On the traditional calendar the three Sundays prior to Lent
are termed, Septuagesima; Sexagesima and Quinquagesima (this year Feb. 12 Feb.
19 and Feb. 26). This period of time was
intended a preparation for more rigorous time of penance to follow during Lent.
On this theme I offer some quotes from several Sermons by
St. Augustine on 'penitents' or why merely giving up chocolate might miss the
point of the Lenten season.
Sermon 351
1. Penitents, penitents, penitents-if, that is, you really
are penitents, really are sorry for your sins, and not just treating the whole
thing as a joke! Change your mode of life, be reconciled to God (2 Cor 5:20). I
mean, you are just indulging yourselves, while still in chains. "What
chains?" you ask.
“What you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven” (Mt
18:18). You hear how you are bound, and you think you can take God in? You
perform the penance, you kneel down-and you laugh, and snap your fingers at
God's patience? If you're a penitent, repent; if you don't repent, you're not a
penitent. So if you do repent, if you're really sorry, why go on doing the bad
things you did? If you're sorry for having done them, don't go on doing them.
If you still do go on doing them, you're certainly not a real penitent. (Sermon
351.1) (Trans Edmond Hill, WSA III/10)
Sermon 232
8. Yesterday I warned you, and I'm warning your graces again
that the resurrection of Christ is only in us if we live good lives; if our old
bad life dies, and the new one makes progress every day. There are a great many
penitents here; when hands are laid on them, there is an extremely long line.
"Pray, penitents-and the penitents go out to pray." I examine the
penitents, and I find people living bad lives. How can you be sorry for what
you go on doing? If you're sorry, don't do it. If you go on doing it, though,
the name's wrong, the crime remains.' Some people have asked for a place among
the penitents themselves; some have been excommunicated by me and reduced to
the penitents' place. And those who asked for it themselves want to go on doing
what they were doing, and those who have been excommunicated by me and reduced
to the penitents' corner don't want to rise from there, as though penitents'
corner were a really choice spot. It ought to be a place for humility, and it
becomes a place for iniquity.
It's you I'm talking to, you that are called penitents and
are not so, it's you I'm talking to. What am I to say to you? Can I praise you?
On this point I cannot praise you (1 Cor 11 :22), I can only groan and moan.
And what am I to do, having become a cheap song? Change your ways, I beg you,
change your ways. The end of life is totally uncertain. Every one of us is
riding for a fall. 20 You are all putting off living good lives, thinking that
life will be long. You're thinking of a long life, and not afraid of a sudden
death? But all right, let it be a long one; and I look for one real penitent,
and I can't find one. How much better a long, good life will be, than a long,
bad one! Nobody wants to put up with a long, bad dinner, practically everybody
wants to have a long, bad life. (Sermon 232.8) --(Trans Edmond Hill, WSA III/7)
Sermon 392
6. A word now to the penitents: what is it that you are
doing? You know very well-you are doing nothing! What's the use of your
humbling yourselves, [17] if you don't change your behavior? A word to the
catechumens: be impatient and on fire in your determination to receive grace.[18] But choose for yourselves the right people in the Church of God to imitate. If
you don't find any-woe is me, my God! What am I saying, "If you don't find
any"? So is there not a single one among the faithful for you to find? So
many years I have been baptizing so many people, and all for nothing, if there
are none among them who keep what they have received, and take care of what
they have heard. God forbid I should believe that! It would be better for me to
stop being your bishop, if that's how it is. But I hope, I believe that there
are such people.
All this, however, puts me in the wretched position of being
compelled very often to know who the adulterers are, while I cannot know who
the chaste people are. What I can rejoice over is hidden and private, what
causes me torment is out in the open and public. So then, catechumens, be
filled with desire for the grace of God, choose the right people to imitate, to
associate with, and to join with in the delightful conversations of charity.
Don't listen to malicious gossip. Malicious conversations corrupt good behavior
(1 Cor 15:33). Live like ears of corn among the weeds; put up with the
distresses of this world, like grain on the threshing-floor. The winnower is
going to come. Nobody should set up as a thoroughgoing, all-round separator of
the two during this age. [19] (Sermon 392.6)---[(Trans Edmond Hill, WAS III/10, p. 424-425.]
NOTES
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17. By taking their place publicly in the ranks of the
paenitentes, in the "sin bin”
18. That is, to receive baptism, for which a common name
among African Christians was "grace."
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