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UID:13279-1743552000-1743638399@laycisterciansofgethsemani.org
SUMMARY:Vigils Reading
DESCRIPTION:A DELUGE OF MERCY \nFrom a sermon by St Maximus the Confessor \n◊◊◊ \nWe must accept with all reverence\, brethren\, the sacred days of Lent\, and \nnot recoil because of the length of the season; for the longer the days of our \nfasting\, the greater the grounds of our forgiveness; the longer the time of our \nself-denial\, the grater the price paid for our soul’s salvation; the severer the \ntreatment of our wounds\, the more sure the healing of our offenses. For God \nwho is the Physician of our souls has instituted an appropriate time; sufficient \nfor the just to make reparation and for sinners to ask for mercy; the one praying \nfor peace\, the other imploring pardon. \nFor the days of Lent are suited to our purposes; not short\, so that we may \nplead in prayer; not long\, for our need to gain merit. For in this fast of forty days \nany offense may be wiped out\, and the severity of any judge softened. The time \nmay be long and tedious for the one who neither pleads for his sins\, nor hopes \nfor forgiveness. For he who despairs will neither confess his sins\, nor hope in the \nmercy of the Judge. \nHoly and salutary therefore is the time of Lent\, in which the Judge is \nmoved to mercy\, the sinner to repentance\, and the just to peace. For in these \ndays the Divinity is inclined to be more merciful\, the sinner to repent\, and grace \nto be obtained. All things are now prepared: the heavens to pardon\, the sinner to \nconfess\, the tongue to plead. \nMystical and salutary is this number forty. For when in the beginning the \niniquity of mortals covered the earth\, God\, dissolving the clouds of heaven for \nthe space of this number of days\, covered the whole earth with a flood. You see \nthen already that in this time the Mystery is put before us in Figure. For as it \nthen rained for forty days\, to cleanse the world\, so now it also happens. Yet the \ndeluge of those days must be called a mercy; in that through it iniquity was \ncrushed\, and justice upheld. For it took place out of mercy\, to deliver the just\, \nand that the wicked might no longer sin. We see clearly it was through mercy it \ncame\, as a sort of baptism\, in which the face of the earth was renewed; that is\, so \nthat mortals who wallowed in the dreadful sin of those abandoned might come \nto grace in the dwelling of Noah\, and so that he who was then an abode of \niniquity\, might become a dwelling of holiness. \nHoly and dedicated is this time of forty days\, which immediately from the \nbeginning began to divide the just from the unjust; and by a kind of judgment \nseparate the good from the bad. And this takes place even in our time of forty \ndays. For in these forty days the good are divided from the bad\, that is\, the \nchaste from the unchaste\, the temperate from the intemperate\, the Christian \nfrom the heathen. The wicked…are separated from the good\, that is\, the sinner \nfrom the just\, the devil from the saint\, the heretic from the faithful. For those \nothers are lost\, as in the Flood\, in the disaster of this world\, while the Church \nalone\, with all its virtues\, is like the Ark sustained above the deep.
URL:https://laycisterciansofgethsemani.org/event/vigils-reading-289/
CATEGORIES:Vigils Readings
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