More fragile than glass
This paragraph may appeal only to those “of a certain age,” and perhaps not even to them….
We have listened to the Gospel and in it heard the Lord criticizing people who know how to examine the sky but don’t know how to discern the time of faith and the approaching kingdom of heaven. The Lord Jesus Christ himself began the preaching of his Gospel thus: “Repent: the kingdom of heaven has drawn near” (Mt 4:17), and his precursor John the Baptist began in a similar way: “Do penance, the kingdom of heaven has drawn near” (Mt 3:2). And now the Lord reproves people who refuse to do penance at the approach of the kingdom of heaven. “The kingdom of heaven,” he himself said, “does not come with observation,” and also, “the kingdom of heaven is among you” (Lk 17:20-21). It would be prudent, then, for everyone to take to heart the warnings of the teacher so that he does not waste the time of the Savior’s mercy, which is now being dispensed as long as the human race is being spared. For a person is spared so that he might be converted and not be damned. It is up to God when the end of the world comes, now is the time for faith. Whether the end of the world will find anyone of us here I don’t know, and it may be that it will not find any of us. But for each of us the time is near because we are mortal. We make our way between falls. We would have less cause to fear if we were made of glass. What is more fragile than a glass vessel? And yet it may be saved and last for centuries. And even if glass vessels were afraid of failling, they wouldn’t have to be afraid of old age and fever. We, then, are more fragile and weaker, because in our fragileness we not only fear all the falls that never cease in human affairs, but, even if falls don’t occur, time moves on. A person avoids a blow, but can he avoid death? He avoids things coming at him from outside, but can something born inside him be driven off? Now it’s intestinal worms, now some sudden illness, and later, however long a person is spared, old age will come and there is no way to delay it. (Augustine, Sermon 109, 1; PL 38, 636)
I wish Augustine would appeal to the large chunk of the American population that believes in an imminent return of Jesus (saving them, not others, no doubt). Augustine is bang on here (even the intestinal worms, I suppose), but his is wisdom that seems to have been lost on contemporary American Christians in particular.
PS: May 21. Save the date!
http://www.religionnews.com/index.php?/rnstext/self_proclaimed_prophet_spawns_apocalypse_movement/
Yikes! Augustine certainly didn’t write this when he was 25.
Sadly, I think not even the gorgeous homiletic stylings of St.A could penetrate the deep twistedness of the folks who believe like the loon in the link. I shouldn’t be surprised at how pervasive those beliefs are, but it still knocks me for a loop when I encounter it. Not long ago, I stood on line at a grocery store and listened to a mother kill time by carefully rehearsing with her 2 kids their family’s emergency plan for the Rapture.
While there’s lots of nuttiness across our land icluding ‘Rapturers” “Birthers” etc.
I thought this thread is about seniors in general, who havea wide variety of approaches, many positive and many emphasizing how they can serve even as they suffer the aches and pains many of us have as we age.
The current senior group comes from what was labelled the greatest generation and it would be easy to generalize too much.
I do think succeeeding generations will see things differently as their average life span is predicted to grow more with, yes, more aches and pains(unless they’re genetically engineered away at some future date.)
If you lived in Oakland you too might think the end is coming.. ‘There is no there, there.’ Gertrude Stein
I think there’s nothing quite so beautiful as an elderly person who moves in their fragility with grace–sometimes, like when she’s sharing a happy memory, my mother’s body almost seems slightly liquified. Maybe it’s because in those moments she’s least focused on “the end” or just briefly re-experiences her body not as a burden.
St. A. quotes Matthew about the kingdom being at hand, and the need for repentance, but Mark makes them the very first words of the Lord in his Gospel (1:14-15).
On the subject of nuttiness: — poor St. A. didn’t realize, as some today would have us believe, that old age is simply a disease, and like other diseases, can be cured by Modern Science so we can live forever. Though, I suppose that given the choice between the Rapture and living forever in the here and now, I’d choose the former. Or maybe, like Ted Williams, I’d go for cryogenics. At least it would mean a nap.