Moral Commentary on John 11:1–46 by Noël (Natalis) Alexandre
Note: This is the moral (tropological) interpretation from Noël Alexandre's commentary on the raising of Lazarus. Alexandre (1639–1724) draws extensively from the Fathers—especially Augustine, Cyril of Alexandria, Ambrose, and Bernard—to draw spiritual lessons for the Christian life.
John 11:1–2: Lazarus Sick—The Just Man Afflicted
"NOW THERE WAS A CERTAIN MAN SICK, LAZARUS BY NAME"
Many, when they see good men and men acceptable to God suffering some evil—such as sickness, poverty, and similar calamities—are disturbed, ignorant that these things happen especially to the friends of God. For Lazarus was a friend of Christ Jesus, and yet he was sick. "There was a certain man sick, Lazarus by name."
"BUT MARY WAS SHE WHO ANOINTED THE LORD WITH OINTMENT AND WIPED HIS FEET WITH HER HAIR, WHOSE BROTHER LAZARUS WAS SICK"
The house of Mary and Martha is a figure of the Church, which is a house of prayer and charity. In it are Marys, leading a life of prayer and pouring out their heart like fragrant ointment upon the Lord. In it are Marthas, occupied with good works and fostering and helping Christ in the poor. In it are the sick and languishing—indeed, even those dead by the death of sin—who are raised up by the omnipotent power and grace of Christ Jesus. God therefore raises up the buried and looses those bound by the chain of sin.
John 11:3–4: The Prayer of the Faithful for the Sinner
"HIS SISTERS THEREFORE SENT TO HIM, SAYING: LORD, BEHOLD, HE WHOM THOU LOVEST IS SICK"
When a soul falls into temptation, slips into sin, when it is separated from God and, languishing, is left to itself, the prayers of faithful friends sent to God with faith, humility, and confidence—sent by the two sisters, mind and will, exposing to Him the misery of the sinner and of Jesus who died for sinners—obtain his conversion from divine mercy.
Let the sinner implore this for himself; and understanding that he is a sinner, and turning from fear of divine justice to consideration of God's mercy, let him be raised to hope, trusting that God will be propitious to him for Christ's sake, and let him begin to love Him as the fountain of all justice, and say from the heart: "Lord, behold, he whom Thou lovest is sick." It suffices that Thou knowest; for Thou dost not desert. The words of Thy piety inspire confidence in me: "I came not to call the just, but sinners" (Matt. 9:13). For if Thou didst not love sinners, Thou wouldst not have descended from heaven to earth.
"BUT JESUS HEARING IT, SAID TO THEM: THIS SICKNESS IS NOT UNTO DEATH, BUT FOR THE GLORY OF GOD, THAT THE SON OF GOD MAY BE GLORIFIED BY IT"
In all the calamities that befall us, let us desire and ask for nothing else than the glory of God, His will, our sanctification—not the advantages of the flesh or temporal utilities. Let us prefer to be sick rather than in good health, poor rather than rich, despised and abject in the world rather than conspicuous in honors and dignities, if this conduces to the glory of God and of Jesus.
"BUT FOR THE GLORY OF GOD, THAT THE SON OF GOD MAY BE GLORIFIED"
Let this be the one end, the one vow of Christians: the greater glory of God.
John 11:5–6: The Love of Christ and the Purpose of Affliction
"NOW JESUS LOVED MARTHA, AND HER SISTER MARY, AND LAZARUS"
The love of Christ Jesus for His members is the origin and fountain of all His mercies and benefits. The infirmities and adversities of the elect are pledges of God's love toward them, ordained by Him for their purification and probation. Jesus seeks not His own good but that of those whom He loves; He seeks their sanctification. He does not suppose men good, but makes them so.
This is the exemplar of Christian friendship: it seeks not its own utility or delight in friends, but prefers their good, especially spiritual, that they may become God's, that they may hear His word faithfully and obediently, that they may receive Jesus into their families and homes, that if they languish and are sick they may soon be healed by Christ's grace, if dead by the death of sin they may be raised up as quickly as possible. We ought especially to pray for this, to be solicitous about this matter, if we truly love. He loves a friend truthfully who loves God in his friend, or because God is in him, or that God may be in him (St. Augustine, Book 136, On Time, otherwise Sermon 256).
"This is love for the sake of something else: if we love ourselves, we hate whom we love. If everyone who loves wishes what he loves to be saved, if he understands what true salvation is, he begins to love it in himself, and he is compelled to have it truly and in his friend" (Id., Book 365, otherwise among the 50 Homilies). True salvation is eternal life. A friend, therefore, is to be loved for eternal salvation. If you love with Christian friendship, whatever you wish to bestow upon your friend, you wish to bestow it for this: that he may hold that salvation with you. For you love justice; you wish him to be just. You love to be under God; you wish him also to be under God. You love eternal life; you wish him to reign there with you eternally.
Just as a friend of this world, loving according to the world, loves his own soul and wishes to expel fever from his friend whom he similarly loves, so that for the sake of present health—so you, whomever you love, love for eternal life. When you find anger, indignation, hatred, iniquity, strive to expel the disease of the soul just as a worldly friend expels disease of the body. For you love for this purpose: that you may do what you yourself are. For this purpose love your spouse, for this purpose love your son, for this purpose love your kinsman, neighbor, stranger, enemy—and there will be in you perfect charity.
John 11:9–10: Walking in the Light
"IF A MAN WALK IN THE DAY, HE STUMBLETH NOT, BECAUSE HE SEETH THE LIGHT OF THIS WORLD; BUT IF HE WALK IN THE NIGHT, HE STUMBLETH, BECAUSE THE LIGHT IS NOT IN HIM"
Whatever we do in the light of the Gospel and through the grace of Christ Jesus is good; whatever we do without these is darkness. The law of God, the will of God, is a light which we ought to follow lest we stumble and fall. The prudence and customs of the world, our own will and self-love, are a night in which if we walk we stumble. "Thy word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my paths" (Ps. 118:105).
"Direct me in Thy way, O Lord Jesus, and I will walk in Thy truth; let my heart rejoice that it may fear Thy name" (Ps. 85:11).
The Apostles were erring when, according to the rules of worldly prudence, they gave counsel to their Master and Lord. For they wished to give counsel to the Lord that He might not die, who had come to die, lest they themselves should die. When therefore they, as men, wished to give counsel to God, as disciples to their Master, as servants to their Lord, as the sick to the Physician, He corrected them and said: "If a man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, etc." Follow Me if you do not wish to stumble; do not give counsel to Me, from whom you ought to receive counsel (St. Augustine, Tractate 49 on John).
John 11:11: The Death of the Elect Is Sleep
"LAZARUS OUR FRIEND SLEEPETH; BUT I GO THAT I MAY AWAKE HIM OUT OF SLEEP"
The death of the elect is sleep. Death is desirable to the just as rest and sleep to laborers after the toils of the day. "Henceforth now, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors" (Apoc. 14:13).
With hope of the resurrection we ought to contemn death as if it were to last only one night. "Let them therefore weep for their dead who think the dead are truly dead. Where there is faith in the resurrection, there is not hope of death but of rest" (St. Ambrose, Book 6 on Luke, p. 1398). To the just, death is a harbor of rest; to the wicked it is thought to be shipwreck. "Certainly to those for whom the fear of death is grievous, it is not grievous to die, but it is grievous to live under fear of death. Therefore death is not grievous, but the fear of death. But fear is of opinion, and opinion is contrary to the truth of our weakness. The foolish dread death as the greatest of evils; the wise expect it as rest after labors and the end of evils" (Id., On the Good of Death, Chapter 8).
"Death is the absolution and separation of soul and body; but the dissolution is not evil, because to be dissolved and to be with Christ is much better" (Phil. 1:23). Therefore death is not evil. Finally, "the death of sinners is very bad" (Ps. 33:22). Not indeed death bad in general, but bad specifically for sinners. Finally, "precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints" (Ps. 115:15). Whence it is clear that the bitterness is not of death but of guilt. To the just, death is the fullness of rewards, the consummation of merit, the grace of dismissal. The death of the body is not to be feared by the brave, to be desired by the wise, to be sought by the wretched.
John 11:14–15: Christ's Absence and the Fall of the Just
"THEN THEREFORE JESUS SAID TO THEM PLAINLY: LAZARUS IS DEAD; AND I AM GLAD FOR YOUR SAKES, THAT I WAS NOT THERE, THAT YOU MAY BELIEVE"
The absence of Christ from the house of the sick Lazarus is a figure of the subtraction of grace, which is followed by the fall of the just. This sometimes profits many for salvation, and even those who fall, if they are of the number of the elect, to whom all things work together for good, even sins, because they rise again more humble, more cautious, and more fervent (Ps. 43:22–24).
"AND I AM GLAD FOR YOUR SAKES, THAT I WAS NOT THERE, THAT YOU MAY BELIEVE"
When pastors of souls and ministers of the Gospel perform some outstanding work, they may rejoice, provided they do not rejoice for vanity but for the spiritual progress or conversion of souls. "I am glad for your sakes, that you may believe."
John 11:16: Thomas's Zeal—Following Christ in Life and Death
"THOMAS THEREFORE, WHO IS CALLED DIDYMUS, SAID TO HIS FELLOW-DISCIPLES: LET US ALSO GO, THAT WE MAY DIE WITH HIM"
If we are truly disciples of Christ, we ought to be prepared always and everywhere to follow Him, whether in life or in death, devoting ourselves to Him like victims, prepared to expose with Him and for Him—who died for us—all temporal goods, honors, repose, life itself. "For Thy sake we are put to death all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter" (Rom. 8:36). "Neither death nor life shall separate us from the charity of God, which is in Christ Jesus" (Rom. 8:39).
John 11:17: The Four Days—Habitual Sin
"JESUS THEREFORE CAME, AND FOUND THAT HE HAD BEEN FOUR DAYS ALREADY IN THE GRAVE"
Habit and custom of sin is the sepulcher of the soul—dead, putrid, stinking—from which it cannot be raised except by the miracle of grace. This kind of sinners Lazarus, four days in the monument, represents.
The three dead whom Jesus raised signify a threefold kind of sinners whom He recalls from the death of sin to spiritual life by His grace (St. Augustine, Tractate 49 on John):
He raised the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue, still lying in the house.
He raised the young man, the son of the widow, carried outside the gates of the city.
He raised Lazarus, buried for four days.
Let each one consider his own soul: if he sins, he dies; sin is the death of the soul. But sometimes one sins in thought. What is evil has delighted; you have consented; you have sinned; that consent has killed you, but the death is within, because the evil thought has not yet proceeded to deed. Signifying that He can raise up such a soul, the Lord raised up that girl who had not yet been carried outside but lay dead in the house, as if the sin were hidden.
But if you have not only consented to evil delectation but have also done the evil itself, you have as it were carried the dead outside the gate; now you are outside, and you have been carried out dead. Nevertheless, the Lord raised up even him and restored him to his mother the widow. If you have sinned, let it repent you, and the Lord will raise you up and restore you to the Church your mother.
The third dead man is Lazarus. There is a kind of death that is immense; it is called evil custom. For it is one thing to sin, another to make a custom of sinning. He who sins and is corrected immediately soon revives, because he is not yet entangled in custom, not yet buried. But he who has become accustomed to sinning is buried, and it is rightly said of him: "He stinketh"; for he begins to have a most evil reputation, like a most foul odor. Such are all those accustomed to crimes, lost in morals. You say to him: "Do not do it." When does he hear you, whom the earth so presses and corrupts with rottenness and is weighed down by the mass of custom?
Yet no less power of Christ is required to raise even this man. Daily we see men, their custom changed, living better than those who reproved them. And the Lord raised up Lazarus. Let no one despair; let no one presume of himself. He can raise up all, that we may not despair; He raises up few, that we may not presume upon His mercy (St. Cyprian, Treatise On the Lapsed).
John 11:19–20: False Consolation
"AND MANY OF THE JEWS WERE COME TO MARTHA AND MARY, TO COMFORT THEM CONCERNING THEIR BROTHER"
The sisters were consoled concerning the death of their brother, condoling with them. They did not weep for their own souls, dead through unbelief and envy toward Christ.
If you had lost someone dear to you by the departure of mortality, you would grieve and weep, with disfigured face, changed garments, neglected hair, clouded countenance, downcast look, showing signs of sorrow. You, wretched one, have lost your soul; spiritually dead, you have begun to survive here and to carry your own funeral procession, walking about; and you do not weep bitterly, you do not groan continually. You do not hide yourself either by shame for the crime or by continuation of lamentation.
"MARTHA THEREFORE, AS SOON AS SHE HEARD THAT JESUS WAS COME, WENT TO MEET HIM; BUT MARY SAT AT HOME"
As soon as the sinner knows that Jesus is approaching his heart—by inspirations and motions toward conversion, by distaste for the world and its pleasures, by the sight and horror of the deformity of sin—he ought to send forth Martha, that is, the will, to Jesus through holy desires, through works of charity, through abundant alms that redeem sins. Meanwhile, Mary, that is, the mind gathered within itself, ought to be free for prayer, for meditation, to examine the past life, to scrutinize his heart and all its affections, to expiate sins with tears, to weep for the dead soul, to admit no consolation except that of the word of God, to lean on the hope of divine mercy alone.
John 11:21–22: Martha's Faith and Humble Prayer
"MARTHA THEREFORE SAID TO JESUS: LORD, IF THOU HADST BEEN HERE, MY BROTHER HAD NOT DIED"
Many go to Jesus when their brothers, sons, wives, husbands, kinsmen, friends are constituted in grave danger of bodily death; scarcely anyone flees to Him when they are dead by the death of sin, or when there is grave danger lest they die. Every man fears the death of the flesh; few fear the death of the soul.
For the death of the flesh, which without doubt will come sometime, all take care that it may not come; hence it is that they labor. Man labors that he may not die, though he is going to die; and he does not labor that he may not sin, though he is going to live forever. And when he labors that he may not die, he labors in vain; for he acts that death may be delayed much, not that it may be avoided. But if he does not wish to sin, he will labor and will live forever. Oh, if we could arouse men and be aroused together with them, that we might be such lovers of permanent life as men are lovers of fleeting life!
What does man not do when constituted in danger of death? With the sword impending over their necks, men have betrayed whatever they had reserved to live by. Who did not immediately betray lest he be struck? And after the betrayal perhaps he was struck. Who did not immediately wish to lose that by which he lived, choosing a begging life rather than speedy death? To one it was said: "Sail, lest you die"; and he delayed. To one it was said: "Labor, lest you die"; and he was lazy. God commands light things that we may live forever, and we neglect to obey. God does not say to you: "Lose whatever you have that you may live a short time, solicitous in labor"; but: "Give to the poor from what you have that you may live always, secure without labor" (St. Augustine, Tractate 28 on John).
"BUT NOW ALSO I KNOW THAT WHATSOEVER THOU WILT ASK OF GOD, GOD WILL GIVE IT THEE"
She did not say: "But now I beseech Thee to raise my brother." For she did not know whether it would be useful for her brother to rise again. She said only this: "I know that Thou canst; if Thou wilt, Thou dost." Whether Thou dost or not is a matter of Thy judgment, not of my presumption (St. Augustine, On the Gradual Psalms, Chapter 22).
Thus we ought to pray when we ask for temporal things. But also in petition for spiritual goods, faith and hope pray while the tongue is silent.
"BUT NOW ALSO I KNOW, ETC."
O holy women, familiars of Christ, if you love your brother, why do you not urgently beg His mercy, concerning whose power you cannot piously doubt or distrust? They respond: "Thus, as if not praying, we pray; thus, as if distrusting, we trust more efficaciously. We exhibit faith; we restrain affection. He knows, to whom there is no need that anything be said, what we desire. We know indeed that He can do all things; but this miracle so great, so new, so unheard of, even if it is subject to His power, exceeds all the merits of our humility. It suffices for us to have given place to power, occasion to piety, preferring to wait patiently for what He wills rather than impudently to ask what perhaps He does not will. Finally, what is lacking to our merits, modesty will perhaps supply" (Id., On Faith and the Resurrection).
John 11:23–27: Christ, the Resurrection and the Life
"JESUS SAITH TO HER: THY BROTHER SHALL RISE AGAIN"
The consolation of the faithful is the resurrection of the dead. Jesus raised up Lazarus and others that He might strengthen faith in the future resurrection of all men on the last day. For He raised up not one Lazarus but the faith of all. "What you believe when you read, your mind also, which had been dead in that Lazarus, revives" (St. Ambrose, Book 1 On Penitence).
"MARTHA SAITH TO HIM: I KNOW THAT HE SHALL RISE AGAIN, IN THE RESURRECTION AT THE LAST DAY"
"JESUS SAID TO HER: I AM THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE; HE THAT BELIEVETH IN ME, ALTHOUGH HE BE DEAD, SHALL LIVE; AND EVERY ONE THAT LIVETH, AND BELIEVETH IN ME, SHALL NOT DIE FOR EVER"
Christ is the principle of all life and resurrection in His members, since He is life by essence and eternal nativity. He is the fountain of resurrection: from infidelity to faith through the inspiration of faith itself; from sin to grace through the inspiration of charity. He is the Author also of resurrection to immortal and glorious life, through communication of His own life and glory.
These three dogmas of our faith one sentence comprises, delivers, and confirms: Christ Jesus.
The first by these words: "I am the resurrection and the life."
The second by these: "He that believeth in Me, although he be dead, shall live."
The third by the following: "And every one that liveth, and believeth in Me, shall not die for ever."
It is necessary to believe these things for salvation. "Believest thou this?" Without explicit faith in the Divinity and humanity of Jesus Christ, no one can be justified. In this faith we ought to exercise ourselves frequently. At the holy Altar we adore Christ our life, really present in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, because faith is the fountain of prayer. Both faith and prayer Martha's confession comprises and expresses: "Yea, Lord, I have believed that Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God, who art come into this world."
John 11:32–33: Mary at the Feet of Jesus
"MARY THEREFORE, WHEN SHE WAS COME WHERE JESUS WAS, SEEING HIM, FELL DOWN AT HIS FEET"
As if to a throne of grace, to a fountain of true consolation, and she saith to Him: "Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died." For by our tears and prayers, the health of our brother would not have been denied by Thy supreme mercy and by Thy divine charity toward us, which we have experienced more than once (St. Augustine, Tractate 49 on John).
"JESUS THEREFORE, WHEN HE SAW HER WEEPING, AND THE JEWS THAT WERE COME WITH HER WEEPING, HE GROANED IN THE SPIRIT, AND TROUBLED HIMSELF"
He did not trouble Himself by weakness, but by power. He assumed human affections that He might sanctify them in Himself. Where there is supreme power, infirmity is managed according to the nod of the will. This is signified by these words: "He troubled Himself."
Moreover, He groaned with horror at sin, through which death entered into the world; at death and the devil, its author; at the unbelief of the Jews, who were about to abuse this very miracle He was about to perform, although it was to be done that they might believe. There is a mystical signification in those true affections of Christ Jesus.
What is it that Christ troubles Himself, unless to signify to you how you ought to be troubled when you are weighed down and pressed by such a mass of sin? Have you considered yourself guilty? Have you said within yourself: "I did that, and God spared me; I committed that, and He delayed me; I heard, and I despised; I was baptized, and I lost innocence; I made void the solemn pact of baptism; I did penance, and I have relapsed into the same sins. What shall I do? Whither shall I go? Whence shall I escape?" When you say these things, already Christ groans, because faith groans. In the voice of one groaning appears the hope of one rising. If faith itself is within, there Christ is groaning in the heart.
Therefore, in the heart of man whom the great mass and custom of sin presses—the transgressor, the contemner of the holy Gospel, the despiser of eternal punishments—let Christ groan; let man rebuke himself. Christ wept; let man weep for himself. For why did Christ weep, unless to teach man to weep? Why did He groan and trouble Himself, unless because the faith of man, displeasing to himself deservedly, ought in a certain way to groan in accusation of his works, that by the violence of repenting the custom of sinning may yield (Ps. 4:18)?
John 11:34: God's Knowledge and the Sinner's Condition
"AND HE SAID: WHERE HAVE YOU LAID HIM? THEY SAY TO HIM: LORD, COME AND SEE"
Does God not know the lost man? Whence in the judgment He will say: "I know you not; depart from Me" (Matt. 25:12). What is "I know you not"? I do not see you in My light; I do not see you in that justice which I know. So also here, as if not knowing such a sinner—whose figure was Lazarus four days dead—He said: "Where have you laid him?"
They say to Him: "Lord, come and see." The sinner, oppressed by the custom of sin, is dead; he cannot ask for life, he cannot go by himself to Jesus that he may be raised up by Him. For him the Lord must be humbly and fervently prayed: "Lord, come and see." See the unhappy soul in which the rottenness of sin has obliterated the lineaments of Thy image. See; have mercy. For the Lord sees when He has mercy. "See my humility and my labor, and forgive all my sins" (Ps. 24:18).
John 11:35–36: Christ's Tears Sanctify Ours
"AND JESUS WEPT"
He weeps for the death of the whole human race, for the blindness of the Jews. By His tears He sanctifies ours, wipes them away, and, expiating vain and worldly joys, begets for us true and eternal joy.
Man, sinner, you do not weep for yourself, for whom God man wept. You weep for the loss of perishable goods, and you do not weep for the loss of grace, charity, glory. You do not weep for the loss of your God. You weep for the death of Dido, as Augustine once did, a sinner; and you do not weep for the death of your soul. Let the holy tears of Christ excite your tears, and also the precious blood poured forth on the cross for your soul; and let them enkindle you to love Him again who loved you with supreme charity and, when you were dead in sins, gave you life, prepared to forgive you all offenses if you love. "Behold how He loved him."
John 11:38–40: The Stone and the Foulness of Habit
"JESUS THEREFORE AGAIN GROANING IN HIMSELF, COMETH TO THE MONUMENT. NOW IT WAS A CAVE; AND A STONE WAS LAID OVER IT"
"JESUS SAITH: TAKE AWAY THE STONE"
The sepulcher of the inveterate sinner is his own heart, closed by the mass of custom as by a hard and heavy stone, darkened by the shadows of God's grace, stinking with corruption.
One comes to this evil by degrees. For after the first crimes, by the terrible judgment of God, impunity follows; experienced pleasure is willingly repeated; repeated, it flatters. With concupiscence reviving, reason is lulled to sleep; custom binds. The wretched man is drawn into the depths of evils; he is delivered captive to the tyranny of vices, so that, absorbed by the whirlpool of carnal desires, forgetful of his reason and of the fear of God, the fool says in his heart: "There is no God" (Ps. 13:1). Now he uses indifferently pleasures for licit things; now the mind, hands, or feet are not prohibited from thinking, perpetrating, investigating illicit things.
Finally, just as the just man with cheerful heart and without labor runs by good custom to life, so the impious, not governing himself by reason, not recalling himself by the rein of fear, hastens without trepidation to death. In the middle are those who are fatigued, distressed, who now are tormented by fear of hell, now retarded by their former custom, laboring in descending or ascending. Only the highest and the lowest run without impediment and without labor: the one to death, the other to life; one hastens more eagerly, the other more readily. Charity makes the one eager; cupidity makes the other prone. In the one, love does not feel labor; in the other, stupor. Finally, in that one perfect charity, in this one consummated iniquity casts out fear (1 John 4:18). To that one truth gives security; to this one blindness.
"TAKE AWAY THE STONE," SAYS JESUS
The dead man is under the stone; the guilty man is under the Law. For the law which was given to the Jews was written on stone. Moreover, all the guilty are under the law; those living well are with the law. "To the just man the law is not laid" (1 Tim. 1:9). What then? "Remove the stone." Preach grace. "The letter kills; the spirit gives life" (2 Cor. 3:6). The killing letter is like a stone pressing. "Take away the stone." Remove the burden of the law; preach grace. "For if a law had been given which could give life, justice would indeed be by the law. But the Scripture has concluded all things under sin, that the promise by the faith of Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe" (Gal. 3:21–22).
Christ could have removed the stone by His word alone, but He ordered it to be removed that He might signify that men ought to cooperate in their salvation, to remove external impediments, proximate occasions of sin, all things that foster evil habits.
"TAKE AWAY THE STONE"
Martha warns that the dead man now stinketh. For it is the office of charity to warn the innocent to beware for themselves from the company and frequentation of sinners stinking with evil examples and exhaling the odor of death. "By this time he stinketh; for it is now the fourth day."
John 11:43–44: The Voice of Grace and the Power of Confession
"WHEN HE HAD SAID THESE THINGS, HE CRIED WITH A LOUD VOICE: LAZARUS, COME FORTH"
When the holy pastor prays for the conversion of a sinner, Christ prays. For He prays in us as our Head; He is prayed to by us as our Priest; He is prayed to by us as our God.
Nevertheless, the tears and prayer of the pastor are not sufficient; but the voice of most powerful and most efficacious grace is necessary, by which God calls the sinner entangled in evil custom from the sepulcher of his hard heart to confession of sin.
How difficultly does he rise whom the mass of evil custom presses! But nevertheless he rises; by hidden grace he is vivified within; he rises after the great voice.
"AND IMMEDIATELY HE THAT HAD BEEN DEAD CAME FORTH, BOUND FEET AND HANDS WITH BANDS; AND HIS FACE WAS BOUND ABOUT WITH A NAPKIN"
By confession the sinner comes forth; he was dead by contrition; he revives; by confession he comes forth, yet bound, until his bonds are loosed by the absolution of the priest. But that you may confess, God makes it possible, crying with a great voice—that is, calling by great grace. Finally, at the command of the Lord the bonds are loosed by the ministers: "Whatsoever you shall loose on earth, shall be loosed also in heaven" (Matt. 16:19; 18:18) (St. Augustine, Tractate 49 on John).
"JESUS SAITH TO THEM: LOOSE HIM, AND LET HIM GO"
The disciples loose Lazarus now living, whom Jesus raised dead. For if the disciples were to loose Lazarus dead, they would show more the stench than the power. Therefore, we ought to loose by pastoral authority only those whom we recognize our Author to be raising, whom grace vivifies (St. Gregory the Great, Moralia on John).
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