Behold, I have returned, my beloved sons, my joy and my crown in the
Lord! Behold! I have returned after many labors, after a dangerous
journey; I am returned to you, I am returned to your love. This day
is the day of exultation and joy, which, when I was in a foreign
land, when I was struggling with the winds and with the sea, I so
long desired to behold; and the Lord hath heard the desire of the
poor. O love, how sweetly thou inflamest those that are absent!
How deliciously thou feedest those that are present; and yet dost
not satisfy the hungry till thou makest Jerusalem to have peace and
fillest it with the flour of wheat! This is the peace which, as you
remember, I commended to you when the law of our order compelled me
for a time to be separated from you; the peace which, now I have
returned, I find (Thanks be to God!) among you; the peace of Christ,
which, with a certain foretaste of love, feeds you in the way that
shall satisfy you with the plentitude of the same love in your
country. Well, beloved brethren, all that I am, all that I have,
all that I know, I offer to your profit, I devote to your advantage.
Use me as you will; spare not my labor if it can in any way serve to
your benefit. Let us return, therefore, if you please, or rather
because you please, to the work which we have intermitted; and let
us examine the Holy Ghost enduing us with the light of truth, the
heavenly treasures which holy Isaiah has laid up under the guise of
parables, when he writes that parable which the people, freed from
his tyranny, shall take up against the king of Babylon. "And it
shall come to pass in the day that the Lord shall give thee rest
from thy sorrow, and from thy fear, and from the hard bondage
wherein thou wast made to serve, that thou shalt take up this
parable against the king of Babylon." Let us, therefore, understand
the parable as a parable. Not imagining that it was spoken against
Nebuchadnezzar, the prince of that earthly Babylon, but rather
against him who is from the North, the prince of confusion. ... If
any one of us, then, who was once set in the confusion of vices, and
oppressed by the yoke of iniquity, now rejoices that he rests from
his labors, and is without confusion for that which is past, and has
cast off the yoke of that worst of slaveries, let him take up this
parable against the king of Babylon. There is labor in vice, there
is rest in virtue; there is confusion in lust, there is security in
chastity; there is servitude in covetousness, there is liberty in
charity. Now, there is a labor in vice, and labor for vice, and
labor against vice. A labor in vice, when, for the sake of
fulfilling our evil desires, the ancient enemy inflicts hard labor
upon us. There is a labor for vice, when any one is either
afflicted against his will, for the evil which he has done, or of
his will is troubled by the labor of penance. There is a labor
against vice, when he that is converted to God is troubled with
divers temptations. There is also a confusion in vice, when a man,
distracted by most evil passions, is not ruled by reason, but
hurried along confusedly by the tumult of vices; a confusion for
vice, when a man is found out and convicted of any crime, and is
therefore confounded, or when a man repenting and confessing what he
has done is purified by healthful confusion and confession; and
there is a confusion against vice, when a man, converted to God,
resists the temptation from which he suffers, by the recollection of
former confusion.
Wonder not if I have kept you longer to-day than my wont is, because
desirous of you, after so long a hunger, I could not be easily
satiated with your presence. Think not, indeed, that even now I am
satiated; I leave off speaking because I am weary, not because I am
satisfied. But I shall be satisfied when the glory of Christ shall
appear, in whom I now embrace you with delight, you, with whom I
hope that I shall be happily found in him, to whom is honor and
glory to ages of ages. Amen.