Wednesday of the Fourth Week of Lent –18 March – Our Lenten Journey With St Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) Doctor of the Church
Wednesday of the Fourth Week
The Divine Friend
“His sisters sent to Him saying :
Lord, behold, he whom Thou lovest, is ill.”
John xi. 3
Three things here call for thought.
- God’s friends are afflicted from time to time in the body.
It is not, therefore, in any way a proof that a man is not a friend of God if he is ill and ailing.
Eliphaz argued falsely against Job when he said, “Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished being innocent?or when were the just destroyed?” (Job iv. 7).
The Gospel corrects this when it says, “Lord, behold, he whom Thou lovest is ill” and the Book of Proverbs, too, where we read, “For whom the Lord loveth, He chastiseth and as a father in the son, He pleaseth Himself” (Prov. iii. 12).
- The sisters do not say, “Lord, come and heal him.”
They merely explain that Lazarus is ill, they say, he is sick. This is to remind us that, when we are dealing with a friend, it is enough to make known our necessity, we do not need to add a request.
For a friend, since he wills the welfare of his friend, as he wills his own, is as anxious to ward off evil from his friend as he is to ward it off from himself.
This is true, most of all in the case of Him Who, of all friends, Loves most truly.
“The Lord keepeth all those who love Him”(Ps cxliv. 20). - These two sisters, who so greatly desire the cure of their ill brother, do not come to Christ personally, as did the centurion and the man ill of the palsy.
From the special Love and familiarity which Christ had shown them, they had a special confidence in Him.
And, possibly, their grief kept them at home, as St Chrysostom thinks.
“A friend, if he continue steadfast, shall be to thee, as thyself, and shall act with confidence among those of thy household” (Ecclus vi. 11).
ST THOMAS AQUINAS (1225-1274)
Priest, Theologian, Dominican
Doctor Angelicus (Angelic Doctor)
Doctor Communis (Common Doctor)
Added by Pope Saint Pius V in 1568
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