The Lord our God has granted me the favor of seeing you and being seen by you, and we can all give him thanks together. And if this is the reason that our mouth is filled with joy and our tongue with exultation, that we have seen each other in the mortal flesh, imagine what our joy will be when we have seen each other in that place, where we will have nothing at all to fear from each other. The apostle says, Rejoice in hope.^[1] So our present joy is in hope, not yet in the thing itself. But hope which is seen, he says, is not hope; for why does anyone hope for what he can see? But if we are hoping for what we cannot see, we wait for it with patience.^[2] But if travelers rejoice in each other’s company on the way, what joy they will obtain in their home country!

Concerning food. Let the body have its victuals, that it may live and render its services unimpeded, but not so as to be given to daintiness. Let these be your rules regarding food, since many trip up over meat. There are those who eat things sacrificed to idols without taking any notice. There are others who practice abstinence and then pass judgment on those who eat. And so the soul of this person or that is soiled in different ways, all in connection with the question of meats, through their not knowing the sensible reasons for eating or not eating. For we fast by abstaining from wine and from meat, not as though these things were abominations that we must hate but as expecting a reward for doing so, namely, that in spurning sensuous things, we may enjoy a spiritual and heavenly feast, that sowing now in tears, we may reap in joy, in the world to come. But do not, in fasting, despise those who are eating such food, and eating it because of bodily infirmity. Do not blame those who use a little wine for their stomach’s sake, and their frequent infirmities,^[1] and certainly do not adjudge them to be sinners. Do not abhor flesh meats as if they were taboo, for the apostle evidently knew people like that, since he says that there are [those] who forbid to marry, and command to abstain from meats, which God has created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe.^[2] If therefore you are abstaining from these things, let it not be as from things abhorred, or your reward is lost, but as good things let them be transcended, in the quest of the fairer spiritual rewards that are set before you.

Blessed are they who weep, for they shall laugh.^[1] They, therefore, who spend the days of their life, which is already at its consummation and declining toward its setting, in weeping for their sins, these will be glad in that true morning that is approaching. They that sow in tears shall reap in joy, of course, in the future.

I sympathize with you,^[1] because the Lord our God also sympathized with us, suffered with us. You see, he revealed himself in you, and you in himself, when he said, My soul is sad to the point of death.^[2] He suffered for us, let us suffer for him; he died for us, let us die for him, in order to live forever with him. But perhaps you are hesitant to die, O mortal creature, though you are bound to die sometime or other, precisely because you are mortal. Would you like not to fear death? Die for God. But perhaps the reason you are afraid to die is that death is such a sad business. Consider the harvest; the time for sowing is cold; but if the farmer declines to be made miserable by sowing in the cold in winter, he won’t rejoice in the summer. Take a look at yourself, and see whether the reason you are reluctant to sow is that there is the sadness and misery of the cold at seed time.

Look at the psalm: Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy. Going, they were going and weeping, casting their seed;^[3] That is what we were singing just now; let us do what we have sung. Let us sow our souls in this time, like corn in winter, so that we may reap them in eternal time, like corn in summer time. That is the way the holy martyrs, the way all the just, toiling away on earth, weeping cast their seed; this life, after all, is full of tears. And what follows? But coming, they will come with exultation, carrying their lapfuls.^[4] Your seed is the shedding of your blood; your lapful the reception of your crown.

Who labored? Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Read their labors! In all their labors [there was] prophecy of Christ; and thus [they were] the sowers. Moses and the rest of the patriarchs and all the prophets, how much did they endure in that cold when they were sowing! Therefore in Judea the harvest was now ready. Rightly there the crop was, so to speak, ripe, when so many thousands of people were bringing the price of their possessions and laying it at the feet of the apostles; their shoulders freed of worldly baggage, they were following Christ, the Lord.^[1] Truly a ripe harvest. What came of it? From that harvest a few grains were cast out, and they sowed the world, and there arises another harvest that is to be reaped at the end of the world. About this harvest it is said, They who sow in tears shall reap in joy. To this harvest, therefore, not apostles but angels will be sent; he says, The reapers are the angels.^[2]

Let no one believe that he possesses any happiness or true joy in this world. Happiness can be prepared for, but it cannot be possessed here. Two times succeed each other in their own order, a time to weep, and a time to laugh.^[1] Let no one deceive himself, brethren; there is no time to laugh in this world. I know, indeed, that everyone wants to rejoice, but people do not all look for joy in the place where it should be sought. True joy never did exist in this world, it does not do so now, and it never will. For thus the Lord warned his disciples in the Gospel when he said, You will suffer in the world,^[2] and again, While the world rejoices, you will grieve for a time, but your grief will be turned into joy.^[3] For this reason, with the Lord’s help let us do good in this life through labor and sorrow, so that in the future life we may be able to gather the fruits of our good deeds with joy and exultation according to that sentence: Those who sow in tears shall reap rejoicing.

But this discourse of the Lord is also appropriate to all believers who are striving to arrive at eternal joys through the tears and distress of the present [life]; who rightly lament and weep and are sorrowful during the present [time], since they are not yet capable of seeing him whom they love. As long as they are in their body they recognize that they are on a journey and [absent] from their fatherland and kingdom. They have no doubt that they must reach their crown by labors and contests. Their sorrow will be changed to joy when, after the struggle of this present life is over, they receive the prize of everlasting life, about which it is said in the psalm, Those who sow in tears will reap in joy.

So [Christ] transposed the weak members of his body [the church] into himself. And perhaps it was of them that it is said, Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy, that is to say, of the weaker ones. After all, that great herald of Christ was not sowing in tears when he said, For I indeed am already being sacrificed, and the time of my casting off is at hand. I have fought the good fight, I have completed the course, I have kept the faith. For the rest, there is being kept for me the crown of justice—a crown made of sheaves. There is being kept for me, he says, the crown of justice, which the Lord, the just judge, will render to me on that day.^[1] As though to say, He will render me the harvest, for whom I am spending myself in sowing. These words, brothers, as I understand them, are the words of someone merrymaking, not of someone crying. You don’t suppose he was in tears, do you, when he said this? Wasn’t he exactly like the cheerful giver, whom God loves? So let us refer these words [Jesus’ words] to the weak, in order that not even those who have sown in tears need despair, because even if they have sown in tears, the pain and the sighing will pass away. Sadness passes at the end, and gladness comes without end.

And yet for all that, dearly beloved, this finally is how it seems to me that these words refer to everyone, Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy. Going they were going and weeping, casting their seed. But coming they shall come with merrymaking, carrying their sheaves.^[2] Listen, if with the Lord’s assistance I am able to explain it, how going they were going and weeping belongs to everyone. From the moment we are born, we are going. Is there anyone, after all, who stands still? Is there anyone who, from the moment he enters life, is not forced to get moving? An infant is born; it gets moving by growing. Death is the end. We have still got to come to the end—but with merrymaking.

So it is only proper, brothers and sisters, that you should be told these things. Attend to the poor, whether they are lying there or whether they are walking about; attend to the poor, do good works. If you are in the habit of doing so, do so; if you are not in the habit of doing so, do so. Let there be an increase in the number of do-gooders, because there is an increase, certainly, in the number of the faithful. When you do something, you cannot yet see the quantity of the good you do; just as when the countryman sows he cannot yet see the crop, but he trusts the earth. You then, why don’t you trust God? Our harvest is coming. Imagine that we are now toiling away in what we do, toiling away as we work, only to reap the benefit in due course, as it is written: Going they were going and weeping, casting their seed; but coming they shall come with rejoicing, carrying their sheaves.

This psalm [126], being sung to the Lord, seems to fit the holy martyrs; but if we are members of Christ, as we ought to be, we can take these words as referring to all of us: Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy. Going they shall go and weep, casting their seed. But coming they shall come with merrymaking, carrying their sheaves.^[1] Where are they going, and where are they coming from? What are they sowing in tears? What is the seed, what are the sheaves? Going into death, coming from death; going by being born, coming by rising again. Sowing is whatever good we have done; our sheaves, what we shall receive at the end. So if the seed is good, the works are good, why in tears, seeing that God loves a cheerful giver?^[2]

The first thing to notice, dearly beloved, is how these words above all suit the blessed martyrs. Nobody, after all, has spent as much as those who have spent their very selves, as the apostle Paul says: And I myself will be spent for your souls.^[3] They spent themselves by confessing Christ and by carrying out with his help the saying You have sat at a great table; know that you must prepare similar things yourself.^[4] What is the meaning of know that you must prepare similar things yourself, if not what the blessed John explains: Just as Christ laid down his life for us, so we too ought to lay down our lives for the brethren?^[5] There you are, that is how much they spent.

I say this so that we should not nurse hopes of receiving the fruits of our sowing during this time in which we have done the sowing. Here we sow with toil a harvest of good works, but it is in the time to come that we shall garner its fruits with joy, according to what is written: Going they sent and wept, scattering their seed; but coming they will come with rejoicing, carrying their sheaves.^[1]

I beseech you with fatherly solicitude, equally admonishing and exhorting you, as was already said, to endeavor continually to read the sacred lessons yourselves or willingly to listen to others read them. By thus always thinking over in the treasury of your heart what is just and holy, you may prepare for your souls an eternal spiritual food that will bring you endless bliss. Christ does not lie when he says in the person of his apostle, What a person sows, that he will also reap.^[1] With God’s help let us endeavor to continually plant in the field of our heart by reading, praying and performing good works those deeds whereof we may reap a harvest of justice and mercy on the future day of retribution. Then will be fulfilled in us what is written: Going, they went and wept, casting their seeds. But coming, they shall come with joyfulness, carrying their sheaves. To this happiness may the good Lord lead you, who, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns world without end.