Augustine, Sermo 340 (In anniuersario ordinationis suae)

SERMON CCCXL. On the day of his ordination, II.

1. The episcopal burden. It needs the help of Christ, that it may be carried. The freely given love of God does not take away the hope of a reward.

Ever since this burden, of which a difficult account is rendered, was laid upon my shoulders, the care of my office has indeed always made me anxious: yet I am moved far more by a consideration of this kind when its anniversary day, renewing the former memory of it, so sets it before my eyes that what I undertook long before I hold as though I were coming forward today to undertake it. And what is dreaded in this office, except that what is perilous in our honour should delight us more than what is fruitful in your salvation? Let me therefore be helped by your prayers, that He may deign to bear His burden with me. When you pray [so], you pray also for yourselves. For this burden of mine, of which I now speak, what else is it but you? Pray for me truly, as I pray, that you may not be heavy. For the Lord Jesus would not call the burden light, unless He carried it together with the one who carries it. But do you too support me, that according to the apostolic precept we may bear one another's burdens and so fulfil the law of Christ (Gal. 6:2). If He does not carry with us, we sink under it; if He does not carry us, we fall dead. Where what I am for you terrifies me, there what I am with you consoles me. For for you I am a bishop, with you I am a Christian. The one is the name of an office undertaken, the other of grace; the one is [the name] of peril, the other of salvation. In short, we are tossed as on a great sea by the storm of that activity: but recalling by Whose blood we have been redeemed, we enter, through the tranquillity of this thought, as it were the harbour of safety; and labouring in this office as our own, we find rest in a benefit [held] in common. If therefore it delights me more that I have been bought together with you than that I have been set over you, then, as the Lord commands, I shall be the more abundantly your servant, lest I be ungrateful for the price by which I was found worthy to be your fellow servant. For I ought to love the Redeemer: and I know what He said to Peter, Peter, do you love me? Feed my sheep (John 21:17). This once, this again, this a third time. Love was questioned, and labour was laid on: because where love is greater, labour is less. What shall I render to the Lord for all the things that He has rendered to me (Ps. 115:12)? If I should say that I render this, that I feed His sheep; even this I do, not I, but the grace of God with me (1 Cor. 15:10). Where then shall I be found one who renders in return, when I am everywhere forestalled? And yet, because we love freely, because we feed the sheep, we seek a reward. How shall this be? How do they agree, I love freely, so that I feed; and, I ask a reward, because I feed? In no way could this be, in no way would a reward be sought from Him Who is freely

loved, unless the reward were He Himself Who is loved. For if we render this in return for His having redeemed us, that we feed His sheep; what shall we render in return for this very thing, that He has made us to be shepherds? For bad shepherds, which be far from us, we are by our own wickedness: but good ones, which may be ours from Him, we cannot be except by His grace. Wherefore we, commanding, ask you also, my brethren, that you receive not the grace of God in vain (2 Cor. 6:1). Make our ministry fruitful. You are God's husbandry (1 Cor. 3:9). Outwardly receive the planter and the waterer; but inwardly the giver of the increase. The restless are to be rebuked, the faint-hearted comforted, the weak upheld, the gainsayers refuted, the treacherous guarded against, the unlearned taught, the slothful roused, the contentious restrained, the proud put down, the quarrelling reconciled, the needy helped, the oppressed set free, the good approved, the wicked borne with, all loved. In this activity, so great, and so manifold and varied, in things so diverse, help us both by praying and by obeying; that it may delight us not so much to be over you, as to be of profit to you.

2. The bishop ought to pray for the faithful, and the faithful for the bishop. — For as it is expedient for you that we should be zealous to pray for God's mercy for your salvation; so it behoves you too to pour out prayers to the Lord for us. Let us not judge this unfitting, which we know the Apostle to have done. For he so desired to be commended to God by prayers, that he himself entreated the whole people, saying: Praying at the same time for us also (Col. 4:3), etc. And for this reason we ought to say this, which can both exhort us and instruct you. For as we must consider, with great fear and anxiety, how we may fulfil the office of the pontificate without reproach: so it must also be observed by you, that towards all things that shall be commanded you, you strive to show humble obedience. Let us pray, then, together, most beloved, that my episcopate may profit me, and you. For it will profit me, if I say the things that are to be done; you, if you do the things you have heard. For if both we shall unceasingly pray for you, and you for us, with the perfect love of charity, we shall happily come to eternal blessedness, with the Lord's help.