Unknown to the World, Known to God
MASS Os justi
LESSON 1 Timothy 6:6-12
GOSPEL St Matthew 19. 27-29
HOMILIST Mt Revd Jerome Lloyd OSJV
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
“The law of his God is in his heart: and his steps shall not be supplanted.”
With these words the Church introduces Saint Alexius to us. She does not first praise his birth, his learning, his ancestry, or even his austerities. She directs us instead to the hidden sanctuary of the heart. The just man is one in whom the law of God has ceased to be something merely external, something discussed, defended, or admired, and has become the governing principle of his whole life.
The historical origins of today’s feast lie in the Christian East. An early Syriac account, composed at Edessa between approximately 450 and 475, speaks of an unnamed “Man of God” who had lived there during the episcopate of Bishop Rabbula, between 412 and 435. He dwelt as a poor ascetic near the church door, retained barely enough alms for his necessities, and distributed the rest among the poor. Before his death, he disclosed that he was the only son of distinguished Roman parents.
In the later Greek tradition, known before the ninth century, this holy beggar was named Alexius. He was said to be the son of the Roman nobleman Euphemianus. On the night of his marriage, he left his father’s house, journeyed to Edessa, and lived there in poverty for seventeen years. When the fame of his holiness began to spread, he fled from human admiration and returned secretly to Rome. There he lived for another seventeen years as a beggar beneath the staircase of his father’s palace, unknown to his family and household. Only after his death, traditionally placed in the year 417, was his identity discovered.
His cult was brought more fully to Rome in 972, when Pope Benedict VII entrusted the ancient church of Saint Boniface upon the Aventine to Sergius, the exiled Greek Metropolitan of Damascus. Sergius established there a monastery for Greek and Latin monks, and the name of Saint Alexius was joined to that of Saint Boniface. Thus the Eastern “Man of God” became one of the beloved saints of Christian Rome.
We cannot establish every detail of this ancient tradition with modern documentary certainty. Yet beneath its development there remains a clear and compelling figure: a man of high birth who voluntarily embraced poverty, concealed his identity, fled admiration, shared his alms with the poor, and died unknown among them.
It is precisely this hiddenness that makes Saint Alexius so necessary for our age.
Modern man is terrified of being unseen. He has confused publicity with existence and attention with worth. His meals must be photographed, his opinions published, his injuries announced, his virtues displayed, and his sacrifices acknowledged. He no longer asks simply whether an action is good, but whether it will be noticed. He no longer asks whether God is pleased, but whether others are impressed.
Even religious life may be corrupted by this appetite. A man may defend the Faith partly because he loves the Faith, but partly because he enjoys being known as its defender. He may perform works of charity while quietly desiring admiration. He may embrace sacrifice, provided that others understand how much he has sacrificed. He may bear the Cross, provided that an audience is present to praise the manner in which he bears it.
Saint Alexius stands beneath the staircase and judges all such vanity.
He had a name, but surrendered it. He had rank, but concealed it. He had wealth, but abandoned it. He had a home, but lived within it as a stranger. He renounced not only comfort, but recognition; not only possessions, but the right to explain himself; not only honour, but even the consolation of being understood.
This is one of the purest and most difficult forms of renunciation. Many are willing to suffer if their suffering is noticed. Many are willing to serve if their service is thanked. Many are willing to be faithful if their fidelity is praised. But to suffer without sympathy, to serve without gratitude, to remain faithful while being misunderstood, and to carry the Cross while others regard one as useless—this is to enter deeply into the hidden life of Jesus Christ.
For thirty years Our Lord dwelt at Nazareth, and the world knew Him not. He was the eternal Wisdom of the Father, yet He was known merely as the carpenter’s son. He sustained creation by His divine power, while submitting Himself to Mary and Joseph. He was adored by angels, yet passed unnoticed through the streets of a small town.
Saint Alexius entered into this mystery. Beneath the staircase of his father’s house, unrecognised and perhaps despised by those who stepped over him, he became an image of Christ, who “emptied himself, taking the form of a servant.”
Today’s Epistle addresses him with Saint Paul’s words: “But thou, O man of God, fly these things.”
What must he fly? The Apostle has just warned against the desire for wealth, declaring that “they that will become rich, fall into temptation, and into the snare of the devil,” and that “covetousness is the root of all evils.”
The danger is not merely in possessing material goods. It lies in willing to possess them as the source of one’s security, identity, or happiness. A poor man may be consumed by avarice, while a wealthy man may use his goods as a steward. The decisive question is whether we possess things, or whether things possess us.
Saint Paul does not say merely: moderate these desires. He says: fly them.
There are temptations with which one cannot safely negotiate. There are attachments that cannot be managed indefinitely. There are occasions when the only path to freedom is flight. Saint Alexius fled wealth, honours, comfort, reputation, and even the danger of being admired for his sanctity.
He understood the words that precede the warning: “Godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world: and certainly we can carry nothing out.”
We came into this world with empty hands, and with empty hands we shall leave it. Every possession, title, reputation, office, achievement, and human relationship will one day be surrendered. Death will accomplish by force what holiness accomplishes willingly. The saint therefore begins during life the detachment that every man must undergo at death.
This is the meaning of today’s Gospel.
Saint Peter says to Our Lord: “Behold we have left all things, and have followed Thee: what therefore shall we have?”
Our Lord promises that “every one that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for My name’s sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall possess life everlasting.”
Saint Alexius believed this promise literally. He left a house and received beneath its staircase a sanctuary. He abandoned human recognition and was known intimately by God. He surrendered his name and received a name written in heaven. He renounced an earthly inheritance and obtained the kingdom.
The hundredfold is not always given in the currency of this world. Sometimes God replaces comfort with grace, applause with peace, companionship with divine intimacy, and earthly security with the certainty of His providence.
There is something especially severe in the tradition that Alexius returned to Rome. It might have been easier to renounce his former life from a great distance. But beneath the staircase he remained surrounded by the very things he had abandoned. Every room recalled the comfort he might have enjoyed. Every familiar voice reminded him of the affection he had surrendered. Every day he looked upon a life that might still have been his.
This teaches us that detachment does not always require physical departure. God may ask us to remain in the very place where our attachments are most painfully tested. A man may remain in his home, yet renounce self-will. A woman may possess goods, yet hold them as belonging to God. A priest may exercise authority, yet relinquish the desire to dominate. A Christian may act publicly, yet cease to hunger for praise.
True detachment means that no created thing is permitted to rival God within the heart.
“The law of his God is in his heart.”
Not merely upon his lips. Not merely in his books. Not merely in his public declarations. In his heart.
This is a necessary examination of conscience for those who profess attachment to the traditional Faith. It is possible to defend Tradition while resisting personal conversion. It is possible to condemn doctrinal error while nurturing pride, resentment, anger, vanity, or impurity. It is possible to speak correctly about the crisis in the Church while refusing to confront the crisis within one’s own soul.
The possession of the true Faith does not excuse us from penance. It increases our obligation to live according to the truth we profess.
Saint Alexius asks each of us a question. What lies concealed beneath the staircase of our own soul? What attachment do we refuse to surrender? Whose admiration do we still require? What injury do we secretly preserve? What comfort has become indispensable? What opinion of ourselves must continually be defended? What sin do we excuse because no one else sees it?
The hidden life is not only the place of hidden virtue. It may also become the refuge of hidden sin.
God sees both.
He sees the unthanked sacrifice, the unnoticed prayer, and the silent act of fidelity. But He also sees the resentment concealed beneath courtesy, the vanity hidden beneath piety, the impurity protected by secrecy, and the refusal to forgive disguised as righteous indignation.
The lesson of Saint Alexius is therefore not merely that we should be content to remain unknown to men. It is that we must consent to be fully known by God.
This knowledge should drive us not to despair, but to the Sacrament of Penance. In confession we cease defending our reputation before God. We kneel as beggars. We disclose what pride would conceal. We surrender the false identity we have constructed and allow divine mercy to name us truthfully: sinner, penitent, forgiven child.
The Collect acknowledges that we cannot attain this holiness by our own strength: “May the intercession of blessed Alexius, we beseech Thee, O Lord, commend us unto Thee, that what we cannot have through our own merits, we may obtain through his patronage.”
Soon the Sacrifice of Calvary will be made present upon this altar. Here is the supreme hiddenness and renunciation. Christ is stripped of His garments, deprived of honour, abandoned by His disciples, mocked by His enemies, and offered to the Father. He who possesses all things allows Himself to be treated as one who has nothing. He who is the eternal Son submits to the judgment of men who refuse to recognise Him.
Yet from that apparent failure comes the salvation of the world.
The Offertory sings: “Thou hast given him his heart’s desire, O Lord, and hast not withholden from him the will of his lips: Thou hast set on his head a crown of precious stones.”
The world would say that Alexius received none of his desires. He lost wealth, family, comfort, honour, and recognition. But the liturgy reveals the truth. His heart desired God, and God gave Himself to him. He sought no earthly crown, and therefore received an eternal one.
At Holy Communion the Church calls him “the faithful and wise servant, whom his lord setteth over his family, to give them their measure of wheat in due season.”
The beggar beneath the staircase now feeds the household of God.
The man who possessed nothing distributes the wheat of heavenly wisdom. The man whose name was unknown is named every year at the altar. The man over whom others stepped has been raised among the confessors of Christ.
Let us therefore cease fearing obscurity. Let us cease measuring fidelity by human recognition. No prayer is wasted because it is unseen. No sacrifice is fruitless because it is unacknowledged. No act of obedience is forgotten because it is misunderstood.
But let us also descend beneath the staircase of our own hearts. Let us bring hidden sin into the light of confession. Let us surrender the reputation we defend, the grievance we cherish, the comfort we worship, and the secret attachment that prevents God from reigning entirely within us.
For one day the staircase will be removed. The palace will fall. Every title will vanish. Every secret will be disclosed. We shall stand before Christ with nothing but the truth of what we have loved.
On that day it will matter little whether the world knew our name.
It will matter only whether, having seen us beneath the staircase, Christ recognises in us the likeness of His own hidden, poor, obedient, and crucified Heart.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
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