Sunday, October 25, 2020

Homily by St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo. 87th Tract on John (SS. Simon and Jude)

 



 Homily by St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo. 87th Tract on John (SS. Simon and Jude)

In the reading from the Gospel, the last before this, the Lord had said: Ye have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go, and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in My Name, He may give it you. And here He saith These things I command you, that ye love one another. And by this it is that we must understand what fruit from us it is, whereof He saith I have chosen, that ye should go, and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain, and so the words added That whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in My Name, He may give it you. He will give unto us when we love one another, since this (mutual love) is itself the gift of Him Who hath chosen us when as yet we were fruitless, since it hath not been we who have chosen Him, (but He Who hath chosen us,) and ordained us, that we should go, and bring forth fruit, that is to say, should love one another.

 

Love then, is the fruit which we should bring forth, and the Apostle Paul tells that this love is love out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned. This is the love wherewith we love our neighbor, the love wherewith we love God, for we do not really love our neighbor unless we love God. For if any man love God, he loveth his neighbor as himself, since he that loveth not God loveth not himself. For on these two commandments hang all the law and the Prophets. Love, then, is the fruit which we should bring forth. And concerning this fruit, the Lord gives us this commandment These things (says He) I command you, that ye love one another. Hence also the Apostle Paul Gal. v. 22 when he is about praising up the fruits of the Spirit as opposed to the works of the flesh, saith first of all: The fruit of the Spirit is love. And from that as the beginning he draws out a string of other fruits, as thence begotten and thereto bound, namely, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, chastity.

 

Who is really joyful that loves not the cause of his joy? Who can really be at one with another, unless he loves that other? Who is cheerful under long toil for a good work, unless he loves the aim? Who is kind, unless he loves the object of his tenderness? Who is good, unless by the persuasion of love? Who is truly faithful, unless by the faith which worketh by love? Who is gentle to any use, unless love move him? Who turns away from baseness unless he loves honor? Well, then, doth the Good Master so often command us to love, as though that commandment was all-sufficient, for love is that gift without which all other good things avail nothing, and which cannot be without having every other good gift which makes a good man good.

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