Who is weak, and I am not weak? who is offended, and I burn not?
Read Chapter 11
Ambrosiaster
AD 400
Paul is saying that he suffers in sympathy with everybody and that he shares their pain in order to provide medicine for the wound. He presses the point in order to show how carefully he is guarding and ruling the church entrusted to him. In this way he shows that he should not be considered inferior to the other apostles, seeing that he labored more than all of them. Commentary on Paul’s Epistles.
And this is comely and right and just, that we visit our neighbours for the sake of God with all seemliness of manner and purity of behaviour; as the Apostle hath said: "Who is sick, and I am not sick? who is offended, and I am not offended? "
Who is weak and I am not weak? Who is weak, or grieves, or is afflicted, and I am not with him weak, grieved, or afflicted? Who is offended and I am not on fire, both with grief, because the evil that my neighbour suffers when he is scandalised is mine, and with zeal also, to remedy his trouble and remove the cause of offence?
S. Gregory (Hom12in Ezekiel 4:3), on the words, "Take thou unto thee an iron pan," thinks that by the pan is meant the mind of Ezekiel , who, on seeing the overthrow of Jerusalem, was, as it were, roasted in a pan with compassion. Of this God puts him in mind by ordering him to place a pan between himself and the city. Such, too, was S. Paul when he said: "Who is offended and I burn not?" "Paul had set on fire his heart," says S. Gregory, "with zeal for souls, and so had made it a pan in which, from love of virtue, he flamed against vice."
That you bewail and grieve over the downfall of our brethren I know from myself, beloved brethren, who also bewail with you and grieve for each one, and suffer and feel what the blessed apostle said: "Who is weak "said he, "and I am not weak? who is offended, and I burn not? ".
And in another place he says, "Who is weak, and I am not weak? "
The captivity of our brothers must be thought of as our captivity. The sorrow of those in danger is our sorrow. You may be sure that there is one body of our unity. Not only love but also religion ought to incite us and to encourage us to redeem the members of our family.
Who is weak, and I am not weak? He did not say, 'and I share not in his dejection?' but, 'so am I troubled and disturbed, as though I myself were laboring under that very affection, that very infirmity.'
Who is made to stumble, and I burn not? See, again, how he places before us the excess of his grief by calling it burning. 'I am on fire,' 'I am in a flame,' he says, which is surely greater than any thing he has said. For those other things, although violent, yet both pass quickly by, and brought with them that pleasure which is unfading; but this was what afflicted and straightened him, and pierced his mind through and through; the suffering such things for each one of the weak, whosoever he might be. For he did not feel pained for the greater sort only and despise the lesser, but counted even the abject among his familiar friends. Wherefore also he said, who is weak? whosoever he may be; and as though he were himself the Church throughout the world, so was he distressed for every...
What wonderful affection in a pastor! Others’ falls, he is saying, accentuate my grief, others’ obstacles inflame the fire of my suffering. Let all those entrusted with the leadership of rational sheep imitate this and not prove inferior to the shepherd who for many years cares for irrational sheep. In that case no harm ensues even if some negligence occurs, but in our case if only one rational sheep is lost or falls to predators, the loss is extreme; the harm, terrible; the punishment, unspeakable. After all, if our Lord did not forbear to pour out his own blood for him, what excuse would such a person deserve for allowing himself to neglect the one so esteemed by the Lord and not making every effort on his part to care for the sheep? Homilies on Genesis
