John 19:30-35
At that time: When Jesus had received the vinegar, He said: It is finished. And He bowed His Head, and gave up the ghost. And so on.
Homily by St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo.
120th Tract on John.
One of the soldiers with a spear pierced His Side, and forthwith came thereout Blood and Water. The Evangelist speaketh carefully. He saith not that he smote the Side, nor yet that he wounded It, nor yet anything else, but pierced It, to fling wide the entrance unto life, whence flow the Sacraments of the Church, those Sacraments without which there is no entrance unto the life which is life indeed. That Blood which was shed there was shed for the remission of sins, that Water is the water that mantleth in the cup of salvation. Therein are we washed, and thereof do we drink. Of this was it a type when it was said unto Noah: The door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof and of every living thing of all flesh shalt thou bring into the ark to keep them alive. Gen. vi. 16, 19. A figure this of the Church. Thus was it that the first woman was made from the side of her husband while he slept, and she was called (Eve, which is, being interpreted,) Life, because she was the mother of all living. Gen. iii. 20. This name set forth a great good, before it became associated with the bitter fruit of a great evil. And here we have the Second Adam bowing His Head, and the deep sleep of death falling upon Him upon the Cross, and He sleepeth, that the Lord God may take a thing out of His side, and may make thereof a wife for Him. O what a death was His, which quickeneth the dead! What is cleaner than His Blood? What more health-giving than His wounding?
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