Category: Religion

As a reminder of our hope as Catholics a few months after Easter, this is a sermon, once given by St. Augustine, Taken from the Fathers of the Church Pamphlets, formerly printed by Mary, Immaculate Queen of the Universe Center, in a pamphlet first published around 1958.

   (1) According to our custom, during these days the account of the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ is read from all the books of the holy Gospel.  In this selection [from Mark] we notice how the lord Jesus Himself chided His disciples, His first members who remained close to Him, because they did not believe that He, over whom they grieved as dead, was now alive. [Cf. Mark 16:14] They were the fathers of the faith, but not yet were they believers.  They did not yet believe, although they were made teachers so that the whole world might believe what they were destined to preach and what they were going to die for. They did not yet believe that He, Whom they had seen raising others from the dead, had arisen Himself. Deservedly, them, were they rebuked. They were revealed to themselves so they might recognize what they were through their own efforts and what they would be through Him.  Thus, too, Peter was revealed to himself, in that he manifested presumption when the Passion of the Lord was imminent, but wavered when the actual suffering materialized.  In person he saw himself; in person he grieved himself; in person he wept over himself; he turned to Him who had made him [Cf. Matt. 26:33-35, 69-75.] Behold, they still did not believe although they now saw. What has been His condescension in permitting us to believe what we do not see! We believe the words of those who did not trust their own eyes.

   (2) Moreover, the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ is a new life for those who believe in Jesus, and this is the sacrament of His Passion and Resurrection which you ought to know and discuss.  For, with good reason, Life came to death; with good reason, He, the Fountain of Life, whence one drinks in order to live, drank this chalice when He was under no obligation to do so.  Truly, Christ was under no obligation to die.  Let us examine the source from which death arose.  Sin is the father of death.  If there had been no sin, there would have been no death.  The first man received the law of God, that is, the command of God, with this stipulation: that, if he kept the law, he would life; if he violated it, he would die.  Gy not believing that he was going to die, man brought about his own death: and he discovered that He who had given the law had said what was true.  Thence [came] death; thence, morality; thence, fatigue; thence, wretchedness; thence, even after the first death, came a second death, that is, after the death in time came death for all eternity.  Therefore, every man is born subject to this condition of death, subject to these laws of the lower world, with the sole exception of that Man who became Man so that man might not perish.  For He came, hampered by no laws of death, as the Psalmist says: ‘Free among the dead. [Ps. 87:6]  Without concupiscence a virgin conceived Him to whom she, still a virgin, gave birth, remaining a virgin.  He lived without sin; He did not die because of His own sin; He shared with us our punishment, but not our sin.  Death is the punishment of sin.  The Lord Jesus Christ came to die; He did not come to sin. By sharing with us the penalty without the sin, He cancelled both the penalty and the sin.  What penalty did He cancel? That which was destined for us after this life.  Hence, He was crucified, so that on the cross He might show the destruction of our old man; and He rose again so that He might point out the newness of our life. For thus the apostolic teaching expresses it: ‘He was delivered up for our sins, and rose again for our justification.’ [Cf. Rom 4:25] To symbolize this fact, circumcision was imposed upon the ancients, so that on the eighth day every male child was circumcised. [Cf. Gen. 17:12] The circumcision was performed with stone knives [Cf. Jos. 5:2] ‘because Christ was the Rock.’[Cf. 1 Cor. 10:4] That circumcision typified the striping off of the carnal life on the eighth day through the Resurrection of Christ.  For the seventh day of the week is completed by the sabbath.  On the sabbath, the seventh day being the day of the sabbath, the Lord lay in the tomb.  He arose on the eighth day and His Resurrection renews us. Therefore, by rising on the eight day He circumcises us: in this hope we live.

  (3) Let us hearken to the Apostle when he says: ‘If you have risen with Christ.’  How do we rise when we are not yet dead?  What, then, is it that the Apostle intended to say by the words: ‘If you have risen with Christ’? Would Christ have risen again if He had not first died? Was the Apostle addressing persons who were still living, not yet dying, and yet rising again? What does he mean? Consider what he says: ‘If you have risen with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.  Mind the things that are above, not the things, that are on earth. Gor you have died.’ [Col. 3:1-3] The Apostle himself says that, not I: nevertheless, he tells the truth, and for that reason I, too, say it.  Why do I say it? ‘I have believed, therefore have I spoken [Ps. 115:1] If we are living well, we are dead, and we have risen. Moreover, he who is not yet dead and has not risen is still living badly; and if he is living badly, he is not living; let him die, lest he die.  What does that mean, ‘let him die, lest he die’? Let him change himself, lest he be condemned. ‘If you have risen with Christ,’ I repeat the words of the Apostle, ‘seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.  Mind the things that are above, not the things that are on earth.  For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.  When Christ, Your life, shall appear, then you too will appear with him in glory,’[Col. 3:1-5] These are the words of the Apostle.  I bid him, who is not yet dead to die; I bid him, who is still living badly, to change himself.  For, if he used to live badly and is not now doing so, he has died: if he is now living well, he has risen again.

   (4)  But what does it mean to live well? It means to seek ‘the things that are above, not the things that are on earth.’  How long are you going to be [on] earth and how long are you returning into earth/ [Cf. Gen. 3:19] How long are you going to lick the earth?  By loving the earth, you certainly lick it, and you become an enemy of Him of whom the Psalmist says: ‘An his enemies shall lick the ground.’ [Ps. 71:9] What were you? Sons of men.  What are you?  Sons of God.  ‘O ye sons of men, how long will you be dull of heart? Why do you love vanity and seek after lying? [Ps. 4:3] what lying do you seek? Now shall I tell your, I know that you wish to be happy.  Show me a robber, a scoundrel, a fornicator, an evil-doer, a law-breaker, a person stained with all vices, steeped in all crimes or outrages, who does not wish to be happy.  I know you all wish to live happily, but you do not wish to find our what it is that makes a man live happily.  You seek God because you think that you will acquire happiness form the possession of gold but gold does not make men happy.  Why do you seek for what is deceptive. Why do you wish to be exalted in this world? Because you think you will acquire happiness from the honor of men and from worldly display? But worldly display does not make men happy.  Why do you seek lying and whatever else you seek here? When you seek in a worldly fashion, When you seek through love of the earth, when you seek by clinging to the earth, you seek for one purpose, that is, that is to be happy; but no earthly object makes you happy.  Why do you not cease to look for what is deceptive? What, then will make you happy? ‘O ye sons of men, how long will you be dull of heart?’ Do you, who thus weigh your heart down with earth, not wish to be dull of heart?  How long were men dull of heart? Until Christ came, until Christ rose again, men were dull of heart. ‘How long will you be dull of heart? Why do you love vanity, and seek after lying?’  Though you wish to be happy, you are seeking things which make you unhappy.  What you are seeking is betraying you; what you are seeking is a lie.

     (5) Do you wish to be happy?  If you wish, I shall show you how you may be happy.  Continue to read that passage: ‘How long will you be dull of heart? Why do you love vanity and seek after lying? Ye–.’  What? – ‘that the Lord hat made his holy one wonderful [Ps. 4:3-5] Christ came to our miseries.  He was hungry and thirsty; He was weary and He slept; He worked wonders and He suffered evils; He was scourged, cowened with thorns, covered with spittle, beaten with cudgels, fixed to a cross, wounded with a lance, placed in a tomb. But He rose again on the third day when his work was finished and death was dead.  Lo, keep your eye fixed on His Resurrection, because ‘the Lord hath made his holy one wonderful’ to such a degree that he raised Him from the dead, and bestowed upon Him the honor of sitting at His right hand in heave. He showed you what your ought to attend to, if you wish to be happy, for here on earth you cannot be happy.  In this life you cannot be happy; no one can. You seek what is good, but earth is not the source of that which you seek.  What are you seeking?  A happy life. But it is not available here.  If you were looking for gold in a place where it did not exist, would not he who knew that it was not there say to you: ‘Why are you digging?  Why are you plowing up the earth?  You are digging a trench to descend into a place where you sill find nothing.’  What are you going to answer the one who proffers you this advice ?’I am looking for gold.’ And he answers: ‘I do not tell you that what you seek is of no importance, but I do say that it is not in the place where you are looking for it.’ Likewise, when you say: ‘I desire to be happy,’ [the answer may be given:] ‘ you seek what is good, but it is not in this place.’ If Christ had happiness here, so also will you.  But notice what He found in this land of your death.  When he came from another region, what did He find here except what abounds here? With you He ate what is plentiful in the cellar of you wretchedness. He drank vinegar here; He had gall , too.  Behold what He found in your cellar!  However, He has invited you to His own table abounding in all good things, the table of heaven, the table of the angels where He Himself is the bread.  Coming, then, and finding these unpalatable viands in your cellar, He did not disdain such a table as yours, but He promised you His own.  And what does he say to us? ‘Believe, just believe that you will come to the good things of My table inasmuch as I did not scorn the poor things of your table.’  He accepted your evil; will He not give you His good? Certainly, He will. He promised His life to us; but what He has done is more unbelievable. He offered His own life to us, as if to say: “I invite you to My life where no one dies, where life is truly blessed, where food is not corrupted, where it refreshes and does not fail.  Behold the place to which I invite you, to the abode of the angels, to the friendship of the Father and of the Holy Spirit, to the eternal banquet, to My companionship, finally, to Me Myself and to My life do I invite you. Do you not wish to believe that I will give you My life? Take My death as a pledge.’ Now, therefore, while we are living in this corruptible flesh, by changing our ways, let us die with Christ; by loving justice, let us live with Christ.  We shall not gain the happy life unless we shall have come to Him who came to us and unless we shall have begun to live with Him who died for us.