Augustine, from being a great sinner, became a great saint, and therefore is worthy of admiration. Preached on the feast of St. Augustine.
"He shall be called great." (Matt 5:19)
It would be a vain and useless labor for me to undertake to
day to prove that Augustine is a great saint; there is nothing
better known in the world, both among the learned and the ignorant; it is proclaimed by the dumb books in libraries, written by pens in the universities, spoken of by tongues in the pulpits; whenever the name of Augustine is mentioned you hear the great Augustine spoken of. So that one who has even a little knowledge of the Saint must, whenever he thinks of him, look on him as a great saint. There is one thing, my dear brethren, that excites my surprise, and that is that he was at first a great sinner, and yet became a great saint. That is what I mean to speak of to-day in his praise.
Augustine, from being a great sinner, became a great saint, and therefore he is a wonderful saint. Such is the whole subject of this panegyric. Let no sinner despair of conversion; let no just man be anxious on account of his past sins. Such shall be the brief moral lesson.
Give us Thy grace to profit by it, Lord, who didst work
such wonders in Thy servant Augustine, through the intercession
of Mary and of the holy angels.
St. Gregory distinguishes three classes of sinners: there are some. he says, into whose hearts and consciences sin creeps, but does not remain, because they free themselves at once from it by repentance; there are others in whom sin remains for a time, yet it does not rule in their soul, nor gain the upper hand, because it is not often committed or repeated; the third class consists of those in whom sin takes up a fixed dwelling, and has the mastery, because by being constantly repeated it fastens itself in the soul, takes root, and becomes habitual. The first class is the best (although no sinner is good for anything), and is the easiest; of cure. For even a pious man, who is concerned for his salvation, sometimes falls grievously, either through weakness, or an unforeseen occasion, or a violent temptation; but since he immediately condemns and repents of his wickedness, he is not in such great danger of dying in sin and being lost. The second class is more difficult of cure; for when repentance is deferred it requires a special grace and protection from God to guard one from further sins. The third class is the worst of all, and those who compose it can hardly be cured without a miraculous grace, not to speak of bringing them to sanctity.
For who does not know and experience what tyranny is exercised by an old and inveterate habit, especially in vice? It is like a miracle to abandon at once that which has occupied the heart and its love and desire. It is like a miracle to raise up to heaven your thoughts that had been sunk in carnal lusts, and to lead a holy, pure, and heavenly life. A fresh wound is easily healed; but when it grows old, and begins to fester, medicine is of no use; it must be cut and burnt in order to preserve the body in life. So it is with the sickness of the soul, with the habit of sin when it becomes inveterate. This is what Christ wishes us to learn, as our St. Augustine remarks, by the three persons whom He raised from the dead. In the case of the daughter of Jairus He had only to speak two words: " Damsel, arise." The son of the widow of Nairn required something more; Our Lord touched his bier, and spoke the impressive words: " Young man, 1 say to thee, arise." But in the raising of Lazarus, who had been four days in the grave, and had begun to putrefy, Our Lord " groaned in the spirit." He began to sigh and weep; He raised His eyes to heaven, and prayed to His heavenly Father: "He cried with a loud voice: Lazarus, come forth." Whence such a great difference in Our Lord's mode of acting? Did His omnipotence require more labor in one case than in the other? No; that cannot be. But, as Augustine says, Our Lord wished to show that it is harder to convert a sinner who has lain a long time in the grave of sin than one who has only recently commenced to sin. And he assigns this reason: in the first case the passions and evil inclinations become continually stronger and increase; the desires are more violent; and thus there results a sort of agreeable repose in sin, so that the sinner is pleased with his condition, and has neither wish nor desire to free himself; nay, in time there arises a sort of necessity, a second nature, impelling him to sin; and to change that, although the man may wish to do so, an extraordinary grace from God is required.