Ninth Sunday after Pentecost
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August 7, 2022Ninth Sunday after Pentecost
an excerpt from St. Gregory the Great
The perverse soul which takes its joy in this passing hour has here its day. Here it finds the things that content it; for a while it takes its joy in earthly things, for a while it is puffed up with vanity, for a while it grows feeble through bodily pleasures, and then when it has lost its fear of the judgement to come, it has peace in its own day: to find it a grave stone of stumbling on that other day of its damnation. For there it shall be afflicted, while the just rejoice; all the things that now are for its peace, will then be changed into the bitterness of contention: for it will begin to rage within itself, for having closed its eyes from seeing the evils to come. For this reason, He says to it: But now they are hidden from thine eyes. For the perverse soul that is given over to temporal things, and weakened by bodily pleasures, blinds itself to the evils that pursue it; for it turns from looking ahead at things to come, lest they trouble its present delight. And in abandoning itself to the allurements of this life, what else is it doing but hurrying with closed eyes towards the everlasting fire?
And because of this it was well written that: In the day of good things be not unmindful of evils (Ecclus. xi. 27). And regarding this Paul says: And they that rejoice as if they rejoiced not (I Cor. vii. 30); so that should you rejoice in this present world, let you so take your joy of it, that the remembrance of the judgement to come is at the same time never far from your mind. For in the measure that the anxious soul is penetrated with the fear of final punishment, the more its present delight is taken with moderation, the more shall the wrath to come be tempered. And because of this was it written: Blessed is the man that is always fearful; but he that is hardened of mind shall fall into evil (Prov. xxviii. 14). For the wrath of the judgement to come will be the harder to endure, the less it is now feared, here in the midst of evil doing.
