But again the Lord appeared to more than five hundred1 brethren at once, as the Apostle says ; but where and when this Appearance took place, we are not told. But the gracious Lord, standing in the midst of them, preaching and speaking concerning the kingdom of God, filled them with great sweetness. You have thus twelve Appearances of our Lord from the Resurrection to the Ascension, besides the two to be treated in connection with the Ascension itself? making in all fourteen. You must remember, however, that two are only legendary. The Appearance to His mother is a matter of pious belief, not of scriptural authority. And the account of the Appearance to Joseph is only found in the so-called Gospel of Nicodemus. How the Lord appeared to James, the Apostle relates in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, and S. Jerome records it ; and this Appearance to the five hundred is written in the same place. All the other Appearances are in the Gospel. There is more yet, upon which you may piously meditate. For it is very probable that there are unrecorded Appearances, and that our Lord often visited His mother, disciples, and Magdalen, His beloved disciple, comforting and gladdening those who had been so grieved and terrified by His Passion. The same was thought by S. Augustine, who says of the time after the Resurrection, “Everything which happened is not recorded, His intercourse with them was frequent.” We can imagine, too, how the Holy Fathers rejoiced in the Incarnation \ how especially Abraham and David delighted to see their promises fulfilled; how Jesus was born of a blessed mother, through whom grace and salvation entered into the world. O what was their joy and delight, when they were witnesses of these things ! Here again, as before, you can consider the kindness, love, and lowliness of the Lord (which virtues we have often pointed out, for they are ever observable in His conduct), in that, after He had conquered gloriously, and risen again, He yet vouchsafed to stay here forty days,2 prolonging His pilgrimage, in order that He might confirm and strengthen His disciples. For justly, after a career of so many years, after so many labours and afflictions, after such an ignominious and bitter death, the Conqueror might have returned at once in triumph to His Glory, and have despatched angels to comfort and strengthen His Apostles at His will. But His love would not permit this course : He willed personally to converse with them, appearing to them for forty days by many proofs, and speaking to them of the Kingdom of God. He did this for them, and for us too ; but we pay but little heed to it. He loved thee vehemently, and is not loved in return ; whereas, from such and so great a fire, we ought not only to be warmed, but to be inflamed. Now let us come to the Ascension.
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