December 2

y soul pines for your salvation. This kind of pining is right, for it is the sign of desire for a good not yet obtained but longed for with great eagerness and intensity. Who is speaking if not the chosen race, the royal priesthood, the holy nation, the people God has claimed as his own? From the beginning of the human race until the end of the world, in the person of those who at their various times have lived, are alive now or will live on earth, this people longs for Christ.

Thus the earlier ages of the Church, before Christ was born of the Virgin, produced saints who longed for his coming in the flesh, but the saints of this present age that began after his ascension into heaven long for him to appear as judge of the living and the dead. This yearning on the part of the Church has never known the slightest diminishment from the beginning until the end of the ages, except during the time that Christ lived with his disciples in the flesh. Therefore we may fittingly understand the cry My soul pines for your salvation and I hope in your word to be uttered by the whole body of Christ as it groans in this life. His word is his promise. Buoyed by this hope, we look forward to it in patience, not yet seeing but believing.

From John E. Rotelle, O.S.A., Tradition Day by Day: Readings from Church Writers. Augustinian Press. Villanova, PA, 1994.

HTML text prepared by David P. Steelman