Office of Readings

  And in fact you have there a great many people who need to be disciplined, who talk nonsense and try to make others believe it, particularly among those of the Circumcision. They have got to be silenced: men of this kind ruin whole families, by teaching things that they ought not to, and doing it with the vile motive of making money. It is for you, then, to preach the behaviour which goes with healthy doctrine. The older men should be reserved, dignified, moderate, sound in faith and love and constancy. Similarly, the older women should behave as though they were religious, with no scandal-mongering and no habitual wine-drinking – they are to be the teachers of the right behaviour and show the younger women how they should love their husbands and love their children, how they are to be sensible and chaste, and how to work in their homes, and be gentle, and do as their husbands tell them, so that the message of God is never disgraced. In the same way, you have got to persuade the younger men to be moderate and in everything you do make yourself an example to them of working for good: when you are teaching, be an example to them in your sincerity and earnestness and in keeping all that you say so wholesome that nobody can make objections to it; and then any opponent will be at a loss, with no accusation to make against us.

  Who is that master, brethren? Without a doubt it is Christ, who says to his disciples, ‘You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am.’

  What, too, is the master’s household ? Doubtless it is the one which the Lord himself ransomed from the hand of the enemy and freed for his own service. This sacred household is the holy, Catholic Church, which is spread through the whole earth with abundant fertility, and glories in the fact that she has been redeemed by the precious blood of her Master. As he himself says, ‘The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.’

  He too, is the good shepherd who laid down his life for his sheep. The flock therefore of the good shepherd is the household of the Redeemer.

  As to who the steward is who ought to be faithful as well as wise, the apostle Paul shows us, when, speaking of himself and his companions, he says, ‘This is how one should regard us, as the servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy.’

  Now, lest anyone of us should think that it is only the apostles that have been made stewards, and lest anyone should neglect the duty of his spiritual military service and like a lazy servant yield unfaithfully and unwisely to sleep, the blessed Apostle shows us that the bishops also are stewards, when he says, ‘For a bishop, as God’s steward, must be blameless.’

  We therefore are the servants of the master of the household, we are the stewards of the Lord, we have received the measure of wheat to disburse to you.

  If we should ask what the measure of wheat is, the blessed apostle Paul explains it also, saying, ‘To each according to the measure of faith which God has assigned him.’

  What therefore Christ calls the measure of wheat, Paul calls the measure of faith, so that we can learn that this spiritual wheat is nothing else but the revered sacrament of the Christian faith. The measure of this wheat we give you in the name of the Lord as often as we discourse according to the rule of the true faith, being enlightened by the gift of spiritual grace; and you receive this same measure of wheat by the hands of the stewards of the Lord when daily you hear the word of truth from the servants of God’s household.