St. Augustine on Psalm 41(42) run like the hart
Run to the fountain; long for the fountain; but do
it not anyhow, be not satisfied with running like any ordinary animal; run thou
like the hart. What is meant by like the hart? Let there be no sloth in your
running; run with all your might: long for the fountain with all your might.
For we find in the hart an emblem of swiftness.
3. But perhaps Scripture meant us to consider in
the stag not this point only, but another also. Hear what else there is in the
hart. It destroys serpents, and after the killing of serpents, it is inflamed
with thirst yet more violent; having destroyed serpents, it runs to the
water-brooks, with thirst more keen than before. The serpents are your vices,
destroy the serpents of iniquity; then will you long yet more for the Fountain
of Truth. Perhaps avarice whispers in your ear some dark counsel, hisses
against the word of God, hisses against the commandment of God. And since it is
said to you, Disregard this or that thing, if you prefer working iniquity to
despising some temporal good, you choose to be bitten by a serpent, rather than
destroy it. Whilst, therefore, you are yet indulgent to your vice, your
covetousness or your appetite, when am I to find in you a longing such as this,
that might make you run to the water-brooks?...
4. There is another point to be observed in the
hart. It is reported of stags...that when they either wander in the herds, or
when they are swimming to reach some other parts of the earth, that they
support the burdens of their heads on each other, in such a manner as that one
takes the lead, and others follow, resting their heads upon him, as again
others who follow do upon them, and others in succession to the very end of the
herd; but the one who took the lead in bearing the burden of their heads, when
tired, returns to the rear, and rests himself after his fatigue by supporting
his head just as did the others; by thus supporting what is burdensome, each in
turn, they both accomplish their journey, and do not abandon each other. Are
they not a kind of harts that the Apostle addresses, saying, Bear ye one
another's burdens, and so fulfil the Law of Christ? Galatians 6:2 ...
5. My soul is thirsty for the living God Psalm
41:2. What I am saying, that as the hart pants after the water-brooks, so longs
my soul after You, O God, means this, My soul is thirsty for the living God.
For what is it thirsty? When shall I come and appear before God? This it is for
which I am thirsty, to come and to appear before Him. I am thirsty in my
pilgrimage, in my running; I shall be filled on my arrival. But When shall I
come? And this, which is soon in the sight of God, is late to our longing. When
shall I come and appear before God? This too proceeds from that longing, of
which in another place comes that cry, One thing have I desired of the Lord;
that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days
of my life. Wherefore so? That I may behold (he says) the beauty of the Lord.
When shall I come and appear before the Lord?...
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