St. Michael's Lent 2026 - Reading #5 - Vigilance
Reading
The sack followed the custom of war. The mercy did not.
"All the spoiling, then, which Rome was exposed to in the recent calamity--all the slaughter, plundering, burning, and misery--was the result of the custom of war. But what was novel, was that savage barbarians showed themselves in so gentle a guise, that the largest churches were chosen and set apart for the purpose of being filled with the people to whom quarter was given, and that in them none were slain, from them none forcibly dragged; that into them many were led by their relenting enemies to be set at liberty, and that from them none were led into slavery by merciless foes."
Blindness, ingratitude, madness — three failures of the watchman who will not praise.
Augustine’s verdict is blunt: "Whoever does not see that this is to be attributed to the name of Christ, and to the Christian temper, is blind; whoever sees this, and gives no praise, is ungrateful; whoever hinders any one from praising it, is mad. Far be it from any prudent man to impute this clemency to the barbarians. Their fierce and bloody minds were awed, and bridled, and marvellously tempered by Him who so long before said by His prophet, 'I will visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquities with stripes; nevertheless my loving-kindness will I not utterly take from them.'"
When you find gentleness, credit the Giver.
Reflection
Here is the watchman's lesson: cruelty is the default. Left to itself, the world runs on the custom of war — in commerce, in politics, in family life. When you find gentleness anywhere, restraint anywhere, a fierce thing bridled anywhere, you are looking at grace, not nature. The Lord who promised to visit transgression with the rod also promised His loving-kindness would not be utterly withdrawn. Both halves of that verse were true in Rome's streets. Both are true in your life.
A father is a fierce thing that has been bridled, or should be. Your strength was given for the threshold — to stand between your family and what would harm them — and its taming is Christ's work in you, as surely as the tempering of those barbarian hearts.
Tonight, thank God specifically for the mercies you have stopped noticing. Blindness, ingratitude, madness: the watchman's three failures. Refuse all three.