Jeremiah 15:10

Such is our life, we whose existence is so transitory. Such is the game we play on earth. We do not exist, and we are born, and being born, we disintegrate and disappear. We are a fleeting dream, an apparition without substance, the flight of a bird that passes, a ship that leaves no trace on the sea. We are dust, a vapor, the morning dew, a flower growing but a moment and withering in a moment. "A person's days are as grass. As the flower of the field, so shall he flourish," beautifully, as described by holy David in meditating on our weakness. And again in these words: "Declare to me the fewness of my days." And he defines the days of people as the measure of a span. What would you say to Jeremiah, who, complaining about his birth, even blames his mother, and that, too, for the failings of others. I have seen all things, says the Preacher, I have reviewed in thought all human things, wealth, pleasure, power, unstable glory, wisdom that evades us rather than is won; then pleasure again, wisdom again, often revolving the same objects, the pleasures of appetite, orchards, numbers of slaves, store of wealth, serving men and serving maids, singing men and singing women, arms, spearmen, subject nations, collected tributes, the pride of kings, all the necessaries and superfluities of life, in which I surpassed all the kings that were before me. And what does he say after all these things? Vanity of vanities.

This synecdoche can be understood concerning Jeremiah, who shall be judged only in the land of Judea, out of the entire world. He corresponds to the true Lord our Savior, who says in the Gospel: "I have come into this world for judgment, that those who do not see may see and those who see may be blinded," about whom it was also written: "Behold, this child is set for the ruin and resurrection of many in Israel and for a sign of contradiction." For which of the philosophers and pagans and who among the heretics does not judge Christ by applying their laws to his birth and suffering and resurrection and substance? Nor is it strange for Christ to be saying, according to the truth of his assumed body, "Woe is me, my mother," when, in another location, it is obviously a speaker who corresponds to his person who says, "Woe is me, for I have become as one who gathers the stubble at harvest and as a cluster of the vine having no first fruit to eat." And lest we think that the weakness of these groans reflects on the Word of God, who is indeed the person that mourns, immediately he continues, "Woe is me, my soul that perishes from the earth in reverence." It is not that we wish to divide Christ into two persons, like the impious do, but rather that one and the same Son of God sometimes speaks according to the flesh and sometimes according to the Word of God.

Jeremiah also bewails his birth in these words: "Woe is me, my mother! Why have you borne me, a man of contention in all the earth? I have not benefited others, nor has anyone benefited me. My strength has failed." If, then, holy people shrink from life whose life, though profitable to us, they themselves consider unprofitable, what ought we to do who are not able to profit others and who feel that our lives, like money borrowed at interest, grow more heavily weighted every day with an increasing mass of sins? "I die daily," says the apostle. Better certainly is this saying than those who say that meditation on death is true philosophy, for while they praise the study, he exercises the practice of death.

Physicians of bodies, being present with the sick and always devoting themselves to the care of the ailing according to the intent of the medical art, look upon dreadful things and touch loathsome ones; from the misfortunes of others they reap their own griefs, and their life is always in the midst of hardship. For they are never with the healthy, but always with the wounded, with those who have festering sores, with those full of pus, of fevers, of manifold diseases. And if anyone wishes to make ready the practice of medicine, he will not be indignant nor neglect the intent of the art which he has taken up, whenever he is among such people as we have described. I have spoken this preface because the prophets too are, as it were, physicians of souls, and they always spend their time where those who need healing are; for "it is not the healthy who have need of a physician, but those who are ill." And what physicians suffer at the hands of the intemperate sick, this the prophets and the teachers also suffer at the hands of those who do not wish to be healed. For thence they are hated, as though they gave orders contrary to the preference of the desire of the sick, as though they hindered from luxury and pleasure those who, even in their sicknesses, wish not to receive what befits their sicknesses. So the intemperate among the sick flee from their physicians, often even reviling them and speaking evil of them and doing every possible thing that an enemy might do to an enemy. […]

Those who call the prophets blessed, and who by calling them blessed pray to have their portion with the prophets, gather from the prophetic words the choicest features of their prophecy. Seeking, then, they might be persuaded—if they should live according to these things (even if it should turn out hard for them in this life to imitate the prophetic life)—that they will attain rest and blessedness together with the prophets. Now it is possible from many sources to gather the choice qualities of the prophets: their freedom, their vigor, their wakefulness, their alertness—that they were not anxious when they found themselves in dire circumstances, because of their freedom, their only concern being to reprove, to convert, as prophets do, by speaking the word of God with boldness, rebuking the sinners, even though those being reproved seemed to have great power. But even if it is possible to do this from every source, let us look also at the passages read today. The prophet reproved many, and the prophet spoke to many; for he indeed lived among people who had become sinners, as is clear from the fact that the captivity occurred in his days. Having reproved many, and being judged by many, he utters words of this kind. For first let us look at it from the prophetic word, and then also according to the anagogical sense, if we first take up the vigor and freedom and power and boldness of a prophet. "Woe is me, mother, that you have borne me such a man—one contending in judgment and disputed with in all the earth!" O mother, why have you borne me a man contending in judgment against all who are upon the earth, and being disputed with against all who are upon the earth? For it was set before this prophet, and before Isaiah, and before the rest, to fulfill the prophetic office: to teach, to reprove, and to convert. […]