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MAUNDY THURSDAY
Homily of Saint Augustine
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(From the Treatise of St Augustine, Bishop, on the Psalms)
“Hearken, O God, to my prayer turn not away from my pleading;
give heed to me, and answer me.”
These are the words of a man in trouble, of one in anxiety, and in tribulation.
He prays in his great suffering, longing to be rid of his affliction.
It remains for us to see in what affliction he may be: and when he shall begin to tell us, let us recognise ourselves in it;
so that communion in suffering may bring about union in prayer.
“I am grieved in my trial,” says he, “and am troubled.”
Where is he grieved ?
Where is he troubled ?
He says:
“In my trial.”
He has made mention of the wicked men, from whom he suffers affliction:
and this same suffering of wicked men he has called his trial.
Do not think that wicked men are in this world for nothing, or that God does no good with them.
Every wicked man lives, either to repent, or to try the righteous.
Would to God, then, that they who now try us were converted, and tried with us:
nevertheless, so long as they are such that they try us, let us not hate them;
for we do not know whether any one of them will endure to the end in sin. And many times when you imagine that you hate your enemy, it is your brother you hate, without knowing it.
The Holy Scriptures plainly show us that the devil and his angels are doomed to eternal fire.
Of their repentance alone must we desdain, with whom we have a secret wrestling;
and for this wrestling the Apostles arms us, saying:
“Our wrestling is not against flesh and blood
(that is, not against men whom you see),
but against the Principalities and the Powers,
and the rulers of the world of this darkness.”
Lest, perhaps, when he had said, “of the world,” you would understand that demons were the rulers of heaven and earth,
he added: “the world of this darkness”;
by the “world,” then, he meant those who love the world:
by the “world,” he meant the impious and the wicked:
by the “world,” he meant that world of which the Gospel speaks:
“And the world knew him not.”
“For I have seen iniquity and contradiction in the city.”
Give heed to the glory of the Cross itself.
That Cross, which enemies insulated, is now placed on the foreheads of kings.
The effect has proved its power:
it has conquered the world not by the sword, but by wood.
The wood of the Cross was considered a fit object of scorn by his enemies,
who, as they stood before that very wood, shook their heads, and said:
“If he be the Son of God, let him come down from the cross.”
He was stretching forth his hands to “an unbelieving and contradictory people.”
For if he is just who lives by faith, he is unjust who has not faith.
When, therefore, he says in this place, “iniquity; you must understand it is unbelief.”
The Lord, therefore, was seeing iniquity and contradiction in the city,
and was stretching forth his hands to an unbelieving and contradicting people: and yet he waited for them, saying:
“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
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(ROMAN BREVIARY)
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