The Sunday Sermons of St. Bonaventure

Sermon 28: First Sunday after Pentecost

The Sunday SermonS of ST. BonavenTure 320 sermon 28: firsT sunday afTer PenTeCosT [Sermon] 1. Be merciful as your Father is merciful. Luke 6:36. Our Lord Jesus Christ, seeing that mercy and charity were growing cold while malice and carnality were increasing, wanted to direct us with the proposed verse in accord with the rule of divine piety to works of mercy and charity, when it says: Be merciful as your Father is merciful. But because our work is unable to be upright , unless it is guided by the rule of divine exemplarity , he therefore exhorts us in the proposed verse first to help someone in need, by exciting the affections; second, he proposes to us the formation of divine exemplarity, by directing the intellect. First, he urges help for someone in need, by exciting the affections, when it says: Be merciful; second, he proposes the formation of divine exemplarity, by directing the intellect, when the text adds: as your Father is merciful. 2. First, therefore, it moves us to help someone in need by exciting the affections, when it says: Be merciful . There are three things with which our Lord Jesus Christ exhorts us to works of piety and mercy. First of all, the benign formation of divine exemplarity to direct the rational power; second, the great promise of multiple utility to attract the concupiscent power; third, the acerbic punishment of divine severity to terrify the irascible power; so that those whom the divine example does not move to mercy, the useful promise or at least the terrible pain may move. penTecoST and The SundayS afTer 321 3. First, the benign formation of divine exemplarity moves us to mercy by directing the rational power, which appears in three ways: first in the insistence of an unmerited calling, second in the patience of lengthy waiting and, third in the clemency of benign acceptance. Whence the merciful God insistently calls, patiently expects, and clemently accepts sinners. The mercy of God first appears in the insistence of an unmerited calling. Whence Matthew 9:13 says: I desire mercy, not sacrifice, for I came not to call the just but sinners to penance. The merciful God, although bitterly condemned by sinners, nonetheless did not disdain to send his Son and to ask peace for them with the insistence of an unmerited calling, because he eagerly wishes our salvation more than any other sacrifice . Gregory observes: “We ought to blush at least at the mercy of the calling, if we are unwilling to fear its justice, because the more it is despised with broad reproach, so much the more is contempt not disdained.”477 Dearly beloved , let us accept the example of such benignity and mercy and ask first peace from those who persecute and offend us, even if we are not at fault, because according to Gregory: “It is proper for good minds to recognize fault there where there is no fault.”478 And let us then put on the depths of mercy like the truly elected children of the merciful Father, who through the depths of his mercy that comes from on high,479 first asks for peace in this world, by calling for penance. 4. Second, the mercy of God appears in the patience of lengthy waiting. Whence Lamentations 3:22 says: It is the mercy of the Lord that we are not consumed; because 477 See Book III, c. 28 of Regulae pastoralis liber in PL 77:105D. The quotation is almost verbatim. 478 Bonaventure adapts Book XI, Letter 64 in Registri epistolarum . See PL 77:1195B. 479 See Luke 1:78. The Sunday SermonS of ST. BonavenTure 322 his commiserations have not failed. When in fact a person sins, one injures his Creator and even crucifies the Son of God within oneself;480 and the person is therefore immediately worthy of total destruction, if it were not for divine mercy, which with patience and forbearance waits for one, as if not noticing the sins of the person;481 because if he were to punish the sinner immediately, he would not have anyone to forgive later. Therefore, dearly beloved, with the example of divine mercy patiently supporting and expecting the sinner with forbearance, let us support the defects, harsh actions and words of others which displease us; let us not rush to be angry and assume a vendetta , but with forbearance await the voluntary correction of the...