St. Michael's Lent 2026 - Reading #6 - Vigilance
Reading
The city has fallen — and the survivors crowd the theatres.
"Oh infatuated men, what is this blindness, or rather madness, which possesses you? How is it that while, as we hear, even the eastern nations are bewailing your ruin, and while powerful states in the most remote parts of the earth are mourning your fall as a public calamity, ye yourselves should be crowding to the theatres, should be pouring into them and filling them; and, in short, be playing a madder part now than ever before? This was the foul plague-spot, this the wreck of virtue and honour that Scipio sought to preserve you from when he prohibited the construction of theatres; this was his reason for desiring that you might still have an enemy to fear, seeing as he did how easily prosperity would corrupt and destroy you."
Walls standing, morals in ruins — Scipio’s test still stands.
Augustine will not soften it: "He did not consider that republic flourishing whose walls stand, but whose morals are in ruins. But the seductions of evil-minded devils had more influence with you than the precautions of prudent men. Hence the injuries you do, you will not permit to be imputed to you; but the injuries you suffer, you impute to Christianity. Depraved by good fortune, and not chastened by adversity, what you desire in the restoration of a peaceful and secure state, is not the tranquillity of the commonwealth, but the impunity of your own vicious luxury. Scipio wished you to be hard pressed by an enemy, that you might not abandon yourselves to luxurious manners; but so abandoned are you, that not even when crushed by the enemy is your luxury repressed. You have missed the profit of your calamity; you have been made most wretched, and have remained most profligate."
Do not sleep through the warning.
Reflection
"Depraved by good fortune, and not chastened by adversity." Read that line as a father in a comfortable century. Our danger is not the Goths; it is the theater — the endless scroll, the anesthetic of amusement that keeps a household entertained while its interior walls quietly fall. A man can provide every material thing for his family and be fast asleep at his actual post, because the siege in this age comes through the screens, the schedule, and the slow substitution of distraction for prayer.
Scipio's principle is worth stealing: a wise commander keeps something to fear. Not anxiety — vigilance. Holy fear of the Lord, sober awareness that your children's souls are contested territory.
Before this first week closes, conduct an honest inspection of your household's amusements. Not to become the entertainment police, but to answer Scipio's question: are the walls standing while the morals crumble? Do not sleep through the warning.