Wednesday, July 31 : Saint Augustine

Brothers, I can hear someone murmuring against God today: “Lord, how hard these times are; what a difficult period this is to go through!”… O man who would not correct you? Aren’t you a thousand times harder than the times we are living through! You who sigh after luxury, for what is nothing other than vanity, whose cupidity is always insatiable. You who want to make bad use of the things you desire, you will gain nothing… Let us cure ourselves, brothers! Let us correct ourselves! The Lord is coming. Because he has not yet appeared we mock him, nevertheless he is not going to delay coming and then it will no longer be the time to ridicule him. Brothers let us correct ourselves! Better times are coming but not for those who live in a bad way. Already the world is aging, it is turning to decay, and are we ourselves going to become young again? What are we hoping for, then? Brothers, don’t let us hope any longer for times other than those of which gospel speaks. They are not bad at all since Christ is coming! If they seem hard to us, difficult to pass through, Christ is coming to comfort us… Brothers, it is necessary that times be hard. Why? So that we don’t look for happiness in this world. This is our remedy: this life needs to be troubled so that we attach ourselves to the other life. How? Listen… God sees people becoming miserably agitated under the grip of their desires and the worries of this world which bring death to their souls, then the Lord comes to them like a physician bearing the cure.

Roman Extraordinary (Tridentine) Daily Readings – rosary,team