Monday, August 14 : Sermon attributed to Saint Augustine

“Everyone should be quick to hear, slow to speak” (Jas 1,19). Yes, brethren, I tell you frankly… I who frequently address you at your own request: it is undiluted joy for me when I take my place in the audience; my happiness is unalloyed when I listen rather than speak. Then it is that I savour the word in all confidence; my satisfaction is unthreatened by vainglory. When you sit on the solid rock of truth, how can you fear the precipice of pride? “I will give ear,” says the psalmist, “and you will fill me with joy and gladness” (cf Ps 50,10). So I am never more delighted than when I am listening: our position as hearers is what keeps us in an attitude of humility. To the contrary, if we speak, … we need to have a certain restraint. Even if I don’t give in to pride, I’m always afraid I might do. If I listen, on the other hand, no one can take my joy away from me (Jn 16,22) since no one witnesses it. This is truly the joy of the bridegroom, of whom Saint John says: “he stands and listens” (Jn 3,29). He stands because he listens. The first man, too, was standing because he was listening to God; as soon as he listened to the serpent, he fell. The friend of the bridegroom, then, is “overcome with joy at the Bridegroom’s voice”. What makes him joyful is not his own voice as preacher and prophet but the voice of the Bridegroom himself.

Roman Extraordinary (Tridentine) Daily Readings – rosary,team