Joel 2:12–14. And now, says the Lord our God: Return to me with all your heart, in fasting and weeping and lamentation; and rend your hearts and not your garments. And return to the Lord your God, for he is merciful and compassionate, patient and of great mercy, and one who repents over evils. Who knows whether he will return and repent and leave behind him a blessing, and a sacrifice and a libation to the Lord your God?
From this, indeed, you may understand very clearly that what was narrated above was set forth for no other reason. He foretold to them a harsh calamity, grievous and scarcely tolerable, in order that he might afterward bring them to repentance. For he does not allow them to despair. Rather, he confirms this with the clearest words: if they are willing to come to their senses and at least afterward correct their souls by better counsels so as to please God, then punishments will altogether cease from their provoked severity and everything will soon be transformed into great tranquility and security. And what the manner of their conversion must be, he clearly adds in these words: Now, says the Lord our God, return to me with your whole heart.
Cast away, he says, the past; let the things that have gone before pass into forgetfulness. Show yourselves better than you were; appease God by fasting and affliction, by weeping and lamentation. For those who resolve to act in this way will indeed dwell afterward in delights. Just as flattering fortune and a life devoted to pleasures, though seemingly honorable, at last end in groans and punishments, so the outcome of goodness and penitential labors is abundant happiness.
Therefore it is fitting to bewail sins and to grieve according to God. For, as it is said by Paul, Godly sorrow produces repentance unto salvation without regret (2 Corinthians 7:10). Blessed also are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Even the wise Solomon, though under a figure, says something of the same kind: It is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting.
Moreover, this must be considered diligently: how powerful fasting is. It softens the Lord, calms anger, removes punishment. By sharply taking ourselves to task, we conveniently bend the raging and furious divine anger and not without ease restrain the hand of the one striking. For if it is true that we, confessing our sins alone, are justified by God showing mercy, who would doubt that by afflicting ourselves with ascetic labors and, as it were, exacting penalties from ourselves, we obtain from God forgiveness of sins?
Therefore he commands us to mourn, and not to rend garments, but rather that harsh, savage, and hardened heart—which can be perceived by mind and thought—to be broken open and unfolded, so that the fear of God may enter. Thus Paul, writing to the Corinthians, says: You are not restricted in us, but you are restricted in your own affections. Now in return—I speak as to children—widen your hearts also. Therefore the heart must be, as it were, torn open for God and brought very near to rupture, so that it may receive what belongs to him. For to feign sadness by vainly and rashly tearing garments would profit nothing for those who do so. But to open the heart to God and to lay up there what pleases him brings no small gain, for it leads to salvation.
Nor does the prophet allow those who supplicate to fall away from hope, confirming them by saying that the Lord of all is gracious and of great mercy, compassionate and good, and one who repents over evils. For even if he begins to afflict sinners, yet after a time he relents and easily turns back to kindness. This, I think, is what it means to repent over evils. But for those despairing of salvation, the prophet helpfully cuts off overbold thoughts and counsels of their own, saying: Who knows whether he will repent and leave behind him a blessing, and so forth—that is, that he may grant those who turn to him to become sharers in blessing, so that they may once more offer libation and sacrifice, and, exulting with joy and gladness, sing songs of thanksgiving.
Joel 2:15–17. Blow the trumpet in Zion; sanctify a fast; proclaim healing; gather the people; sanctify the Church; choose elders; gather little ones and those who suck at the breast. Let the bridegroom go forth from his chamber and the bride from her bridal room. Between the threshold and the altar let the priests who minister to the Lord weep and say: Spare, O Lord, your people, and do not give your inheritance to reproach, that the nations should rule over them; that they should not say among the nations: Where is their God?
By these words also he most rightly stirs them to repentance and commands that every method be profitably tried in this pursuit. For it is necessary, he says, that with a notable and solemn proclamation a fast be sanctified, healing proclaimed, and those gathered into the Church who would propitiate an offended God—namely, youths and virgins, elders with the young, infants newly born and still at the breast; moreover, bridegrooms and newly married women, indeed even those running out from their still-crowned bridal chambers, abandoning the marriage bed, despising pleasure and feasting, and exchanging these for a harsher life, suppressing applause, silencing wedding songs and auspicious acclamations by which some customarily escort newlyweds, and lamenting together with their spouses.
Indeed, as one of our wise men has said, Music in mourning is an untimely tale. Therefore, when divine anger presses upon us, it is necessary to mourn and not to give oneself over to banquets and pleasures with a relaxed spirit. For to pursue pleasure at an inopportune time is to incur both rebuke and punishment, as one of the holy prophets shows, speaking of the Israelites: And the Lord of hosts called on that day for weeping and lamentation, for baldness and for girding with sackcloth; but they made joy, slaughtering calves and killing sheep, eating meat and drinking wine, saying: Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.
Therefore, recourse must be had to lamentation and tears by those upon whom heavenly wrath has descended. Away with banquets! Moreover, he says that a holy and chosen order must be mingled among the mourners, and therefore the priests are to weep intensely between the vestibule of the temple and the altar, crying aloud: Spare, O Lord, your people, and do not give your inheritance to reproach, that the nations may rule over them, lest the nations say: Where is their God?
But if he were speaking only of locusts, how much more would they ask to be delivered from famine and want? Rather, they fear falling into the hands of enemies and deprecate mockery and disgrace. It is therefore probable—and true—that under the name of the locust the hostile invasion of the Assyrians is described figuratively and rightly. Yet if someone wishes to interpret these things of locusts themselves, he may justly admire the economy of prophetic oracles. For the very manner of the punishment almost cries out against the madness and weakness of the Israelites. They exchanged and worshiped gods who are not gods, and, abandoning the God of all, worshiped Baal. But behold: locusts encamp with unbearable force, the caterpillar arms itself, and those who relied on fictitious deities are laid low without any help. And yet caterpillars and locusts would have profited them far more, had they fought against enemies and been surrounded by the phalanxes of adversaries.
Joel 2:18–19. And the Lord was zealous for his land and spared his people. And the Lord answered and said to his people: Behold, I will send you grain and wine and oil, and you shall be filled with them; and I will no longer give you over to reproach among the nations. And the one from the north I will drive away from you.
See how mercy runs swiftly in the footsteps of repentance. For, as I think, serenity returns to sorrow and grace to penitential tears. Indeed, he is not only moved by mercy toward the afflicted, but he is also led by zeal to be angry with those who injured them and by whom they fell into calamity. The Lord of all rebukes the Babylonians because they raged against those with whom he himself was angry more cruelly than was fitting. For he says: I gave them into your hands; you did not show them mercy. Likewise, in Zechariah he speaks thus: Thus says the Lord: I was zealous for Jerusalem and for Zion with great zeal, and with great wrath I am angry against the nations that were at ease; for I was angry a little, but they helped forward the evil.
Being zealous, therefore, for his people, he promises to supply abundantly what is necessary for living and to compensate the former disaster with joy, and to grant food unto fullness. Moreover, he promises security, that they may not be handed over into the hands of enemies nor live a wretched and miserable life in servitude. In addition, he promises to drive away the one from the north—that is, the one who is nearer the north; for the Assyrians lie rather toward the east. But if someone thinks that the invasion of locusts came even from the more northerly parts of Judea, nothing prevents that explanation from being accepted.
Joel 2:19-20 Now if someone’s interior goods also perish—the riches of the heart and the abundant fruits perceived by thought—so that, like a locust leaping upon them, a swarm of demons and invading principalities and powers of evil rush in, then let him give himself to mourning, practice repentance, pour out tears to God, and immediately, by God’s kindness, he will hear him say: Behold, I give you grain and wine and oil. For he will restore his heart like a field filled with ears of grain, like a garden thick with plants, like a vineyard full of clusters. He will also make it rich with oil: You have anointed my head with oil. Finally, he will drive away from him the one coming from the north—that is, Satan who chills and does not allow those he subjugates to live by the Spirit. For the Lord testifies that the love of many will grow cold because iniquity will abound. But those known to Christ are fervent in spirit and in no way tolerate growing cold toward shameful pleasures, since they have crucified their flesh with its vices and desires.
CONTINUE
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