examination of the heart 326 kingdom (cf. Ex 10:21-24). Won’t you shake off sleep after the heavenly light has entered your heart? “Arise, be enlightened.” 3. “They left for their own country by another road” (Mt 2:12). Consider that God foresaw the violent death that the cruel Herod was preparing for the Magi, the visitors of the Infant Christ. And so, warned by an angel, the Magi did not go back to the tyrant, but returned to their kingdoms by a different way. The same God foresees your ruin if, incited by your senses, you were to return to your former imperfections. Wherefore, He Himself, enclosed in you, warns you not to go back by the same way, since: “As many as went this way, all perished.”140 Hence, return by a different way to your country. Your country is paradise or Heaven, where one arrives by no other way than by the way of the Cross. Therefore, having left the path of sensuality, enter the thorny way of the Cross, because this way reaches Heaven.141 FOR THE FEAST OF STS. FABIAN AND SEBASTIAN, MARTYRS Before Holy Communion 1. “[And Jesus] coming down [ from the mountain] …” (Lk 6:17) [DRB]. Consider that the crowd could not ascend the mountain after Christ, and this was the reason for His coming down. If He walked in lofty places only, none of the weaker people could keep up with Him, and thus they would be deprived of His salutary teaching. “For how would the crowd see Christ,” says St. Ambrose, “unless in a low place? It does not follow Him to the heights, it does not ascend to the lofty places.”142 Indeed, by “the 140 Cf. CO, p. 723 (Fifth Word, § 4). 141 Virgil, Eneida, Trans. T. Karyłowski, Comp. S. Stabryła, Ossolineum, Wrocław 2004, p. 290 (Bk. 9) 142 Ambrosius, Expositio Evangelii secundum Lucam: Liber V (Luc. VI, 17), in: PL, vol. 15, Ateliers catholiques du Petit-Montrouge, Paris 1845, p. 1648 (n. 1366).
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