The Sunday Sermons of St. Bonaventure

Sermon 34: Seventh Sunday after Pentecost

penTecoST and The SundayS afTer 373 sermon 34: sevenTh sunday afTer PenTeCosT [Sermon] 1. Every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. Matthew 7:19. Our Lord Jesus Christ, wanting to draw the coarse and irrational Jewish people away from evil, under the similitude of a tree that does not produce fruit, which because of its sterility is cut down and thrown into the fire, announces to anyone who is evil not by nature, but by the disposition of the will, the outcome and consummation of eternal damnation, when it says in the proposed verse: Every tree that does not produce etc. This verse certainly proceeds in an ordered manner: for first, the sin is described in regard to the interior origin that it possesses due to the arrogance of the mind; second, in regard to the exterior consummation that it possesses due to consenting works; third, in the final end that it possesses due to the fire of Gehenna. And so it is that sin, although it is has its occasion from the fraud of the enemy, nevertheless has its origin in the arrogance of the mind, consummation in consenting works or concupiscence of the flesh, and an end in the fire of Gehenna. First, therefore, sin is described in regard to the interior origin that it has from the arrogance of the mind, when it says: Every tree, namely that is evil not by nature, but from the arrogance of the mind. Whence the Gloss states: “The will of each one is like a good or bad tree, and as a tree is rooted in the earth, so the will maintains its integral nature in the soul, which is corrupted or changed for the better by the dispo- The Sunday SermonS of ST. BonavenTure 374 sition of the will.”587 Second, sin is described in regard to the exterior consummation that it has due to consenting works, when it adds: that does not produce good fruit. The Gloss says: “The fruit of the evil tree are evil works of the flesh that is, fornication, voluptuousness, and avarice,”588 etc., and these fruits are not produced except by an evil will. Third, sin is described as to the final end that it has in the fire of Gehenna, when it includes: will be cut down and thrown into the fire. 2. It says, therefore: Every tree, where sin is described in regard to the interior origin that it has from the arrogance of the mind. For that tree, corrupted by the disposition of the will, is the cause and origin of evil works: the first of which is counterfeit, because it was not planted in the garden of the Church in accord with the divine will; the second of which is arid, because it was not watered by the heavenly inflow or drops of grace; and the third of which is infertile, because its cultivation was not promoted by humanity in the exercise of justice. 3. First, the cause of fruit that is not good is that tree, which is counterfeit, because it was not planted in the garden of the Church in accord with the divine will. Whence Matthew 7:16 and even in the gospel today says: Do they collect grapes from thorns or figs from thistles? So every good tree produces good fruits, and a bad tree, however, produces bad fruits. Do they collect from thorns, of infidelity , grapes of the true faith, which Christ thirsts for in us? Certainly not, because just as grapes do not come from thorns but from vines, so too, the truth of faith does not 587 The first part of this Glossa Ordinaria is found in PL 114:111A. 588 See the Glossa Ordinaria in PL 114:111A: “The fruit of the evil tree are works of the flesh, that is, unclean fornication, voluptuousness .” penTecoST and The SundayS afTer 375 come from the thorny nature of the unfaithful, but from the true vine589 that is Christ. Or do they collect figs from the thistles of the tradition of the fathers,590 which is the sweetness of a holy manner of living? As if to say: no. And this exposition is taken from the Gloss, which says the following: “The thorns and thistles are heretics, among whom no one is able to find truth or sanctity, for they cut and...