Homily 37 — Matthew 11, verses 7 to 24

“As they were leaving, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John: ‘What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? Then what did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing? Look, those who wear soft clothing are in kings’ houses. Then what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet.’” [a]

The matter of John’s disciples had been well settled: they had gone away assured by the miracles that had just been performed. But after that the people needed a remedy. John’s disciples could never have suspected anything of the kind about their own master. The common people, though, did not know the purpose for which he had sent his disciples, and from their question they might form many strange suspicions. It was natural for them to reason among themselves and say: “The man who bore such abundant witness — has he now changed his mind? Is he now in doubt whether this is the one who is to come, or another? Can it be that he says this because he has fallen out with Jesus? Has prison made him more timid? Were his earlier words spoken idly and at random?” Since it was natural for them to suspect many such things, see how he corrects their weakness and removes these suspicions of theirs. For “as they were leaving, he began to speak to the crowds.” Why “as they were leaving”? So that he would not seem to be flattering the man.

And in correcting the people, he does not make their suspicion public. He only supplies the answer to the thoughts that were troubling their minds, showing that he knew the secrets of everyone. He does not say to them, as he said to the Jews, “Why do you think evil?” For even if they had these thoughts in their minds, it was not out of wickedness that they reasoned this way, but out of ignorance about what had been said. That is why he does not speak to them by way of rebuke either. He simply sets their understanding right and defends John. He shows that John has not fallen away from his former opinion and has not changed, that he is not at all an easily swayed and fickle man, but steady and sure, and far from the kind of man who would betray what had been entrusted to him.

In establishing this, he does not begin with his own verdict but with their earlier testimony. He points out how they had borne witness to John’s firmness, not by their words only, but by their deeds as well.

That is why he says, “What did you go out into the wilderness to see?” It is as if he had said: “Why did you leave your cities and your houses and all gather together in the wilderness? To see a pitiful, pliable sort of person? No, that makes no sense at all. That is not what your eagerness shows, or the way everyone streamed out into the wilderness. So many people and so many cities would not have poured out with such zeal toward the wilderness and the river Jordan back then, if you had not expected to see someone great and marvelous, someone firmer than any rock. No, it was surely not ‘a reed shaken by the wind’ that you went out to see. For people who are pliable and easily turned around, who say one thing now and another thing later and stand firm in nothing — they are the ones most like a reed.”

And see how he leaves out all wickedness and mentions only this, which was especially troubling them then, and removes the suspicion of fickleness.

“Then what did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing? Look, those who wear soft clothing are in kings’ houses.”

What he means is this. John was not a waverer by his own nature, and you yourselves showed that by your eagerness. Still less could anyone say that he was firm, but made himself a slave to luxury and afterward grew slack. For among people, some are what they are by nature, and others become so. One man, for instance, is hot-tempered by nature, while another gets this weakness from having fallen into a long illness. Again, some people are pliable and fickle by nature, while others become so by making themselves slaves to luxury and living softly. “But John,” he says, “was neither that kind of man by nature — for it was not a reed that you went out to see — nor did he lose the advantage he had by giving himself up to luxury.” That he did not make himself a slave to luxury is shown by his clothing, by the wilderness, and by the prison. If he had wanted to wear soft clothing, he would not have lived in the wilderness, nor in prison, but in the king’s courts. It was in his power to enjoy honor without limit simply by keeping silent. For since Herod revered him so much even after John had rebuked him, and while he was in chains, how much more would he have courted him if he had held his peace! So John had plainly given proof of his firmness and courage. How, then, could he fairly fall under suspicions of that kind?

So when he had drawn John’s character from the place, from his clothing, and from the way they had flocked to him, he goes on to bring in the prophet. Having said, “Then what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet,” he continues: “For this is the one of whom it is written, ‘Look, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you.’” Having first set down the testimony of the Jews, he then brings in that of the prophets. Or rather, he puts first the verdict of the Jews, which must have been a very strong proof, since the witness came from his enemies; second, the man’s life; third, his own judgment; fourth, the prophet. In every way he stops their mouths. [d]

Then, so that they would not say, “But what if he was that kind of man back then, and has changed now?” he added what follows as well: his clothing, his prison, and, together with these, the prophecy.

Then, having said that John is greater than a prophet, he also shows in what way he is greater. And in what is he greater? In being near the one who had come. For he says, “I send my messenger before your face” — that is, close beside you. With kings, those who ride near the chariot are more distinguished than the rest; in just the same way, John too appears running his course right beside the coming itself. See how he showed John’s excellence by this as well. And he does not stop even here, but afterward adds his own vote too, saying, “Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not arisen anyone greater than John the Baptist.”

What he said amounts to this: “No woman has given birth to anyone greater than this man.” His verdict alone is certainly enough. But if you want to learn it from the facts as well, consider John’s table, his way of life, the loftiness of his soul. He lived as though he were in heaven. He had risen above the needs of nature and traveled, so to speak, a new road, spending all his time in hymns and prayers, keeping company with no one among men but with God alone, continually. He did not so much as see any of his fellow servants, nor was he seen by any of them. He did not feed on milk; he did not enjoy the comfort of a bed or a roof or a marketplace, or any other human thing. And yet he was at once gentle and earnest. Listen, for example, to how considerately he reasons with his own disciples, how courageously with the Jewish people, how openly with the king. That is why he also said, “Among those born of women there has not arisen anyone greater than John the Baptist.”

But the very greatness of his praises might have produced an extravagant feeling, with the Jews honoring John above Christ. See how he corrects this too. The things that built up his own disciples had harmed the crowds, who took him for an easygoing sort of person. In the same way, the remedies he used for the crowds might in turn have done more harm, if from Christ’s words they came to hold John in greater reverence than himself. [g]

So he corrects this too, in a way that raises no suspicion, by saying, “He who is less is, in the kingdom of heaven, greater than he.” Less in age, and less in the opinion of the crowd, since they even called him “a glutton and a drunkard,” and said, “Is this not the carpenter’s son?” and on every occasion they made light of him.

“What then? Is it by comparison that he is greater than John?” Far from it. When John says, “He is mightier than I,” he does not say it by way of comparison. Nor does Paul, when he mentions Moses and writes, “For this man was counted worthy of more glory than Moses,” write by way of comparison. And he himself, when he says, “Look, one greater than Solomon is here,” does not speak as one making a comparison. Or even if we were to grant that he did say this by way of comparison, he did it by stooping down to meet the weakness of his hearers. For the people really had their eyes fixed on John, and at that moment he had been made even more distinguished by his imprisonment and by his frankness toward the king. It was a great gain for the present that even this much should be accepted by the crowd.

In the same way the Old Testament also corrects the souls of those who have gone astray by setting side by side, as if comparing them, things that cannot be compared. So it says, “Among the gods there is none like you, O Lord,” and again, “There is no God like our God.”

Some say that Christ said this of the apostles; others, of angels. So it is: when people turn aside from the truth, they usually wander off in many directions. What connection would there be in speaking either of angels or of apostles? Besides, if he were speaking of the apostles, what stopped him from bringing them forward by name? But when he speaks of himself, he naturally keeps his own person hidden, because of the suspicion that still prevailed, and so as not to seem to be saying anything great about himself. Indeed, we often find him doing this.

But what does “in the kingdom of heaven” mean? Among spiritual beings, and among all who are in heaven.

Moreover, his saying, “Among those born of women there has not arisen anyone greater than John,” fitted one who was contrasting John with himself and so silently making an exception of himself. For though he too was born of a woman, it was not in the way John was. He was not a mere man, nor was he born the way a man is born, but by a strange and wonderful kind of birth.

“And from the days of John the Baptist until now,” he says, “the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force.” And what connection does this have with what was said before? A great deal, certainly, and in full agreement with it. For by this point too he goes on urging and pressing them toward faith in himself, and at the same time he is speaking in agreement with what John had said before: [k]

“For if everything is fulfilled right down to John, then I am ‘the one who is to come.’” “For all the prophets and the law,” he says, “prophesied until John.” “For the prophets would not have ceased if I had not come. So expect nothing further, and do not wait for anyone else. That I am he is plain both from the prophets having ceased and from those who every day ‘take by force’ faith in me. For it is so plain and certain that many even take it by force.” Who has taken it like that? Tell me. All who come to it with an earnest mind.

Then he gives another sign that cannot fail, saying, “If you are willing to receive it, he is Elijah, who was to come.” For it is said, “I will send you Elijah the Tishbite, who will turn the heart of the father to the children.” This man, then, is Elijah, he says, if you pay careful attention. For he says, “I send my messenger before your face.”

He did well to say, “If you are willing to receive it,” to show that there is no compulsion. “I do not force you,” he says. He said this because he required an honest mind, and to show that John is Elijah and Elijah is John. Both received one ministry, and both became forerunners. That is why he did not simply say, “This is Elijah,” but, “If you are willing to receive it, this is he” — that is, if you pay attention to what is happening with an honest mind. And he did not stop even there. To the words, “This is Elijah, who was to come,” he added, to show that understanding is needed: “Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear.”

He used so many riddling sayings to stir them up to ask. And if even so they were not roused, much less would they have been if everything had been plain and clear. For no one could possibly say that they did not dare to ask him, or that he was hard to approach. They kept asking him questions and testing him about ordinary matters; their mouths were stopped a thousand times, and still they did not draw back from him. How could they have failed to ask him, and beg him, about the things that really mattered, if they had truly wanted to learn? They asked about matters of the law — “Which is the first commandment?” and all such questions — although of course there was no need for him to tell them that. How, then, could they fail to ask the meaning of what he himself said, when he was bound to give an account of it in his answers? Especially when it was he himself who was encouraging them and drawing them on to do it! For by saying, “The violent take it by force,” he stirs them to an earnest mind, and by saying, “Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear,” he does exactly the same.

“But to what shall I compare this generation?” he says. “It is like children sitting in the marketplace and saying, ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we mourned for you, and you did not lament.’” This too seems unconnected with what came before, but it follows from it most naturally. He is still keeping to the same point: showing that John is acting in harmony with him, even though the results were opposite — as indeed he had shown with John’s question too. And he implies that nothing that ought to have been done for their salvation had been left undone, as the prophet says of the vineyard: “What more ought I to have done for this vineyard, that I have not done?” [n]

“For to what shall I compare this generation?” he says. “It is like children sitting in the marketplace and saying, ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we mourned for you, and you did not lament.’ For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’”

What he says amounts to this: “We have each come by an opposite way, I and John. We have done just what hunters do with a wild animal that is hard to catch and can be driven into the nets in two ways: each of the two cuts it off from his own side and drives it, taking his stand opposite the other, so that it is bound to fall into one of the two snares.” Look, for instance, at the whole human race: how it is struck with wonder at fasting, and at this hard and self-denying life. That is why it had been arranged that John should be brought up this way from his earliest youth, so that, among other things, what he said might be believed.

“But why,” someone may ask, “did he not choose that way himself?” In the first place, he did go by it himself too, when he fasted the forty days, and went about teaching with nowhere to lay his head. Yet he also achieved this same object in another way, and secured the benefit that came from it. For to have the witness of the one who came by this way was the same thing as coming by it himself, or even a far greater thing.

Besides, John showed nothing more than his life and conduct — for “John,” it is said, “did no sign” — but he himself also had the witness of signs and miracles. So, leaving John to be distinguished by his fasting, he himself came the opposite way: he went to the tables of tax collectors, and ate and drank.

So let us ask the Jews: “Is fasting a good thing, to be admired? Then you should have obeyed John, received him, and believed what he said, for then his words would have led you toward Jesus. Or is fasting a hard and burdensome thing? Then you should have obeyed Jesus and believed in him who came the opposite way. Either way you would have found yourselves in the kingdom.” But like an untamable wild animal, they spoke ill of both. So the fault does not lie with those who were not believed; the blame belongs to those who did not believe. For no one would ever choose to speak ill of two opposite things, any more than he would praise both. I mean this: whoever approves a cheerful, free-and-easy character will not approve one that is sad and grave; whoever praises a man with a sober face will not praise the cheerful one. It is impossible to vote both ways at once.

That is why he also says, “We played the flute for you, and you did not dance” — that is, “I showed you the freer kind of life, and you did not obey” — and, “We mourned, and you did not lament” — that is, “John followed the rugged and grave life, and you paid no attention.” And he does not say, “He did this, I did that.” Since the purpose of both was one, though their ways of life were opposite, he speaks of what they did as shared. For even their coming by opposite ways sprang from the most exact agreement, an agreement that kept looking to one and the same end. What excuse, then, can you have after all this?

That is why he added, “And wisdom is proved right by her children.” “That is, even if you are not persuaded, you can find no fault with me after this.” As the prophet says of the Father, “So that you may be proved right in your words.” For even if God should accomplish nothing more by his care for us, he fulfills his whole part, so as to leave those who choose to be shameless not so much as a shadow of an excuse for dishonest doubt.

And if the comparisons are lowly and sound unfitting, do not be surprised, for he was speaking with a view to the weakness of his hearers. Ezekiel too uses many comparisons like these, unworthy of God’s majesty. But this too is especially fitting for his tender care.

And notice how in another way too they are carried around into contradictory opinions. They had said of John, “He has a demon,” and they did not stop at that, but said the very same thing again about him, although he took the opposite course. So they were forever being carried around into opinions that fought against each other.

But Luke, along with this, records another and heavier charge against them, saying, “For the tax collectors declared God in the right, having received the baptism of John.”

Then he goes on to reproach the cities, now that wisdom has been proved right, now that he has shown that everything has been fully done. Having failed to persuade them, he now only laments over them, which does more than terrify them. He had shown them both his teaching, by his words, and his wonder-working power, by his signs. But since they remained in their unbelief, he now only reproaches them. [r]

For it says, “Then Jesus began to reproach the cities in which most of his mighty works had been done, because they did not repent: ‘Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida!’”

Then, to show you that they are not like this by nature, he also names the city from which five apostles came. For Philip, and those two pairs of the leading apostles, were from there.

“For if,” he says, “the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you. And you, Capernaum, who are lifted up to heaven, will be brought down to hell. For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I tell you, it will be more bearable for the land of Sodom on the day of judgment than for you.”

It is not for nothing that he adds Sodom to the others; it is to make the charge against them heavier. For it is a very great proof of wickedness when, not only among those living now, but among all who were ever wicked, none are found as bad as they.

So elsewhere too he makes a comparison, condemning them by the people of Nineveh and by the queen of the south. There, however, it was by those who did right; here it is even by those who sinned, which is far more grievous. Ezekiel too knew this rule of condemnation. That is why he said to Jerusalem, “You have shown your sisters to be in the right by all your sins.” So everywhere he loves to linger in the Old Testament, as on favorite ground. And he does not stop his words even there, but makes their fear still sharper by saying that they would suffer worse things than the people of Sodom and of Tyre, so as to gather them in by every means, both by lamenting over them and by alarming them.

Let us listen to these same words ourselves. Not for the unbelievers only, but for us too, he has appointed a punishment heavier than that of the people of Sodom, if we do not welcome the strangers who come to us. I mean when he commanded them to shake off the very dust — and rightly so. For the people of Sodom, though they committed a great sin, committed it before the law and before grace. But we, after so much care has been shown to us, what leniency could we deserve, when we show such inhospitality, shutting our doors against those in need, and before our doors, our ears? Or rather, shutting them not against the poor only, but against the apostles themselves? For the reason we do it to the poor is that we do it to the apostles themselves. When Paul is read and you pay no attention, when John preaches and you do not listen, when will you welcome a poor man — you who will not welcome an apostle? [u]

So that our houses may always be open to the one, and our ears to the other, let us clean the filth out of the ears of our soul. Just as dirt and mud stop up the ears of the body, so the songs of prostitutes, and worldly gossip, and debts, and the business of interest and loans stop up the ear of the mind worse than any filth. Or rather, they do not only stop it up; they make it unclean as well. Those who tell you of these things are putting dung in your ears. What the barbarian threatened when he said, “You will eat your own dung,” and the rest — these men make you undergo that too, not in word but in deed; or rather, something much worse. For those songs are more loathsome even than all that. And what is worse still, far from being disgusted when you hear them, you laugh, when you ought to loathe them and run away.

But if they are not loathsome, go down onto the stage yourself and imitate what you praise. Or rather, just take a walk with the man who raises that laugh. No, you could not bear it. Then why give him such great honor? The laws made by the pagans themselves mean such people to be held in disgrace, yet you receive them with your whole city, like ambassadors and generals, and call everyone together to take dung into their ears. If your slave says anything filthy in your hearing, he will get lashes in plenty; and if a son, or a wife, or anyone at all does what I have described, you call it an insult. But if worthless fellows who deserve the whip invite you to hear filthy words, far from being indignant, you are delighted and you applaud. What folly could match this?

But you never say these shameful words yourself? What good is that? Or rather, how is even that clear? If you did not say such things, you would not laugh at all when you heard them, and you would not run so eagerly to the voice that puts you to shame. Tell me, do you enjoy hearing people blaspheme? Don’t you rather shudder and stop your ears? I am sure you do. Why? Because you do not blaspheme yourself. Do the same with filthy talk. If you want to show us plainly that you take no pleasure in filthy speech, do not put up with so much as hearing it. When will you be able to become good, brought up as you are with such sounds in your ears? When will you dare to take on the labors that chastity demands, now that you are slipping away little by little through this laughter, these songs, and filthy words? It is a great thing for a soul that keeps itself clean of all this to be able to become serious and chaste; how much harder for one fed on things like these! Don’t you know that, of the two, we lean more toward evil? So when we make it an art and a business besides, when will we escape that furnace?

Have you not heard what Paul says: “Rejoice in the Lord”? He did not say, “in the devil.” When, then, will you be able to hear Paul? When will you come to see your own wrongdoing, drunk as you are, always and without a break, on the show I have been speaking of? Your coming here is nothing wonderful or great — or rather, it is wonderful. For you come here any old way, just to ease your conscience, but you go there eagerly and quickly and with great readiness. That is plain from what you bring home when you come back from there. [x]

All the muck that is poured out for you there — through the speeches, the songs, the laughter — you gather up, and each of you carries it home; or rather, not home only, but each into his own mind. You turn away from things that do not deserve disgust, while the things that do deserve it, far from hating, you actually go after. Many people, for example, wash themselves when they come back from a tomb, but coming back from the theater they have never groaned or poured out streams of tears. Yet a dead man is nothing unclean, while sin leaves such a stain that not even ten thousand springs could wash it away — only tears and confession can. But no one has any sense of this stain. And so, because we do not fear what we should, we shrink from what we should not.

And what is that applause? What is the uproar, the satanic shouting, the devilish gestures? First one performer, a young man, wears his hair long at the back, and, changing his nature into a woman’s, strives in look, in gesture, in dress, in every way, to pass for a soft young girl. Then another, an old man, goes the opposite way: his head shaved, his waist girded up, his sense of shame cut off before his hair, he stands ready to be beaten with the rod, prepared to say and do anything at all. The women, again, stand there with their heads uncovered and without a blush, speaking to a whole people, so thoroughly have they practiced shamelessness; and so they pour all their impudence and impurity into the souls of those who hear them. Their one aim is to tear chastity up by the roots, to disgrace our nature, and to satisfy the desire of the wicked demon. There are filthy sayings, and gestures filthier still; the hairstyles tend the same way, and the walk, and the clothes, and the voice, and the twisting of the limbs; there are rolling eyes, and flutes and pipes, and plays and plots — everything, in short, full of the most extreme impurity.

When will you ever be sober again, I ask you, when the devil pours out so much of the strong wine of sexual immorality for you and mixes so many cups of unchastity? For there are adulteries there, and stolen marriages; there are women playing the prostitute, men prostituting themselves, young men corrupting themselves. Everything there is wickedness to the full, all sorcery, all shame. So those who sit watching ought not to laugh at these things, but to weep and groan bitterly.

“What then? Are we to shut down the stage? Is everything to be turned upside down at your word?” No — as things are, everything is already turned upside down. Tell me, where do those who plot against our marriages come from? Is it not from this theater? Where do those who dig through walls into bedrooms come from? Is it not from that stage? Isn’t this why husbands are unbearable to their wives, and why wives are contemptible to their husbands? Isn’t this why most men are adulterers? So the one who turns everything upside down is the man who goes to the theater. He is the one who brings in a cruel tyranny.

“No,” you will say, “this has been established by the good order of the laws.” Why, carrying off other men’s wives, abusing young boys, and overturning households are the deeds of those who have seized a city’s citadel.

“And what adulterer,” you will say, “has ever been made one by these shows?” Rather, who has not been made one? If I could only name them now, I could show you how many husbands those prostitutes have parted from their wives, how many men they have taken captive, dragging some away from the marriage bed itself and not letting others live in marriage at all.

“What then, I ask you? Are we to overturn all the laws?” No — it is lawlessness we overturn if we do away with these shows. For this is where those who wreck our cities come from; from here come riots and uproars. The men kept by the dancers, who sell their voices for their bellies, whose job is to shout and to do everything monstrous — these above all are the ones who stir up the crowd and make the riots in our cities. For youth, when it has joined hands with idleness and been brought up among such evils, becomes fiercer than any wild beast. And the necromancers, I ask you, where do they come from? Is it not from here? To excite the people who idle about with nothing to do, to win loud and long applause for the dancers, and to arm the prostitutes against the chaste women, they go so far in sorcery that they do not shrink even from disturbing the bones of the dead. Is it not from here that men are forced to spend without limit on that wicked choir of the devil? And lewdness, with its countless evils — where does that come from? You see: it is you who are wrecking our life, by drawing people to these things, while I am restoring it by putting them down.

“Then let us pull down the stage,” they say. I wish it were possible to pull it down! Or rather, if you are willing, as far as we are concerned it is already pulled down and dug up. Still, I give no such order. Let these places stand; I ask you to make them useless — and that would be more to your credit than pulling them down.

Imitate the barbarians, at least, if no one else; for they keep entirely clear of seeking such shows. What excuse can we have, then, after all this — we, the citizens of heaven, who share in the choirs of the cherubim and have fellowship with the angels — when we make ourselves worse in this respect than even the barbarians, and that when countless other pleasures, better than these, are within our reach? [z]

If you want your soul to find delight, go to parks, to a river flowing by, to lakes; look at gardens; listen to the grasshoppers singing; be often at the tombs of the martyrs, where there is health for the body and benefit for the soul, and no harm, and no regret after the pleasure, as there is with the other kind.

You have a wife, you have children: what pleasure equals this? You have a house, you have friends: these are the true delights. Besides being pure, they bring great benefit. For what, I ask you, is sweeter than children? What is sweeter than a wife, for a man who is willing to keep his mind chaste?

On this point, we are told, the barbarians once made a remark full of stern wisdom. When they heard of these wicked shows and the ill-timed pleasure people take in them, they said, “The Romans have invented these pleasures as though they had no wives and children.” They meant that nothing is sweeter than children and a wife, if you are willing to live decently.

“What then,” someone may say, “if I point to some who are not harmed at all by passing their time there?” First of all, this itself is harm: to spend your time to no purpose and with no fruit, and to become a stumbling block to others. Even if you are not harmed yourself, you make someone else keener on these things. And how can you help being harmed yourself, when you give occasion to what goes on there? The fortune-teller, the boy who prostitutes himself, the prostitute, and all those choirs of the devil lay the blame for what they do on your head. For just as surely as there would be no one to follow these trades if there were no spectators, so, since there are spectators, they too have their share in the fire those deeds deserve. So even if your chastity came through quite unharmed — which is impossible — you will still give a heavy account for the ruin of others: that of the spectators, and that of those who bring them together.

And you would gain more in chastity too if you kept away from there. If you are chaste even now, you would have become more chaste by avoiding such sights. So let us not take pleasure in useless arguing, or think up worthless defenses. There is only one defense: to flee the furnace of Babylon, to keep far away from the Egyptian prostitute, even if one must escape her hands naked.

For in this way we will enjoy great delight, with no accusing conscience; we will live this present life in chastity, and we will attain the good things to come, by the grace and love for humankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory and power, now and always, and forever and ever. Amen.