In yesterday’s sermon we treated very useful matters, to which reason accords, conscience attests, and all Scripture urges […]. Yet many obstacles hinder what has been said, especially the long-standing and impious habit of sinning. For sins acquire great strength when, through habit, they have gained dominion, as Christ also indicates in the proposed verse when understood morally […]. In these words the fifth form of religiosity is shown, namely the customary one. Concerning it, let us at present consider three mysteries regarding evil habit:
• first, its criminal domination, there: “The rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them”;
• second, its imperious exaction, there: “And their great ones exercise authority over them”;
• third, its virtuous liberation, there: “It shall not be so among you.”
24/1/22
T20/5 Thursday after Reminiscere
Bernardino da Siena
Just as the world has evil habits […], so it seems that God has certain evil habits in the eyes of some mad and despairing persons, especially in this: that often (indeed more often) prosperity is granted to sinners and the wicked. […] To address this, in today’s Gospel the Lord sets forth the parable of the Rich Man […]. In this the sixth form of religiosity is shown, namely the judicial one, through which the faithful truly learn that the judgments of God are a great abyss. […] Therefore, with the Lord’s inspiration, we shall now set forth the reasons for such judgment, why prosperity is given to the wicked.
To this end nine reasons may be assigned: the first three pertain to the wicked, the next three to the more wicked, and the last three may be applied to the most wicked of men.
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1/2/8
T19/4 Wednesday after Invocavit
Johannes Gritsch [Conrad Grütsch]
Introduction
As poison is worse than a sword and a false friend worse than a false coin, so it was the falsity and simulation of the Pharisees who asked Jesus for a sign. This leads to two brief quaestiones: whether and how it is licit to praise other people; why the Pharisees sinned mortally by calling Jesus "master" – although he was it. The latter include a discussion on how action and intention need to be joined, since both need to follow the law of God.
Division
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First part
Main theme is ingratitude, first presented by commenting the Gospel episode (postillatio) and then moraliter by considering the Christians who – having received more benefits than the Jews – must thank God (reference to moral teaching of Seneca and, on a spiritual level, in particular to the special gift of the eucharist). Three possible mistakes:
“De huius modi beneficiis et donis acceptis:
Quidam de deo non cogitant.
Quidam deum de beneficiis non honorant.
Quidam dei beneficia exasperant” (6V).
1.1. To forget the benefits that God gave connectes with the sensuality of the flesh (voluptas carni) – reference to Plato and the opposition between soul and body.
1.2. Ungrateful people who do not give thanks to God are like a pork, which eats acorns without looking at the tree, i.e. without raising its eyes. An exemplum from the Vitas patrum: in a vision an old monk sees part of his fellow monks eating white bread and honey, while the others eating shit (stercus). The first are those who «in timore et gratiarum actione sedent at mensam», while the other are those who «murmurant, detrahunt et male locuntur in mensa, nec gratias dicunt» (6X).
1.3. Ungrateful is also to ask continuously God for more, without realizing that in the Passion everything has already been given to us. Seneca’s exemplum (De beneficiis) of the condemnation of a soldier ungrateful with the one who saved him from shipwreck. Allegorical application to the Christians, saved from death (the shipwrek), welcomed at home (the church), nourished with the eucharist: they promise a lot and then maintain very little («multa promittimus et pauca solvimus»; 6Y [note the use of the first person plural]), so Christ – the saviour - will expose our fault in front of God the father, who will impress the marks (stigmata) of eternal damnation on them.
Second part
Interpretation of the parable of the return of the unclean spirit (parable): in the allegory (allegorice), the devil has left the gentile, who welcomed Christ with faith, and now inhabits the Jews («ideo recendente dyabolo a gentilibus ad iudeos est reversus, in quibus nunc per infidelitatem et obstinationem dicitur inhabitare»; 6Z). On a moral level (moraliter), the parable concerns the recidivist who returns to sin and the danger of his/her condition, since «per talem recidivationem sit:
Homo debilior ad resurgendum.
Dyabolus fortior ad invadendum.
Deus difficilior ad indulgendum».
2.1. By repeating a sin, a person gets less sensible to its relevance and more tied to it do to the habit. Image of the fish or bird in the net.
2.2. Moral interpretation of the parable. The devil is expelled by penance, yet it might come back – it has no power but it can knock at the door of the heart both using fantasies in the memory («movendo fantasmata malorum in memoria reservata incendendo per desiderium amoris»; 6Z) or using the seven vices (seven capital sins). A quaestio about how can be interpret the return of previous sins, if they were forgiven. Indeed, it is the new sin of ungratefulness for their forgiveness that is added to the new sins. Hence, one has to confess it without repeating the confession of all the previous sins (unclear reference: «ut dicit Lodovicus in summa sua») [note the pastoral outcome of this interpretation].
2.3. God is less ready to forgive those who repeatedly despised his mercy. Discussion whether the repetition of a sin makes it worst, with a detailed reference to the position of Bonaventure, who depicted four stages of sin: interior consent; action; habit; final absence of repentance. The last stage is final and cannot be forgiven, while the other three are connected with the three episodes of resurrections in the Gospel, which symbolically happen in three different places: at home, on the door of the city, in the tomb.
Third part
Jesus praises the grace given to those who perform good deeds. Explanation of the scene of the Gospel, when the Virgin Mary and the relatives of Jesus call him outside. It was an insidious request, since he would abandon his pastoral engagement showing human feelings. On a moral level, it teaches that one must choose by considering the utility and dignity of things, and this is true also at a spiritual level.
«Ideo quilibet debet ea [spiritualia] preeligere et preponere et hoc quo ad tria, scilicet:
Temporis prioritatem.
Intentionis principalitatem.
Ordinis dignitatem» (7E).
3.1. One must choose virtue while s/he is young, without waiting the old age – simile of the wax, flexible only when is hot. And exemplum of the miller who had a donkey, which he did not force when it was young, and that later on refused to work and kicked the miller, killing him. The donkey symbolizes the body: if it is not dominated when one is young, it would condemn him/her to the eternal death.
3.2. Centrality of the intention - and quaestio on how to interpret the command: «Omnia in gloriam dei facite» (1 Corinthians 10 ). The solution seems to be not that each act needs to be directly connected to the glory of God, but that it becomes an habit, as the direct exhortation sates: «Ad hoc enim debemus tendere et hoc desiderare, quod ad talem statum perveniamus quod omnes actiones nostras et affectiones principlai intentione ad deum referamus» (6I).
3.3. The necessity to put spiritual before worldly things is exemplified by saint Luis of Toulouse, quoting John XXII’s the bull of canonization («unde in bulla eius translatione scribit Iohnnis Papa XXII: Ludovicus ut sol refulgens in virtute ...»; 6K).
... connected to the glory of God, but that it becomes an
habit
, as the direct exhortation sates: «Ad hoc enim debemus...