Sermon 352A

SERMON 352/A 1. Today, as we celebrate the nativity of John, hear what the Gospel says about him. He is indeed a great and marvelous person, who manifested in his own time, in the birth, and in the deeds. For as regards births, we know that every creature is born of man and woman, but he was born of an old and barren couple. They manifestly show other things regarding this, that it was arranged by divine grace, not by human nature. 2. And therefore, let us hear what the Gospel tells about his coming. His father Zacharias was a priest, and his mother Elizabeth was of the daughters of Aaron. And they were just before God, walking in all the commandments and justifications of the Lord, unblamable. But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and they both were now well advanced in years. 3. Now while he executed the priest's office before God in the order of his course, according to the custom of the priest's office, his lot was to burn incense when he went into the temple of the Lord. And there appeared to him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense. And when Zacharias saw him, he was troubled, and fear fell upon him. 4. But the angel said to him, "Fear not, Zacharias: for your prayer is heard; and your wife Elizabeth shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. And you shall have joy and gladness; and many shall rejoice at his birth. For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink; and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother's womb." 5. So much did the angel announce; but hear what further he added concerning him: “And many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God. And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” 6. Therefore, brethren, he is that great and magnificent man, who can be proclaimed neither by words nor understood by human intellect, concerning whom the Lord bears witness, saying, “Among those that are born of women there has not risen a greater than John the Baptist.”

Sermon of Saint Augustine on the words of the Gospel:
The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has drawn near.
Repent and believe in the Gospel

"The voice of mercy sounds before the tribunal of justice comes."

Lord Jesus, the author of the holy Gospel, wanting no one to perish by the law of mercy, since He came to save what was lost, as if in a proclamation to the human race, cried out, as we have heard: "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe in the Gospel." The creator of the world uttered this voice, and the world heard. Let what He said be done—He who came to aid, lest He come to judge the despisers. Let it be done while the voice of mercy sounds, before the tribunal of justice comes. To whom it is said in the psalm: "I will sing of mercy and justice to you, O Lord," He Himself maintained the order of His assistance. First, He came to bestow mercy; He will come to exercise judgment. For I will sing not of judgment, but of mercy and judgment to You, O Lord. What greater mercy can be desired, asked, demanded, than that God did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, that with Him He might freely give us all things? What greater mercy than to come to die not for the righteous, but for the ungodly? What greater mercy than to come and to condemn not those deserving condemnation, but to free those unworthy of freedom?

Let us renounce dead works, let us believe in the living God.

But do not disdain this mercy, my brothers. The Lord is merciful and compassionate. Add yet: long-suffering. Add yet: and greatly merciful. Fear what follows: and truthful. Let us not scorn the merciful one, to experience the truthful one! What then is necessary for us to cry out? Rather, let us hear Him crying out: For the times are fulfilled. For the fullness of time has come, as the apostle says, and in the fullness of time God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption as sons. Commending this fullness of time, the Lord said: The times are fulfilled; He came expected by a few, found by many. Therefore, the times are fulfilled: repent. How long has this been proclaimed, and that it might someday be heard: For the times are fulfilled and the kingdom of God has drawn near, repent and believe in the gospel! Renounce and convert. This is what repent and believe in the gospel means: renounce dead works, believe in the living God. What does it profit to believe without good works? The merit of good works did not bring you to faith, but faith begins, so that good works may follow. This is said to the holy Church in the Song of Songs: Come, my bride, you will come, and pass through from the beginning of faith. But who believes in God unless he has renounced the devil? Therefore, so that you may renounce, repent; believe, so that you may be saved.

Repentance is necessary for all.

This was said to the Jews, it was said to the idolatrous Gentiles. Must it still be said to Christians? Must it still be said to Christians daily reading that the times are , must it still be said to Christians that the kingdom of heaven has drawn near, must it still be said to Christians: Repent and believe in the gospel? Clearly, whom I say: Believe in the gospel, is not yet Christian. No one, I believe, hears me in this crowd, who does not yet believe in the gospel. Many hear me who have not yet been made faithful through baptism, and are still catechumens: not yet born, but already conceived. But when or how could they be conceived in the womb of mother Church unless by some sacrament of faith they were marked? Many baptized also hear me and, neglecting the grace of God within themselves, loving to sin. And what shall I say to them: The times are fulfilled? They respond: "We know." The kingdom of God has drawn near? They respond: "We heard long ago, long ago we believed." What then shall I say? Since I speak to men who love to sin, despising the grace of the redeemer within themselves, what shall I say? Repent. Indeed, I will say it, even if they do not allow me to say: The times are fulfilled, because they know it; The kingdom of heaven has drawn near, because they also know this; the last point which was placed: Believe in the gospel, they do not allow me to say to themselves, because they have already believed; for hear: Repent, because they have not yet done it. Hence, let us speak to the catechumens and to the negligent faithful. Let the diligent hear, for they too cannot be absent from the members of Christ. Let them not think me verbose and superfluous, if they have charity: it is a common concern; they want me to speak also to those whom they wish corrected along with me.

The apostles proclaim that repentance is the way of salvation.

Therefore, let them hear me not saying: "The times are fulfilled, the kingdom of heaven is at hand, believe in the gospel," but saying: "Repent." The catechumen responds to me: "Why do you say to us: 'Repent'? Let me first become a believer, and perhaps I will live well, and I will not need to repent." I answer such people: To become believers, repent. For those coming to baptism come through repentance. For unless they condemn their old life through repentance, they will not come fitly to new life. In saying this, I did not presume beyond measure or claim for myself something unusual in the Scripture of God. Let the catechumens listen to the Acts of the Apostles. When the apostles, filled with the Holy Spirit, were speaking to the crowds, because they were speaking in all tongues, the amazed and more attentive crowds heard the word of God from the apostles. All, because they were men of various languages, were pierced to the heart, and because they were Jews, they regretted crucifying Christ, and troubled for their salvation and fearing the certain condemnation for such a great crime, they said to the apostles: "What shall we do, brothers?" And the apostles said: "Repent, and let each of you be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ." You have heard how those not yet baptized were ordered to come to baptism through repentance. Therefore, we shall also say this to the catechumens. For we have recalled the testimony of the Scriptures, lest they might think we imprudently told them that we were eager for them to be repentant before they were faithful.

"First listen to (God) commanding, and then demand Him promising."

Now truly, those who are faithful and live badly, do not think that I am impudently saying to them: Repent. Now therefore I will speak to both: Change your life, lest you lose your life. Condemn past sins, fear future evils, and hope for good. An evil man first does not contradict himself that he hopes for good, who is not good. You hope for good: be what you hope for. First listen to the one who commands, and then demand from the one who promises. God has made Himself a debtor to you not by lending, but by promising. For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been His counselor, or who has given to Him first and it shall be repaid to him? What did He receive from you, who gave everything to you? Therefore He deigned to become a debtor, because He promised, and to become a debtor in such a way that He even made a pledge. This pledge is the gospel, the Scripture, in which God has made Himself your debtor, not by lending, as I said, but by promising. Therefore listen: Repent, believe in the gospel. Hear the command, and then demand the pledge. "Tomorrow," he says. For he found nothing to say to me, placed before his face and now displeasing to his own eyes. How much more, therefore, to the purer eyes of God! When, therefore, he displeased himself in evil habits, he said, "Tomorrow I will correct it; do not urge me, let today also pass. Why rush? Tomorrow I will correct it. Why rush about today?" Because the day does not stand at your disposal. All their dispute is about postponement. Since they say: "Let today pass as yesterday. Tomorrow I will correct myself, I will change, I will amend, I will fulfill what is commanded: I will repent," this is entirely about postponing. Tomorrow is not far off. But see that, just as you wished today to be like yesterday, so you do not want tomorrow to be like today. Although I could say: Why not today, but tomorrow, when you do not know what will happen to you tomorrow? But behold, let us bear it. Do not make tomorrow like today. "For," he says, "if I do, do I not hold what is written: On whatever day the wicked and impious man turns, I will forget all his injustices? It is said, and divinely said." I confess: it is written divinely. How well you remember the pledge of God! You hold what is owed to you, you forget what you owe.

People sin by despairing or by presuming too much.

Wicked people, unaware of the law, exiled from the grace of God, unworthy of the mercy of God, hear these things because it is said in our Scripture: "On whatever day the wicked shall have turned away, I will forget all his wicked deeds," and they say to us: "You make people sin, who promise such great impunity to those who suddenly turn back." For do we dare not promise what God has promised? "It is not a good law," they say, "which makes sinners abound." I wish to know who speaks, whether he does not judge himself a sinner. And does he get angry with God who waits, whom God waits for? What if God did not promise this, who leads to repentance by His patience? If He did not promise this, would not more people become sinners out of despair? Let your charity attend for a moment. Who is found not to be a sinner? Weak flesh, frail age, limited sense, anxious mind, ignorant of the nature of things, to what great sins do they plunge the unwary and the negligent? How many can appear and exist who would not be convinced to be sinners? Take away this mercy, take away this promised forgiveness, take away the port of indulgence in this most turbulent sea of iniquities, let there be no refuge for the wavering: would not despair add sin to sins, and would they not say to themselves: "I am already a sinner, there is no mercy for sinners, inevitably damnation is due? Why do I not do what I want, why do I not fulfill my desires, why not just now accomplish whatever delights me, about to lose this life, receiving no other later?" Thus are desperate gladiators, whence even the proverb arose: "From behind by the wounded." For the wounded seeks where to die, nor does he hesitate to do evil, because he hopes for no indulgence. He lets loose the loosest reins to his desires, is carried wherever he can, desires it to be lawful for himself to do whatever he wants: he perishes therefore by despairing. But you also do not perish by hoping. Two voices, both contrary, both dangerous, by which men perish, yet God did not despise either voice: He cared for both this one and that one. What are those two voices? "Why should I not sin, why should I not do whatever I want? When I repent, all will be forgiven me." Such people perish by hoping. Another voice from the opposite side, indeed contrary, but equally dangerous. "Why should I not do whatever I want, for whom no mercy is due, for whom no indulgence will be given? I will do whatever I want." They perish by despairing.

About those who perish by distorted hope.

What should I accuse first: false hope or unfaithful despair? What do you lose by hoping, what do you lose by despairing? Let those who want to perish by hoping hear a few things: Return, transgressors, to the heart. Hear God saying, because you say: "Tomorrow, tomorrow", do not delay to turn to the Lord. I say to you, who prepare to turn to the Lord, but delay; I say to you, whom I fear that hope will destroy: hear not me, but Him from whom you hope and by whom excessive hoping causes you to perish: Do not delay to turn to the Lord, nor defer from day to day. For suddenly His wrath will come, and in the time of vengeance He will destroy you. Where is what you said: "I defer to tomorrow and tomorrow to another tomorrow, because God promised me forgiveness saying: On whatever day the sinner turns; for He did not say: If he turns today, but: On whatever day he turns"? God answers you: "I promised you forgiveness, I did not promise you tomorrow." Or do you perhaps wish to combine and unite two promises, what God promised, and what the astrologer promised? For God promised forgiveness, the astrologer perhaps promised you tomorrow. Observe, wretch: the astrologer is deceived, and God condemns you. How many have been suddenly taken and were not allowed to make satisfaction to God nor to accuse the astrologers.

He who perishes by despair perishes badly.

Let him who has perished by despairing hear what he said: "I have already committed so many evils that I hope for no forgiveness. It remains to fulfill my lusts, to satiate my delights, so that I may at least have rest here, which I will not have there." Listen also to the voice of God, not your own: "Despairing one, return to hope." Hear Paul saying: "Therefore I obtained mercy - who persecuted the Church of God - so that in me Jesus Christ might show all longsuffering, for the information of those who would believe in Him unto eternal life." Therefore you have the pattern: do not despair, heed the admonition that was recently quoted with ill hope, and let the despairing be corrected by it. What did you hear? From where he was flattering himself, because he was delaying from day to day? "God is to me, God, on whichever day the wicked and the impious turns, I will forget all his iniquities." Read and return. You were sitting over the bank, or you were carrying a noose by despairing, wishing to bring death upon yourself, perhaps not having any means to live, you wished to die: return, you have the means to live: behold the bread of God. I do not desire the death of the wicked, but that he should return and live.

"There is no reason for us to complain about God."

Therefore, brothers, there is no reason for us to complain about God; there is nothing for the perverse to dislike, although it cannot displease anyone except the perverse. The right does not please the perverse, and the distorted cannot be adjusted to the right. For there is nothing to be said. You were saying: "Behold, Christians grant impunity: they make sin abound." I have given the reason, because more people would perish in despair if no harbor of mercy were offered to those in turmoil. Thus, God has not abandoned either the poorly hopeful or the poorly despairing. For the poorly despairing, He provided a harbor of mercy; for the poorly hopeful, He made the day of death uncertain. There is nothing to be said, but there is something to be done. So let them say to me: "What are we to do?" Those who are moved by the word of truth; let them say not with their voices, but with their hearts: "What then are we to do?" What else should I answer, except what we have heard: Repent? What more can I say? Repent. You are a catechumen: repent and you will be renewed; you have been baptized badly, not badly baptized: repent and you will be healed. I do not find anything for you to say to this; you know what you must do. Converted...