If you are one of the weeds…
March 4, 2008, 9:33 pm
Posted by Joseph A. Komonchak
If after examining your conscience you find that you are among the weeds, don’t be afraid to change. The order has not yet been given to cut the field down; the harvest has not yet come. Don’t be today what you were yesterday, and don’t be tomorrow what you are today. (Sermon 5, 2 Caillou)
Fr K: Where did this quote come from ? I have been unable to run it down in several langugages, to no avail. Who or what is Caillou, apart from the cartoon character? Thanks!
Mr. Grinnell:
A. Caillou was the editor of previously unpublished sermons of Augustine in 1842. Unfortunately, a more recent scholar says that most of the ones he edited are spurious. Whether this includes the one from which i quote I do not yet know. It reads like Augustine, however, I think.
Fr. Komonchak, I hope it’s all right to shout out another hymn. This one is better known and one of the best examples I know of the kind of hymn that brings together Scripture passages, all with something in common, and makes a unity of them. This was written by Henry Alford, who also gave us We Walk by Faith:
Come, ye thankful people, come, raise the song of harvest home;
All is safely gathered in, ere the winter storms begin.
God our Maker doth provide for our wants to be supplied;
Come to God’s own temple, come, raise the song of harvest home.
All the world is God’s own field, fruit unto His praise to yield;
Wheat and tares together sown unto joy or sorrow grown.
First the blade and then the ear, then the full corn shall appear;
Lord of harvest, grant that we wholesome grain and pure may be.
For the Lord our God shall come, and shall take His harvest home;
From His field shall in that day all offenses purge away,
Giving angels charge at last in the fire the tares to cast;
But the fruitful ears to store in His garner evermore.
Even so, Lord, quickly come, bring Thy final harvest home;
Gather Thou Thy people in, free from sorrow, free from sin,
There, forever purified, in Thy garner to abide;
Come, with all Thine angels come, raise the glorious harvest home.
http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/c/o/comeytpc.htm