St. Thomas Aquinas (compiler)
Catena Aurea
Luke › 5:12–16 · Part 2 of 2
Compiled by St. Thomas Aquinas from attributed patristic excerpts. Speaker labels identify the quoted authors; not every statement is Aquinas’s own wording. English edition edited by John Henry Newman (1841–1845). Luke 5:12–16
GREGORY NAZIANZEN. (26.) And His works He indeed performed among the people, but He prayed for the most part in the wilderness, sanctioning the liberty of resting a while from labour to hold converse with God with a pure heart. For He needed no change or retirement, since there was nothing which could be relaxed in Him, nor any place in which He might confine Himself, for He was God, but it was that we might clearly know that there is a time for action, a time for each higher occupation.
BEDE. How typically the leprous man represents the whole race of man, languishing with sins full of leprosy, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; (Rom. 3:23.) that so by the hand put forth, i. e. the word of God partaking of human nature, they might be cleansed from the vanity of their old errors, and offer for cleansing their bodies as a living sacrifice.
AMBROSE. But if the word is the healing of leprosy, the contempt of the word is the leprosy of the mind.
THEOPHYLACT. But mark, that after a man has been cleansed he is then worthy to offer this gift, namely, the body and blood of the Lord, which is united to the Divine nature.
Source: Catena Aurea (eCatholic2000)