[Sermones "Dormi secure" de tempore]

And His mother Mary was conserving all these words, conferring them in her heart as if in a book, just as Luke wrote his Gospel from the mouth and heart of the virgin. And the boy Jesus was progressing in wisdom and age before God and men, according to what He was God and man. Although He was as wise when He was born as when He was dying, nevertheless the Gospel speaks according to humanity and childhood. And thus the Gospel is clear. With regard to the theme: I must be about my Father's business, there are four things in which it was necessary for Christ to be. First, He was in these things as a most expeditious legate. Second, He was in these things as a most wise doctor. Third, He was in these things as a most strong defender. Fourth, He was a most subtle teacher. First, I say that it was necessary for Christ to be in those things that were for the redemption of the human race, for which He was sent by the Father as a most expeditious legate. Where we see that these great kings, emperors, and the Pope, in arduous negotiations, sending their legates, give them full power for reforming peace. Thus God the Father sent Christ Jesus with the plenitude of His power. Whence someone says: We have heard a report from the Lord, and He has sent a legate to the nations. We see, I say, when the Pope sends one of his cardinals across the sea in a legation, he carries the papal insignia, and he has the authority of absolving the excommunicated from wherever they may come to him, and he has the power of conferring benefits. Thus Christ was sent by the Father, who is the Father of fathers, from whom all fatherhood, whether in heaven or on earth, is named, according to the Apostle to Ephesians 3. This legate, therefore, Christ, carried a thousand insignia, sent across the sea of this age. For He had the power to drive out demons. For the demons said: You are the Son of the living God. Whence He said to His disciples in the Gospel of John 10: Do you not believe that I am sent by the Father? The Father and I are one. Believe the works. Concerning this mission as a legate, John says in Revelation 7: Behold, I, John, saw another angel ascending from the rising of the sun, having the sign of the living God. And he cried with a loud voice to the four angels to whom it is given to harm the earth and the sea, saying: Do not harm the earth and the sea, nor the trees, until we sign the servants of our God in their foreheads. Thus, morally, this other angel was Christ, because John the Baptist was the first, as the Savior commends him in the Gospel, Luke 7: This is he of whom it is written: Behold, I send my angel. Because just as an angel is sent by God into the earth, so the first angel, John, was sent. But the other angel is Christ, who has the sign of the living God, namely the Father, so that He might be able to command over all things. Therefore He cried to those four angels: Do not harm the earth and the sea, that is, the penitents, who are signified by the sea, and the earth, that is, the sinners, cold like the earth, until we sign the servants of our God who believe in God in their foreheads. And this sign is imprinted upon us in baptism. This legate, therefore, has the power to absolve the excommunicated, that is, the penitent sinners, as Matthew 9 says: But that you may know that