St. Michael's Lent 2026 - Reading #7 - Vigilance
Reading
The battle lines are not neat. Among enemies lie future saints; inside the Church, some wear the badge and throng the theatres tomorrow.
"But let this city bear in mind, that among her enemies lie hid those who are destined to be fellow-citizens, that she may not think it a fruitless labour to bear what they inflict as enemies until they become confessors of the faith. So, too, as long as she is a stranger in the world, the city of God has in her communion, and bound to her by the sacraments, some who shall not eternally dwell in the lot of the saints. Of these, some are not now recognised; others declare themselves, and do not hesitate to make common cause with our enemies in murmuring against God, whose sacramental badge they wear. These men you may to-day see thronging the churches with us, to-morrow crowding the theatres with the godless."
Entangled until the last judgment — fight the darkness, never the person.
Augustine turns to the long work ahead: "But we have the less reason to despair of the reclamation even of such persons, if among our most declared enemies there are now some, unknown to themselves, who are destined to become our friends. In truth, these two cities are entangled together in this world, and intermixed until the last judgment effect their separation. I now proceed to speak, as God shall help me, of the rise, progress, and end of these two cities; and what I write, I write for the glory of the city of God, that, being placed in comparison with the other, it may shine with a brighter lustre."
Watch your own gate hardest of all.
Reflection
Every father needs this complication: the two cities are not neatly sorted — church here, world there. Among declared enemies are future saints. Inside the Church, wearing the sacramental badge, are some who do not belong to her heart. The entanglement runs until the last judgment.
This does two things to a watchman. First, it kills contempt. The hostile coworker, the mocking relative, the neighbor who sneers at your family's faith may be a destined fellow-citizen. You do not know who you are talking to. Fight the darkness, never the person; that distinction is the whole discipline of Christian strength.
Second, it kills complacency. Baptism enrolled your children; it did not finish them. Sunday attendance is not citizenship. So the week of vigilance ends where honest vigilance always ends: watching your own gate hardest of all. Tomorrow a harder week begins — what the trial does when it comes indiscriminately for the just and unjust alike. The watchman has learned to see. Now he learns to endure.