Vigils Reading

I KNOW YOUR WORKS

From a sermon by Geoffrey of Auxerre^[1]

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The Lord knows the works of each, he knows everything fully, not only superficially but in the depth and hidden intention of the heart.  He knows what, why, and how they have performed their works, and he fully comprehends the works of them all.

Let us not reckon as works only what is done with the hands, but whatever is done by word, deed, or thought, whatever its merit may be.  ‘We must all stand before the tribunal of Christ, for each to receive as he has done in the body’, says the Apostle.  That is, he will receive according to what he merited while in the body.  Now is the time of meriting, the time of sowing; the future life is the time of receiving and of reaping… Hence he had regard for Abel and his offerings by accepting them, while he had no regard for Cain and his offerings.  To Cain he says, I know your works, that you have the name of being alive and you are dead…

            Are we surprised that a dead person is said to be alive?…  Thus do the demons fool unfortunate souls by making them appear to themselves and to others to be alive even though they are dead in sin… Some hearers may perhaps find it difficult to believe… but we know that the lives of the fathers contain something similar, and this is the tale.

The evil one envied a religious man who applied himself assiduously to hospitality along with his other pious works.  Dreaming up a novel sort of malice, the evil one occupied the corpse of an unfortunate woman who had died without confession and viaticum.  Dressed as a man, he entered the monk’s cell, and accepted for an annual wage the necessary service of receiving guests.  For a while he showed himself diligent, quick, and ready, seeking an opportunity to upset him with the malign sting of carnal desires.

But divine loving-kindness was ahead of his cunning.  A holy bishop endowed with a prophetic spirit arrived to visit his parishes.  Observing the hired servant at work, he perceived the hidden intent of the evil spirit.  In private he anxiously asked his host who he was and where he came from.  When the monk responded openly and unsuspectingly, the priest began to ask whether he ever saw him enter the oratory or participate in the divine mysteries.  He answered that, when he himself arose for vigils, the man remained asleep outside with the rest of the seculars, but beyond this he had noticed nothing.  The bishop called the man, and commanded him by authority of the divine name and of his episcopal office to tell who he was, what he was called, and why he came.  But, gnashing his teeth and melting away, he replied, ‘Truly, is what concerns you so well finished – or perhaps so neglected – that you have come to inquire about my affairs, which are none of your business?  If you had delayed your prying visit a few days, I would have gotten what I came for’.

But, O great power of the divine name, and episcopal authority… At the bishop’s command this creation of diabolical fraud vanished, and the corpse fell into dust and dry bones.  The power of malignant spirits to simulate this visible and bodily life is so great – yet only with God’s leave – that they craftily try many things, and sometimes they succeed in the measure that God’s just judgment permits.  With every form of malice they try to bring it about that those reputed by themselves and others to be living in spirit and truth may be condemned as dead before God.  May the merciful and gracious Lord protect us always from this, for he alone truly gives life who lives and reigns without end, true God over all and blessed forever.

^[1] Geoffrey of Auxerre.  Geoffrey of Auxerre: On the Apocalypse.  Trans. Joseph Gibbons, CSSP.  Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 2000. 162-165.