Tuesday, August 8 : Saint Clement of Alexandria

We must sleep in such a way as to be easily awakened. For Scripture says, “Gird your loins and light your lamps and be like servants who await their master’s return from a wedding, ready to open immediately when he comes and knocks.” (Lk 12:35-36). For a sleeping man is of no more use than a dead man. Therefore we ought often to get up at night and bless God. Blessed are those who watch for him, and so make themselves like the angels, whom we call “watchers”. A man asleep is worth nothing, no more than if he were dead. But whoever has the light keeps watch and “darkness does not overcome him” (Jn 1:5) neither sleep. Whoever has been illumined is therefore wakened to God and such a person is alive, “for what came to be in him was life.” (Jn 1:4) “Happy the man,” says Wisdom,”who obeys me, and happy those who keep my ways, happy the man watching daily at my gates, waiting at my doorposts” (Pr 8:34). Therefore, “let us not sleep as the rest do, but let us stay alert and sober” as Scripture says. “For those who sleep go to sleep at night, and those who are drunk get drunk at night,” that is, in the darkness of ignorance. “But since we are of the day, let us be sober.” (1Th 5:6-8) “For all of you are children of the light, and children of the day. We are not of the night or of darkness.” (1Th 5:5).

Roman Extraordinary (Tridentine) Daily Readings – rosary,team