Sunday 6 March 2022
1st Sunday of Lent
Spiritual Reading
Your Second Reading from the Office of Readings:
1st Sunday of Lent
A commentary of St Augustine on Psalm 60
In Christ we suffered temptation, and in him we overcame the Devil
Hear, O God, my petition, listen to my prayer. Who is speaking? An individual, it seems. See if it is an individual: I cried out to you from the ends of the earth while my heart was in anguish. Now it is no longer one person; rather, it is one in the sense that Christ is one, and we are all his members. What single individual can cry from the ends of the earth? The one who cries from the ends of the earth is none other than the Son’s inheritance. It was said to him: Ask of me, and I shall give you the nations as your inheritance, and the ends of the earth as your possession. This possession of Christ, this inheritance of Christ, this body of Christ, this one Church of Christ, this unity that we are, cries from the ends of the earth. What does it cry? What I said before: Hear, O God, my petition, listen to my prayer; I cried out to you from the ends of the earth.’ That is, I made this cry to you from the ends of the earth; that is, on all sides.
Why did I make this cry? While my heart was in anguish. The speaker shows that he is present among all the nations of the earth in a condition, not of exalted glory but of severe trial.
Our pilgrimage on earth cannot be exempt from trial. We progress by means of trial. No one knows himself except through trial, or receives a crown except after victory, or strives except against an enemy or temptations.
The one who cries from the ends of the earth is in anguish, but is not left on his own. Christ chose to foreshadow us, who are his body, by means of his body, in which he has died, risen and ascended into heaven, so that the members of his body may hope to follow where their head has gone before.
He made us one with him when he chose to be tempted by Satan. We have heard in the gospel how the Lord Jesus Christ was tempted by the devil in the wilderness. Certainly Christ was tempted by the devil. In Christ you were tempted, for Christ received his flesh from your nature, but by his own power gained salvation for you; he suffered death in your nature, but by his own power gained glory for you; therefore, he suffered temptation in your nature, but by his own power gained victory for you.
If in Christ we have been tempted, in him we overcome the devil. Do you think only of Christ’s temptations and fail to think of his victory? See yourself as tempted in him, and see yourself as victorious in him. He could have kept the devil from himself; but if he were not tempted he could not teach you how to triumph over temptation.
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In other parts of the world and other calendars:
Saint Kyneburgha, Religious
From the sermons of St Augustine
Concerning the universal call to holiness
‘If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.’ The Lord’s command that if any wishes to follow him he must deny himself, seems hard and difficult. But after all, it is not hard and difficult seeing that it is the command of him who himself aids in the carrying out of what he commands.
For what is said to him in the psalm is true, ‘Because of your command I have followed the hard road.’ True, too, are his own words, ‘My yoke is easy and my burden is light.’ In a word, whatsoever in the precept is hard is made easy by love.
What is the meaning of ‘Let him take up his cross’ ? It means, let him bear whatever is vexatious: on that understanding, let him follow me. For when he begins to follow me in my character and my teaching, he will have many to contradict him, many to forbid him, many to dissuade him — and that takes place actually among those who are the companions of Christ. The people who wished to deter the blind man from calling out were at that time walking with Christ. Whether therefore it is a matter of threats or flatteries or any kinds of prohibitions, if you wish to follow, turn to the cross, endure, bear up, and refuse to surrender.
And so in this world, which is holy, good, reconciled, saved, — or rather in the process of being saved, but at present saved by hope, — ‘for in this hope we were saved’ — in this world, that is the Church which follows Christ in her totality, he has said to all men at once, ‘If any man would come after me, let him deny himself.’
This is not a case where virgins ought to hear the exhortation and married women not, where widows ought to hear and young wives not, where monks ought to hear and married men not, or clerics ought to hear but not the laity, but rather let the universal Church, the universal body, all her members divided and distributed in their several offices, let them all follow Christ.
Let her follow in her unique unity, let her follow as the dove, let her follow as the bride, let her follow, ransomed and endowed by the blood of her spouse. There the innocence of virgins has its place, there the chastity of widows has its place, there the purity of marriage has its place.
Let all those members which have their place there, each in their natural kind, each in their own place, each in their own way, follow Christ; let them deny themselves, that is, let them not be presumptuous; let them take up their cross, that is, endure in the world for Christ whatever the world has brought on them. Let them love him who alone does not deceive, who alone is not cheated, who alone does not cheat. Let them love him because his promise is true. But because he does not give immediately, faith is shaken. Endure, persevere, bear, put up with delay, and then you have borne the cross.
Copyright © 1996-2022 Universalis Publishing Limited: see www.universalis.com. Scripture readings from the Jerusalem Bible are published and copyright © 1966, 1967 and 1968 by Darton, Longman & Todd, Ltd and Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc, and used by permission of the publishers. Text of the Psalms: Copyright © 1963, The Grail (England). Used with permission of A.P. Watt Ltd. All rights reserved.