St. Clement was like the apostles: 1. In his patience; 2. In
the signs and wonders he performed. Preached on the feast of
St. Clement in the Collegiate Church of St. Paulinus.
" The signs of my apostleship have been wrought on you, in
all patience, in signs and wonders." (2 Cor 12:12)
Although I was a persecutor of the Church of Christ; although
I am the last of those who were called and appointed to the apostolate by the Lord; although I must acknowledge that I am nothing, yet I am not less than the great apostles: "I have no way come short of them that are above measure apostles, although I be nothing." Why so? Because I have shown amongst you all the marks of the apostolic office; namely, in all patience, in signs and wonders. This confession regarding himself is made by St. Paul, the great teacher of the nations. My dear brethren, in the same words I can, it seems to me, with reason praise the holy Pope and martyr Clement, whose feast is celebrated to-day in this church. For if the marks of an apostle, according to the words of St. Paul, consist in all patience, in signs and wonders, certainly Clement is not unlike the great apostles, as I mean to show in this panegyric.
St. Clement was like the apostles in all patience; the first part. St. Clement was like the apostles in signs and wonders; the second part.
Both to the honor and glory of this Saint; both with a brief
moral lesson for the good of our souls, which we expect from
God, through the hands of Mary and of the holy angels.
If I had nothing more to say of St. Clement than that he was a
companion and fellow- worker of St. Paul, the apostle of the Gentiles, as the latter calls him in the Epistle to the Philippians, " who have labored with me in the gospel with Clement and the rest of my fellow-laborers, whose names are in the Book of Life," a then I should have sufficiently proved the first part of my proposition, that in all patience he is like the apostles. For what a wonder of the world is proposed to me when Paul is named! After Our Lord Himself, who had so many hardships, trials, and difficulties to contend with as he? Humble as he was, and convinced that he was the greatest sinner in the world, unworthy the name of a servant of Christ, yet he boasts that he did more than the other apostles, that he is more than they: " They are the ministers of Christ (I speak as one less wise); " yet I dare say it, " I am more." St. Chrysostom wonders at these words, and thus apostrophizes St. Paul: "Show us what that more is, and how thou dost excel the others." Holy apostle, you say you are more than the others; show us how that is. Perhaps you are more learned, and have received more special wisdom from God to interpret the Scripture, to discover the mysteries hidden therein, and to convince all of the truth of Christianity? No; it is not in such things that I am more. Then it will perhaps be in your great eloquence with which you fearlessly attack the enemies of the faith, and make judges and kings tremble when you open your mouth? No; it is not that, either, that I boast of. And what, then? Did you perhaps perform more miracles than the others? Wrong again. Now I know what it is; you allude to your wonderful visions, to your ecstasies and revelations, to your journey to the third heaven? Neither is it that.
I will tell you what it is: My renown as an apostle consists in
this, that I have been more humiliated than the others, have
endured more crosses and trials, have been more persecuted and
hunted from one place to another, and more frequently scourged
and beaten: " In many more labors, in prisons more frequently, in stripes above measure, in deaths often;" in toilsome journeys by day and night; " in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils from my own nation, in perils from the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils from false brethren; in labor and painfulness, in much watchings, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness." There are the trials of which I have received a greater share than the others; and it is in them that I glory, for them I owe the most to my God, since He has deigned to send them to me so abundantly. " For such a one I will glory," if it is allowed me.