St. Augustine 'There is another, inner prayer without ceasing. It is the desire which consists in longing.'

Patristic Lectionary.
"longing". 12 occurrences of St. Augustine's passage in this Reading.

 Augustin Press Edition 1999

TWO YEAR LECTIONARY

PATRISTIC VIGILS READINGS

ORDINARY TIME

WEEKS 1 to 17 : YEAR II

WEDNESDAY, SIXTH WEEK OF ORDINARY TIME, YEAR II

A READING FROM THE FIRST LETTER OF ST PAUL TO THE THESSALONIANS

(A holy life and the hope of resurrection: 1 Thessalonians  5:1-28)

 First Reading

1 Thessalonians 5:1-28

Responsory   1 Thes 5:9; Col 1:13

God has not destined us to endure his wrath but to win salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, t who died for us, so that we might live in him.

V. God rescued us from the power of darkness and brought us into the kingdom 

 

Alternative Reading

From a sermon by Saint Augustine of Hippo (Enarr. il'l Ps. 37, 14: CCL 38, 391-392)

Inner prayer without ceasing

Your desire is your prayer. And if your desire is unending, so is your prayer unending. For it was not without good reason that the apostle spoke: Pray without ceasing. We are hardly expected to go down on our knees without a break, are we, or to prostrate ourselves, or raise our hands? Is this really what he means by saying: Pray without ceasing? If we are saying that this is how we are to pray, I think it is frankly impossible to do so without ceasing.

There is another, inner prayer without ceasing. It is the desire which consists in longing. Whatever else you do, if you long for that sabbath, you never cease praying. H you do not want to cease praying, do not cease longing. Your unending stream of longing is your unending stream of speech. H you cease loving, you will cease speaking. Who are those who have ceased speaking? Those of whom it is said: Because there is an abundance of iniquity, the love of many shall grow cold. The cooling-off of love is the silence of the heart. The leaping flames of love are the shouting of the heart. H love lasts for ever, then you are always shouting. If you are always shouting, you are always longing. If you are longing, then you are recollecting the future rest. And you ought to understand before whom the roaring of your heart takes place.

Consider now what sort of longing it ought to be which is before the eyes of God. Should it really be a longing for the death of our enemy? This is the sort of thing people think they are right to ask for. Indeed sometimes we do pray for the thing we ought not to. Let us have a look at what people think they are entitled to pray for. For they pray for the death of someone, and for an inheritance to come their way. But let even those who pray for their enemies to die listen to the Lord when he says: Pray for your enemies. Let them not, therefore, pray for the death of their enemies, but let them pray for their improvement. Indeed their enemies will in a very real sense be dead, for once they have been corrected, they will no longer be enemies.

And before you is all my longing. What if their longing is before God, and their groaning is not before God? How can this possibly be, when the voice of that longing is groaning? That is why the psalm says: And my groaning is not hidden from you. For you it is not hidden, but it is hidden from many people. Sometimes God's humble servant is seen to be saying: And my groaning is not hidden from you. Sometimes God's servant is seen also to laugh. You could hardly say that the longing for God was dead and buried in his heart, could you? And if there is longing within it, there is also groaning. It does not always filter through to the ears of people like you and me, but it never escapes the attention of God's ears.

Responsory   Ps 103:8-9.13-14

The Lord is merciful and loving, slow to anger and full of compas­sion. He will not always reprove us; his wrath will come to an end.

+ As tenderly as a father treats his children, the Lord treats those who stand in awe of him.

V. He knows what we are made of; he remembers that we are dust. + As tenderly ...