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| Chapter III. St. Ambrose returns to the story of the widow of Sarepta, and shows that she represented the Church, hence that she was an example to virgins, married women, and widows. Then he refers to the prophet as setting forth Christ, inasmuch as he foretold the mysteries and the rain which was to come. Next he touches upon and explains the twofold sign of Gideon, and points out that it is not in every one's power to work miracles, and that the Incarnation of Christ and the rejection of the Jews were foreshadowed in that account.
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Chapter III.
St. Ambrose returns to the story of the widow of
Sarepta, and shows that she represented the Church, hence that she was
an example to virgins, married women, and widows. Then he refers
to the prophet as setting forth Christ, inasmuch as he foretold the
mysteries and the rain which was to come. Next he touches upon
and explains the twofold sign of Gideon, and points out that it is not
in every one’s power to work miracles, and that the Incarnation
of Christ and the rejection of the Jews were foreshadowed in that
account.
14. To return to
what was treated of above,3321
what is the
meaning of the fact that when there was a very great famine in all the
land, yet the care of God was not wanting to the widow, and the prophet
was sent to sustain her? And when in this story the Lord warns me
that He is about to speak in truth,3322
He seems
to bid my ears attend to a mystery. For what can be more true
than the mystery of Christ and the Church? Not, then, without a
purpose is one preferred amongst many widows. Who is such an one,
to whom so great a prophet who was carried up into heaven, should be
guided, especially at that time when the heaven was shut for three
years and six months, when there was a great famine in the whole
land? The famine was everywhere, and yet notwithstanding this
widow did not want. What are these three years? Are they
not, perchance, those in which the Lord came to the earth and could not
find fruit on the fig-tree, according to that which is written:
“Behold, there are three years that I came seeking fruit on this
fig-tree, and find none.”3323
15. This is assuredly that widow of whom it
was said: “Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not, break
forth and cry, thou that availest not with child; for many are the
children of the desolate, more than of her who hath an
husband.”3324
And
well is she a widow of whom it is well said: “Thou
shalt not remember thy shame
and thy widowhood, for I am the Lord Who make thee.”3325
And perchance therefore is she a
widow who has lost her Husband indeed in the suffering of His body, but
in the day of judgment shall receive again the Son of Man Whom she
seemed to have lost. “For a short time have I forsaken
thee,”3326
He says, in
order that, being forsaken, she may the more gloriously keep her
faith.
16. All, then, have an example to imitate,
virgins, married women, and widows. And perchance is the Church
therefore a virgin, married, and a widow, because they are one body in
Christ. She is then that widow for Whose sake when there was a
dearth of the heavenly Word on earth, the prophets were appointed, for
there was a widow who was barren, yet reserved her bringing forth for
its own time.
17. So that his person does not seem to us
of small account, who by his word moistened the dry earth with the dew
of heaven, and unlocked the closed heavens certainly not by human
power. For who is he who can open the heavens except Christ, for
Whom daily out of sinners’ food is gathered, an increase for the
Church? For it is not in the power of man to say:
“The barrel of meal shall not waste, and the cruse of oil shall
not fail, until the day on which the Lord shall send rain on the
earth.”3327
For
though it be the rule of the prophets to speak thus, the voice is in
truth that of the Lord. And so it is stated first:
“For thus saith the Lord.”3328
For it is of the Lord to vouch
for a continuance of heavenly sacraments, and to promise that the grace
of spiritual joy shall not fail, to grant the defences of life, the
seals of faith, the gifts of virtues.
18. But what does this mean:
“Until the day on which the Lord shall send rain on the
earth”? except that He, too, “shall come down like rain
upon a fleece, and like the drops that water the earth.”3329
In which passage is disclosed
the mystery of the old history where Gideon, the warrior of the mystic
conflict, receiving the pledge of future victory, recognized the
spiritual sacrament in the vision of his mind, that that rain was the
dew of the Divine Word, which first came down on the fleece, when all
the earth was parched with continual drought, and by a second true
sign, moistened the floor of all the earth with a shower, whilst
dryness was upon the fleece.3330
19. For the prescient man observed the sign
of the future growth of the Church. For first in Judæa the
dew of the divine utterance began to give moisture (for “in Jewry
is God known”),3331
whilst the
whole earth remained without the dew of faith. But when
Joseph’s flock began to deny God, and by venturing on various
enormous offences to incur guilt before God, then when the dew of the
heavenly shower was poured on the whole earth, the people of the Jews
began to grow dry and parched in their own unbelief, when the clouds of
prophecy and the healthful shower of the Apostles watered the holy
Church gathered together from all parts of the world. This is
that rain, now condensed from earthly moisture, now from mountain
mists, but diffused throughout the whole world in the salutary shower
of the heavenly Scriptures.
20. By this example, then, it is shown that
not all can merit the miracles of divine power, but they who are aided
by the pursuits of religious devotion, and that they lose the fruits of
divine working who are devoid of reverence for heaven. It is also
shown in a mystery that the Son of God, in order to restore the Church,
took upon Himself the mystery of a human body, casting off the Jewish
people, from whom the counsellor and the prophet and the miracles of
the divine benefits were taken away,3332
because
that as it were by a kind of national blemish they were not willing to
believe in the Son of God.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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