VERSE 11. — 'The grain desireth the clouds.' 54. The elect are the grain, for which the rain of the divine Word is necessary. — For what else are all the elect, but the grains of God, to be stored up in the heavenly barns? Which now in the threshing of the floor endure the chaff, because in this purging of holy Church they bear the contrary ways of the reprobate, until the inward husbandman separate them with the winnowing-fan of judgment, and, receiving His elect into the supernal dwellings as grains now clean, deliver the chaff to the eternal fires. Whence it is well said through John: 'Whose fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly cleanse His floor, and gather the wheat into His barn, but the chaff He will burn with unquenchable fire' (Matt.
III, 12). But this grain, until it comes to the perfection of its fruit, awaits the rains of the clouds that it may grow, because the mind of the good is watered by the words of preachers, lest it be dried up by the sun of carnal desires away from the moisture of charity. This grain the supernal husbandman had beheld rising up in the world and desiring the clouds, when He said: 'The harvest indeed is great, but the laborers are few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He send laborers into His harvest' (Matt. IX, 37-38). Those, therefore, who are here the grain are there the harvest; and those who are here the clouds are there the laborers, because the holy preachers are both clouds and laborers: clouds, namely, through doctrine; laborers, through life;