October 2025 Reading on St. Augustine

In the fall of 412, when he was 58, Augustine was in Carthage, the metropolitan see of Latin speaking Africa. He was continuing a series of commentaries on the Psalms, his Enarrationes in Psalmos. These commentaries had a directly pastoral aim. In his commentary on Psalm 147, he addresses his mostly low born congregation with the words one would normally reserve for nobility: “Caritas Vestra.” Later in that commentary he reflects on the vicissitudes of life.

I am always struck by the paradox by the duty of Christian joy. We are told by St. Paul to “rejoice always” (I Thessalonian 5:16). But Jesus tells us, “Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted” (Matthew 5:5). At the end of the rosary, in the “Hail Holy Queen,” we say we are “in this valley of tears.” St. Augustine, ever the realist, explains this as follows:

He who, if he have any sorrow in matters of this world, so weeps as inwardly to rejoice in hope, if he have any joy in matters of this world, so rejoices as inwardly to fear in spirit; who yields himself neither to prosperity to corrupt, nor to adversity to crush (and this is to weep as though he wept not, and to rejoice as if he rejoiced not (I Corinthians 7:30));- he who is such as this awaits the last day without anxiety, because he is already reckoned among the incorruptible timbers of which Noah’s ark is made (Genesis 6:14). Let him then not fear the coming of the Lord, but hope and long for it. (Enarratio in Psalmum 147.4)

Here we learn a secret to a good life- to take comfort in the Lord in our sorrows, and to remember to give thanks for and use appropriately the gifts of God. Augustine is also talking about the second coming of Christ at the end of time, but he is also talking about our individual death. We parents have massive responsibilities and if we were to leave this life early, our families would suffer. Therefore, we ought not pray for an early death in most circumstances. But there is a sense in which we look forward to a “happy death, ” a death without fear because we are planks in the boat (Noah’s ark) of the Church whom Christ loves. St. John Henry Newman, and many Christians from the medieval period until the mid 20 century, often prayed for a happy death. Newman encapsulates this prayer well:

May the Lord support us all the day long,

till the shades lengthen and the evening comes,

and the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life is over,

and our work is done.

Then in his mercy may he give us a safe lodging,

and holy rest, and peace at last.