Sermon of the
glorious Doctor San Agustín, on the most sacred feast, and ineffable joy of the
Birth of our Redeemer. He teaches us how in this divine feast we have to
promise and pay the Lord, turning away from sins, and following virtues.
I beg you, my very
beloved brothers, to receive with a joyful heart everything that, on this most
sweet day, the Lord helping me, I will tell you: remember that the
majesty of this day is so great that even the infidels feel pain in their
hearts on this day. guilt: and the sinner is moved to mercy, and the penitent
expects forgiveness: the captive expects to be released, and the wounded the
remedy for his evil. This, finally, is the most sacred day on which the
Lamb who takes away the sins of the world is born: at whose birth, the just man
feels greater sweetness in his joy, and the sinner awakens to look at himself
with greater attention than he used to, the good man. prays with affectionate
love, and the sinner pleads with much devotion: sweet day,
and truly sweet the one that brings forgiveness to all sinners! I promise
you, my children, as a certainty that anyone who on this most sacred day
repents with a good heart, and with such firmness that he does not return to
the first faults, can surely ask the Lord for mercy and it will not be denied
him: have constant faith and do not relapse into the bad past.
How can no sinner
despair on this most sacred day, when sin is removed from the whole
world? But you must understand that such penance must be: because you will
find many who every day and every hour confess they are sinners, say that it
weighs them down, and that they want to mend their lives, and along with this
they like sin: this is a promise , but does not amend: in such the soul is
accused, but not healed; Guilt is pronounced, but it is not removed:
believe me that there is never true penance, except when the love of God and
the hatred of sin are truly found in the soul. When you repent in such a
way that what used to be sweet to you in your way of life embitters your heart,
and what delighted your body already with true pain gives pain to your soul:
being in this state you can truly say groaning before God: Lord, you alone I
sinned, and in your presence I did evil: truly I say that you alone I
sinned, for no man is without sin: and for this reason I sinned you only, because
none is without sin: grant mercy then, Lord to me miserable that I ask you,
because so long you have waited for me being a sinner.
Bow down now, Lord,
to the remedy, the humility of the penitent, for the long time I lived in sin
could not move you. Speak with the tears of your heart, and tell him: immense pity, look at
the wretch: public mercy, look at the one who has been cruel: I, Lord, come as
a man who does not expect a remedy from another, to you who are Almighty: I
come as wounded, to you who are true Doctor. And since you have so long
and stopped the knife of your revenge on me, keep with me now the law of your
mercy, and with the multitude of your mercies, remove the multitude of my
miseries. This is, my children, the true penance, to convert to never be
perverted again, to grieve to never delight in sin again. Let us see,
then, today with the grace of the Lord, who will be the ones who will have this
amendment, and exercising their souls in virtues, in such a way they will take
advantage of what I will tell them today, that with double virtue they fight
against the vices that are by themselves skinny.
In truth, the one
who defeats himself is strong in fighting: and those who have had their ears
open many times to hear harmful vanities, keep them open today out of reverence
for God, to hear his commandments and his doctrine: and those who so many Sometimes
you have had your eyes open to see shameful darkness, open them today to see
the light that gives life with its light, and those who have had their hearts
pierced for so long with the pestilential delight of guilt, wound it today with
the loving and healthy knife of penance. Raise and stand up virtue to
those who with vices for so long that they are knocked down to the
ground. May those who until today have used it in the stench of guilt heal
from the disease of smell. Lastly, I beg the Lord to open the eyes of your
heart today, because today he was born for all of us, so that with his
grace you can see how bitter will be in the eternal fire what in this moment of
time seems to you with his deception so sweet; and you will know with what
sorrow, so sad and so endless, this so brief delight has to be paid: this false
taste of the world passes by, and leaves us dead: it passes, and leaves us
wounded: it leaves us full of miseries, and flees: it burdens us of
misadventures, and disappears. Or how beautiful is the cleansing of the
soul! How blessed is science full of virtues and good works! If you
think that he who achieves the sad pleasures of the world is happy, as long as
it is true that he will lose them shortly, and you will know with what
sorrow, so sad and so endless, this so brief delight has to be paid: this false
taste of the world passes by, and leaves us dead: it passes, and leaves us
wounded: it leaves us full of miseries, and flees: it burdens us of
misadventures, and disappears. Or how beautiful is the cleansing of the
soul! How blessed is science full of virtues and good works! If you
think that he who achieves the sad pleasures of the world is happy, as long as
it is true that he will lose them shortly, and you will know with what
sorrow, so sad and so endless, this so brief delight has to be paid: this false
taste of the world passes by, and leaves us dead: it passes, and leaves us
wounded: it leaves us full of miseries, and flees: it burdens us of
misadventures, and disappears. Or how beautiful is the cleansing of the
soul! How blessed is science full of virtues and good works! If you
think that he who achieves the sad pleasures of the world is happy, as long as
it is true that he will lose them shortly, What joy
should the soul feel that waits for those of heaven to possess them without
end? If he who rules the world with tyranny, he considers himself
powerful: how
much more powerful and blessed is he who brings God into his
consciousness? Therefore, most sweet and beloved children of mine, all your greed
is to have purity in the soul, and not find in it but love of God and
neighbor. Forgive those who have offended you, and the Lord will forgive
you your offenses. And those of you who find yourself with justice in your
consciences, beware of offending God, and God will remain in you.
Since everything we
have said is true, my beloved brothers, it seems to me that, considering the
Lord to be born today, and to come for our redemption, it will be a very just
thing that we present some vows on our part, and we fulfill them according to
what the great Prophet teaches us, saying: promise and pay what
you promise to your Lord God. Let us sweetly promise with joy
and confidence, that the Lord himself will give us the possibility to fulfill
what we promise: and even the grace to promise has to come from the Lord
himself. You will ask, by chance, what is it that you have to promise and
pay today. Because the promises that men make to God on this day are very
diverse: some promise some clothing, others oil, another wax so that the Church
is illuminated at night, others promise that they will not drink wine for some
years, others promise that they will fast for certain time, others that they
will not eat meat. Know then, brothers, that none of these vows is one of
the best and most perfect: another vow that is better than any of these is the
one that I want: because God does not need your beauty, your oil, or your
fasting: more than what The Lord wants from you, it is what he has redeemed
today with his coming, which is your own soul. will measure
someone, How
can I offer my soul to God, since he already has it in his power? To this I
answer, that you have to offer it to them by living holyly, with chastity in
your thoughts, with the fruit of good works, turning away from evil, following
what is good, condemning vices, loving God and neighbor: having mercy on the
poor and miserable, remembering how poor we all were before our redemption,
forgiving those who sin against us, because all of us have someday been slaves
to sin: putting pride under our feet, for we know that the first man was struck
down by pride: throwing envy from us, since we are not unaware that by envy the
devil deceived the human lineage. Since what I have told you is as true as
it is, lift up your hearts so that there is no free man left, or servant,
nobleman, or commoner who today does not offer this vow to the Lord, and
together fulfill it: because it would be a great misery for us if today we did
not offer something to the Lord of what is our own: seeing how he laid down his
life for us, and being eternal and without beginning, he did it for our
temporary reparation, taking our humanity. Well, seeing this, out of
reverence for the Lord, he who has anger or grudges with his neighbor deposes him,
and doing this offers a vow: he who has been wallowing in the stench of
sensuality with a long and aged habit, wake up now, because it is time , and
shaking off this blinding dust, wound his heart with pain, and turning to the
Lord, say thus: it was done for our temporary repair, taking our
humanity. Well, seeing this, out of reverence for the Lord, he who has
anger or grudges with his neighbor deposes him, and doing this offers a vow: he
who has been wallowing in the stench of sensuality with a long and aged habit,
wake up now, because it is time , and shaking off this blinding dust, wound his
heart with pain, and turning to the Lord, say thus: it was done for our
temporary repair, taking our humanity. Well, seeing this, out of reverence
for the Lord, he who has anger or grudges with his neighbor deposes him, and
doing this offers a vow: he who has been wallowing in the stench of sensuality
with a long and aged habit, wake up now, because it is time , and shaking off
this blinding dust, wound his heart with pain, and turning to the Lord, say
thus: Pious
Lord, God full of mercy, the time that I have offended you is enough: enough is
enough since until today I have despised you, I have complied with the stinking
clumsiness of my flesh: now, Lord, availing myself of your holy inspiration , I
promise to turn away from my wickedness, and turn to you, my God and Lord. Whoever says
and does so can say that he offered a vote. Whoever feels entangled in
envy, taking pleasure in the evil of his neighbors and regretting the good,
which is a sin that even leads to death, promises himself that he will leave
all the poison in his heart, and will think of loving the neighbor, and by
doing this he already offered a vote. If within his conscience he brings
some homicide committed by deed, or by desire, he himself penances himself:
avenge himself with the pain of his own guilt, determine some kind of
punishment on himself: punish himself with such penance before God, that may
expect mercy: and with much humility and abstinence, desire so much affliction,
that it is enough to wash the soul of the poison that is in it, by the blood of
the neighbor shed by deed, or by desire.
When the
disposition of your conscience is such that you can do so, consider that you
have offered a vote.
He who is
accustomed, like many, to gossip about his neighbors, always looking at the
faults of others and never his own, promises God saying within his heart: Lord,
I have used to speak ill of others, and I did not look at my faults : and being
more full of clumsiness than everyone in the world, I only saw the miseries of
others: forgive me, Lord, what I have sinned up to now with my tongue, that
from today I offer the amendment of everything: whoever does this offers
vote. And whoever feels a spirit of cruelty in himself, offer that he will
have mercy with the next: and the arrogant promise humility: the intemperate in
eating and drinking, promise temperance: the one who has offended those greater
than him, to whom he owes obedience, ask them for forgiveness: and if you don't
know how to ask, it's right that the superior should forgive you. When you have fulfilled
these things, my beloved brothers, be sure that you have offered an acceptable
vote to the Lord, and you correspond to the one who has done you so many
favors. You can have for certain the blessing that will come to you after
this, your votes being presented before the tribunal of His Majesty, and even
accepted.
And as the wise man
said: your
memory will not be forgotten, before it will be said of you: look that the
people that I won with my blood, have filled me with vows, and have offered me
many good smells; therefore, I will be like their Lord, and they will be
like my people, and they will never be seen captive or forsaken again. Let us take,
then, what a sweet thing and how glorious it will be for us, when the blessed
Angels chosen for our guardianship present before God our vows, which we have
declared above. If we give a mortal man here on earth a present that
pleases him, we are always in the hope that he will be grateful to us: for how much more just
is it that we have it in God? Let us rejoice, then, and rejoice in the
Lord with tears of joy and devotion, remembering the greatness that works with
us today, of the sad captivity in which we were. He who, because he sees
himself powerful, rises to pride, put before his eyes the profound humility of
Christ: otherwise the words of the wise will be against him. Or earth and
ashes: what are you proud of? when we see someone placed in
misery, need or poverty, let us remember God. When we see a captive, let
us remember how copious our redemption was.
When the deceitful
suggestion makes us present some sin, let us remember that by the mercy of God
our sins are already forgiven. Let us not lose the admirable benefit that
the precious Blood of our Redeemer has brought us: let us not stain the stole
of innocence that our soul has, with the vileness of greed, or
sensuality. Let
us remember that we were on the ground, and the Lord has raised us
up; that we were wounded, and he has healed us: and no one can be excused
by saying, the devil deceived me, the devil, he told me: because all his forces
can only invite us to evil, represent us deceitful pleasures, but it is not
enough to force us : they can advise us with thought, but not fight with us so
that we put it into action. And since on this most sacred feast we
celebrate the most pure birth of the Virgin and Mother: I want to speak with
virgins, both men and women: I will also speak with widows, and with all
penitents, poor or rich, servants or lords: because before of the divine
Majesty, there is no other difference, but that of the works; otherwise
they are all one. Listen to me, then, all of you who, by the mercy of God,
possess such a lofty and excellent gift as that of virginity, and see that I
speak to everyone, men and women: listen to me, then, and he who knows that he
has this in his body well that I have said, try to have him also in the soul
and in such a way be glad to see yourself a virgin in the body, that from this
does not come harm to the soul, and enjoy this precious gift that Jesus Christ
has given you, with such concert May your joy be full of humility, and
mixed with tears of pity: give thanks to the Lord for giving him the mercy of
such great purity and happiness, that he can follow the Lamb without blemish
wherever he may go; and this will be so, according to the doctrine of the
Apocalypse, if a lie is ever found in his mouth; beg God to give you
perseverance in this perfection to the end, in such a way that the pleasures of
the world, the deceit and envy of the devil, cannot rob you of such a precious
gift, nor cloud such great clarity, nor obscure so big glow.
Try to defend him
with great strength, and do not lose anything, which has no repair after loss,
do not lose for a moment of delight, such a great beauty of your body, or
consent to such clumsy ugliness in your soul, due to the greed of a so brief
and vain figuration; Finally, do not let yourself be defeated by such low
weakness. If the one who is well reached believes me, he will remain with
him, and if not he will feel a damage that has no repair.
