7. Sermons of St. Columbanus of Bobbio [+615]

 

https://www.stgregoryoc.org/st-columbanus/

Sermon III. How the monk should please God

of St. Columbanus of Bobbio [+615]

 

1

What is the best thing in the world? To please its Creator. What is His will? To fulfil what He commanded, that is, to live rightly and dutifully to seek the Eternal; for duty and justice are the will of Him Who is dutiful and right. How do we reach this goal? By application. Then we must apply ourselves in duty and justice. What helps to maintain this practice? Understanding, which, while it winnows the remainder and finds nothing solid to rest in amongst those things which the world possesses, turns in wisdom to the one thing which is eternal. For the world will pass, and daily passes, and revolves towards its end (for what does it possess which it does not apportion to an ending?) and in a manner it is propped upon the pillars of vanity. But when an end of vanity is come, then it will fall and will not stand. But that it does not end is no description of the world. Thus by death and decline all things pass away and abide not. What then should the wise man love? A dead reflection, partly dumb and partly sounding, which he sees and does not understand? For if he understood, perhaps he would not love; but it offends in the further fact that it does not disclose itself. For who understands, either in himself or in another, made a flower of the earth and earth from earth, by what deserving a child of God and citizen of heaven is made out of what shall soon be earth and dust, and what without the assistance of the soul shall never profit?

2

If any man, to whom God has granted it, understands what life he ought to live to become eternal in place of mortal, wise in place of stupid, heavenly in place of earthly, first let him keep his discernment pure that he may employ it for living well, and look not on what is but on what shall be. For that which is not shall be, and he should consider what he sees not, by means of what he sees, and attempt to be what he was created, and call God's grace to help his striving; for it is impossible for anyone to acquire by his own efforts alone what he lost in Adam. But what help is it to gain discernment and not to use it well? He uses it well who lives in such a way that he may never repent or forget repentance; for a late repentance proves bad habits, while a good conscience commends man's life. So what should a pure discernment learn to love? Assuredly that which makes it love all else besides, ever remains and never grows old. No other outward thing ought to be loved, according to the reckoning of truth, except eternity and the eternal will, which is inspired and quickened by the Eternal, Wonderful, Ineffable, Invisible, Incomprehensible, Who fills all things and passes beyond all things, Who is present and yet eludes our grasp. The wise man should love nothing here, since nothing lasts; for there eternal things are with the Eternal, here transitory things are with the mortal. Thus it is perilous to dwell amongst deceptions and deceits, and not to see the truths you ought to love, and in addition to see things that entice you by their flight, and as in a dream allure you to sin with them, and smilingly beguile you (hateful as it is) and thus steal away the things that are justly lovable, as though they did not exist.

 

3

Thus, it is agreed that he who dwells amongst deceivers ought to be concerned, as a man who will not escape, unless he shuns them and carefully conducts himself well. How shall we shun the world, which we ought not to love, when we are in the world and are taught to die to it, and yet on the contrary fold to our breasts with a sort of envious lust that world which we ought to have spurned as it were beneath our feet? He spurns the world who conquers himself, who dies to his vices before he dies by nature and is mortified in mind sooner than in body; for none can hate the world who spares himself; for it is in himself alone that he either loves or hates the world. He who is dead to carnal lusts has nothing of the world to love. Let us die by such a death, since it overtakes few, while that bodily death overtakes all. For it falls to few men so to live as if they died daily; and while a man has not always been, nor can be always in the world, but spends his days in a most brief period, each ought so to live as if he died daily, that he may doubt this death and ponder only the eternal and heavenly things, in which, if he deserves it, he shall be eternal and heavenly. For the things that were before the world shall remain themselves both after the world's end and for ever, and they remain still, but do not appear, and are so far hidden from us, that it is not lawful for men to speak of them; for they do not emerge or enter into the heart or ears of man, nor can they be beheld by human sight.’’ (I Cor. 2. 9)

 

How miserable is our state! The things we ought to have loved are so remote and undiscovered and unknown by us, that while we are men and situated in this prison of the body, the things that are truly good and eternal are utterly incapable of being seen or heard or thought by us. What then are we to do? Let us love and seek them even when unknown, lest perhaps we neglect and lose them forever; for a man has been born to no purpose, if he neglects those everlasting things for ever, and ignores those eternal things for all eternity. Oh wretched man that you are! What you see, you ought to hate, and what you should love, you do not know. Your life is a net for you, you are ensnared willing or unwilling; in yourself you have the matter of entanglement, in yourself you do not have the means of release. Will you beware of yourself, wretched man, and not trust in yourself, who by yourself are netted and by yourself are not released? While you have eyes you are blindly bound, and gladly led to execution.

4

Unbearable blindness! Unique misery! Most ill-starred woe! A creature that favours its foes, that willingly hands itself over to scourges that never spare it, that joyfully complies with those that bind and bear it to its death. Whoever goes to his death gladly? Who is willingly led to be throttled or beheaded? Out on you, human wretchedness! Would that you were only throttled or beheaded, and not tormented for eternity. What is blinder than you, wretched mankind! You so transgress with your eyes open, though you see as far as the sky, you do not see beyond; beneath the sky you have some intelligence, beyond it, you have none. Hard and impenetrable ignorance, who will tell you what cannot be told? Miserable mankind, who will help you? Hear what a wise man said,” The man to whom little is not enough will not benefit from more.’’  (cf. Sulp. Sev. Dial. I 18) I believe you have heard the Lord saying in the Gospel, “Go, ye cursed, into eternal fire.’’ (Matt. 25. 41)

 

And why, do you know, is that journey to the fire? Wretched man, have pity, perhaps you will thus be able to sunder yourself from the son of perdition; have no mercy on your food, have no mercy on your frail clothing, do not prefer your possessions to yourself. Love your person rather than your property, your soul more than your wealth; for it is yourself only and not your wealth that is wretched, and you should love yourself more than another's goods. For what is your own, except your soul? Then do not lose your one possession for the sake of naught. Have no mercy on transitory things, lest you lose what is eternal; the whole world is foreign to you who are born and buried bare. Incurable insanity! Why do you desire another's transitory treasure with such love that you lose your own eternal treasure for eternity? Therefore meditate on death, which sets an end to the world's pleasures, and behold the outcome of rich men's fair delight. Pomp, mirth, lust, rioting are still, and earth receives the naked corpse for worms and corruption to dissolve, while the miserable soul is given to eternal pains. What more mournful than this state, what more unhappy than this woe, following this life's trifles to the end of decay and everlasting ruin? One hour's endurance would truly have been better than the late repentance’’  (cf. Phaedr. i. 13. 2) of unending time. Then fear death beneath the sky, beyond it the eternal fire; the one which you see, the other which you do not see, but yet believe in Him who has seen it. For our Lord Jesus Christ is true, to Whom is honour and glory unto ages of ages. Amen.