Lent with the Early Church Fathers - Post-Resurrection

The Days Ahead

Lent with the Early Church Fathers

A daily post from Tom Bandy 

Based on Day by Day with the Early Church Fathers (Eds. Christopher D. Hudson, J. Alan Sharrer, and Lindsay Vanker: Hendrickson Press, 1999) 

Drink from the fountain of love 

Augustine 

To all the faithful who are seeking their own country, this world is as the desert was to the people of Israel. They were certainly wandering and seeking their own country, but with God as their guide they could not wander astray. Their way was God’s bidding. 

As for where they went during those 40 years, the journey is made up of just a few stops, and everyone knows it. They were slow down because they were in training, not because they were abandoned. 

What God promises us is indescribable sweetness and good, as Scripture says – and as you’ve often heard me repeat – “what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived). But we are exercised by worldly laborers and trained by the temptations of this present life. 

However, if you do not wish to die of thirst in this wilderness, drink charity. It is the fountain that God has been pleased to put here, so that we will not faint along the way – and we should drink of it more abundantly when we have come to our own land.