not refuse121 those who ask in humility, so that he might deign to grant me something from the abundance of grace, and I might say those things to the praise, etc. [Sermon] 2. Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you in sorrow. Nothing is lost with great sorrow that is not possessed with great love, so it is with the Blessed Virgin, who bore the sting of great pain in the soul when she lost the bodily pres120 See Ps 105:39. 121 See James 1:5: “… God, who gives abundantly to all and does not reproach….” SundayS In chrISTmaS and epIphany 121 ence of her beloved son, whom she loved most tenderly and above all. She hardly gave sleep to the eyes or rest122 to the feet until she found him in the midst of the doctors in Jerusalem. When she, however, saw his most gracious face, she rejoiced with great gladness and ineffable delight .123 Although she spoke briefly with virginal reserve, she offered words of great prudence and wisdom, saying: Son, why have you done this to us? Certainly with such words the most prudent virgin presents, first, a sweet statement in speech when the text says: Son, why have you done this to us? Second, it expresses the bitterness of great tribulation in the heart, when the text adds: Your father and I in sorrow. Third, it includes the solicitude of discreet searching in works when she adds: have been looking for you. And so it is that in these brief words the most prudent one implied that she had given to God the knowledge of the heart, the utterance of the mouth, and the effort of the entire body. 3. First, the sweetness of the kind utterance in speech is noted in the proposed words, when she says the word: Son. Since Jesus was a good son, he deserved sweet words, for just as a good son is the delight and happiness of his mother, even more so this good son, the boy Jesus, was the delight and happiness of the Virgin Mother, because three qualities were in him that draw every soul to desire and love him: first, a beautiful grace and purity in mind and body; second a sweet piety and wisdom in speech; third, pliant gentleness and patience in works. These three qualities are in the child Jesus, and such a good child is the delight and happiness of his Mother. 122 See Ps 131:4: “If I will give sleep to my eyes or rest to my eyelids .” 123 See Luke 2:10: “And the angel said: … I bring you good news of great joy….” The Sunday SermonS of ST. BonavenTure 122 4. First, in the Son of the Virgin there was a beautiful grace and purity in mind and body. Whence Psalm 44:3 says: You are most beautiful among the sons of man; this is not without reason since no one was without actual or original sin except the boy Jesus, who is the splendor of eternal light and the unblemished mirror of God’s majesty .124 Here is the gracious boy Solomon, spoken of in Proverbs 4:3: For I also was the tender son of my father, the only son of my mother. Truly, the boy Jesus was the tender Son of the God the Father, because he was...