Vigils Reading – Bl Guerric

THE POOR OF CHRIST

From a sermon by Blessed Guerric of Igny

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What then shall we bring to the Lord, my brothers? Bring to the Lord

glory of gold and honor of incense; bring to the Lord glory for his name, myrrh

for his burial. But Christ’s disciple, Peter’s son, tells me: “Silver and gold I have

none, nor bags of those foreign wares, myrrh and incense.” Will you then appear

empty-handed in the Lord’s sight… O rich poverty, O wealthy nakedness –

provided it is Christian and freely willed. With what riches do you not abound,

not only gold but the very best gold, gold that has been fired, not only myrrh and

incense but also all the fragrant powders of the merchant. Indeed who else can

abound in riches of this sort but the poor of Christ?

But I am not aware, you will say, that I have received anything of the sort,

or that anything so precious as gold, incense and myrrh is to be found in my

possession. For I am a man well acquainted with poverty, finding it hard to beg

my daily bread, leading an impoverished life. You think, you say, that you have

not received any such thing. Is it not rather that you have squandered in riotous

living the inheritance you received from your father?

But I pass over that. As the Sage says, “One who turns away from sin to

become wise is not to be reproved.” Rather I would wish that you had the energy

to examine if there be not some slight remnant of your paternal inheritance in

your hands with which you could begin to recover the whole. I would wish you to

dig within yourself, for valuable treasures are wont to lie hidden in the recesses

of the earth. That treasure, the desire of which drove a man to sell all he had, was

hidden in a field. The ten Israelites who escaped the murderer’s sword did no by

declaring that they had treasure hidden in a field.

O what treasures of good works, what riches of devotion lie hidden in the

field of one’s body; and how many more in the depths of the heart, if only we will

take the trouble to dig… Our reason and natural endowments, with the help of

grace, are a seed-bed of all the virtues. If then you will ponder in your heart and

train your body, you need not doubt that you will find worthwhile treasure – if

not gold or incense at the very beginning, certainly of myrrh, and that is not

useless. It is not for you to describe as useless what Christ accepts as a gift. With

this he willed that the burial of his body should not only be foreshadowed when

it was offered to him but also be completed when he was embalmed with it.