A Change of Heart

WE ARE ALL familiar with the picture of St. Anthony holding the Christ-Child in his arms. It is, in the strictest and most literal sense ‘iconic’. It reminds us that, like Francis, Anthony had a great devotion to the Nativity, to the mystery of the Word made flesh, of God coming among us not in majesty, but in poverty and humility, born of a poor and humble mother, who was yet Mother of God!

In his Sermon on the Nativity (Sermons, vol 4, 1-17), Anthony meditates on the story as told by Luke. “And it came to pass that when they were there. Where? In the house of bread.” Beth-lehem means “house of bread” in Hebrew, and, says our Saint, Mary is the true house of bread. A modern hymn depicts Mary as a bakerwoman who receives a grain of wheat from God. She “took the road which led to Bethlehem, the house of bread. To knead the bread she laboured through the night, and brought it forth about midnight”. Anthony writes, “The bread of angels has become the milk of little ones, that the little ones may become angels”. By ‘little ones’ he means not just children, but all who, as our Lord tells us, become like little children.

 

Divine partnership

 

The twin images of bread and milk suggest the partnership of father (the ‘breadwinner’) and mother. The Bread of Heaven comes into the world from the will of the Father and the humble obedience of Mary. Anthony quotes St. Augustine, “The Father gave deity, the mother humanity; the Father gave majesty, the mother weakness”. This is the great Mystery of the Incarnation, that the Creator of the world should appear within it as a helpless child.

“Her days were accomplished that she should be delivered.” As Scripture says, the coming of the Saviour was in the fullness of time. Anthony makes play with the idea of fullness, saying that all the time from Adam to Christ was an empty time, lacking the presence of the Saviour. It held only negative things – pain and weakness. He praises Mary: “To you, O blessed Virgin, be praise and glory, for today we are filled with the goodness of your house… We, who were empty before, are full; we who were sick are healthy; we who were cursed are blessed”.

 

God is with us

 

God’s gifts are free: they cannot be bought for money. This is a paradox and a reproach to those in this world for whom money is everything, who cannot distinguish between price and value. Anthony never missed an opportunity to awake the usurers of his time to the demands of God, of conscience. Isaiah called the people of Israel to buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why waste time and energy on things that in the end do not satisfy? Anthony writes that we should run and buy “the grain of wheat which the Virgin has brought forth this day from the storehouse of her womb”.

The Bread of Life is Emmanuel, God-with-us. This mysterious title implies not only that God is physically among us, but that he is ‘with us’, on our side, supporting and sustaining. He is our Friend and Brother. “Thanks to you, O glorious Virgin”, says Anthony, “because through you God is with us.” If even the most wretched member of the human race is to be convinced that God is with him or her, God must come in poverty and weakness, sharing the condition of the outcast and downtrodden. “O poverty! O humility! The Lord of all is wrapped in a scrap of cloth! The King of Angels lies down in a stable! Blush, insatiable avarice! Be ashamed, human pride!” Anthony notes that our Lord was wrapped in a cloth both at the beginning and at the end of His earthly life.

 

Moral conversion

 

One of the key features of the time Anthony lived was the enormous inequality between rich and poor. Although the Christian Gospel had been preached for twelve centuries, it had received a very mixed reception. There were saints like Francis who (in a memorable phrase attributed to Pope Innocent III), “naked followed the naked Christ; poor followed the poor Christ”. There were many like him who gave up a comfortable life in order to imitate the Lord. But there were also many who amassed wealth and property, even at the expense of their poorer brothers and sisters.

The same is true today. It is right and proper to protest against such selfishness. But merely ‘protesting against’ injustice is not likely to remove it. How many revolutions there have been, which have merely replaced one tyranny with another! From John the Baptist onwards, Saints have seen that what is needed is not so much political action as moral conversion or, better, that political action alone will achieve little without moral conversion. There needs to be repentance, metanoia, a change of heart.

 

Appealing to the heart

 

If it is the heart that must be changed, it is the heart that must be appealed to. Even in the worst sinner, we must hope for a spark of decency, a possibility of renewal. The Nativity story and the Passion story show God Himself not denouncing anyone, but setting an example. It is said that many fail to show love because they have never been shown love. Children brought up in loveless families are stunted when it comes to bringing up their own children. “This is the love of God”, says St. John, “not that we loved God, but that He first loved us”. At Bethlehem and at Calvary God showed how much He loves us, by letting us see how much He was prepared to suffer for our sakes.

“Hark, hark, the wise eternal Word like a weak infant cries! In form of servant is the Lord, and God in cradle lies”. Francis and Anthony marvelled at the humility of God, and by setting it before others – whether by constructing the Crib at Greccio, or by depicting it in impassioned preaching – they sought to move hearts to repentance and renewal. God loves us all, weak and sinful as we are. We in turn must love our weak and sinful neighbour. We are not called on to condemn so much as to convert, to appeal to the heart by demonstrating that, in Christ born of Mary, God Himself is with us.