Caput XIV. De non tardando converti ad Deum
The Danger of Delay
Scripture warns against postponing conversion, since death does not wait and sudden judgment may seize the soul unprepared.
It is written in the divinely inspired Scriptures: "Son, do not delay turning to God, because you do not know what the coming day will bring" (Ecclus. 5:8). Whoever delays turning back puts their soul in danger, because death does not delay (Ecclus. 14:12). If it finds someone delaying their conversion, it leads them to torment. It is a slack and paralyzed way of thinking to put off conversion until tomorrow and neglect today's. Why do you, a sinner, pretend you'll convert and yet not fear that sudden death might steal away your day of conversion? Don't people die suddenly?
God's Promise and Our Urgency
God promises forgiveness to the penitent but never promises a long life, so each person must turn to God without delay.
If it's a good thing to forgive sins and to turn to God, let it be done quickly. God promises you forgiveness when you turn from your sins, but he has not promised you a long life ahead. Read the prophets, read the Apostle, and see whether any hour or day has been promised to you. So let each one turn to God all the more quickly, and when he finds him, let the wicked abandon his own way.✦ If the last day suddenly arrives, delay is lost, and what remains is condemnation. You don't want to perish, so return to God, and you will live.✦ Do not despair of pardon for sinners, nor put your trust in a longer life. Turn back, then, and do penance.✦
Why Not Today?
The excuse of 'tomorrow' is challenged: a long life is only worth having if it is good, and no one would willingly choose a long evil.
"Tomorrow," you'll say, "I'll turn back." Why not today? What harm is there, you say, if I say it tomorrow? What harm is there if today? Perhaps you say, "My life will be long." I'll say: if it's long, let it be good; if it's short, let it be good too. Who could endure a long evil? You don't want a long lunch to be bad, and yet you want a long life to be bad?
Choosing a Good Life
Just as we seek what is good in every earthly choice, we should seek a good life now, not delay turning to the Lord.
You buy a country estate: you want a good one. You want to take a wife: you look for a good one. You want sons born to yourself: you choose good ones. And so that I might speak even of the cheapest things, you buy boots and you don't want bad ones — and yet you love a bad life? What bothers you about your life, which alone you want to be bad, so that among all your goods you alone would be evil? Do not delay turning to the Lord, and do not put it off from day to day (Sir. 5:8). These are God's words, not mine.
The Raven and the Dove
The cry of 'tomorrow' is like the raven that never returns; true repentance, like the dove, must come back to God now, not in old age.
You didn't hear these things from me; I hear them together with you from the Lord. Perhaps you answer: Tomorrow, tomorrow. What a raven's voice!✦1 The raven does not return to the ark; the dove returns.✦ For if you want to do penance at a point when you can no longer sin, your sins have let you go — not you them.2 Anyone who waits for the time of old age to do penance is quite a stranger to faith. It must be feared that, while he hopes for mercy, he may fall into judgment. For then the one who has now lost the fitting time for pardon will not find pardon.
Lest Prayer Come Too Late
Those who refuse God's command now will find their later prayers unanswered, so each must turn while grace is still available.
Someone who refused here to listen to what God commanded can no longer earn from God there what they ask for. Whoever neglects the time for repentance given to them pours out prayers before Christ's judgment seat to no avail. Each one ought to hasten toward God by turning back to him while they still can, so that if they refuse while they're able, they won't find themselves completely unable when at last they want to.
Read the original Latin
Legitur in litteris divinitus inspiratis dictum: Fili, ne tardes converti ad Deum, quia nescis, quid futura pariat dies (Eccli. V, 8). Qui tardat converti, periculum facit animae suae, quia mors non tardat (Eccli. XIV, 12). Quae si tardantem converti inveniet, ad tormenta deducit eum. Dissoluta et paralytica cogitatio est, de crastina cogitare conversione, et hodiernam negligere. Quid tu peccator converti dissimulas, et non metuis, ne tibi mors repentina subripiat diem conversionis? Nonne homines subito moriuntur?
Si bonum est peccata dimittere, et ad Deum converti, cito fiat. Deus tibi promittit remissionem convertenti a peccatis, securitatem tibi non promisit diu vivendi. Lege prophetas, lege Apostolum, et vide si tibi promissa sit hora aut dies. Ideo convertat se citius unusquisque ad Deum, et cum invenerit eum, derelinquat impius viam suam. Si subito intrat dies extremus, perit dilatio, et restat damnatio. Perire non vis, redi ad Deum, et vives. Noli desperare de venia peccatorum, nec de vita longiori confidere. Convertere ergo, et poenitentiam age.
Cras, inquies, convertam. Quare non hodie? Quid mali, dicis, si cras dicam? Quid mali, si hodie? Forte dicis: Longa erit vita mea. Dicam, si longa sit, bona sit; si brevis, et ipsa bona sit. Quis ferat malum longum? Prandium longum non vis habere malum, et vitam longam vis habere malam?
Villam emis: bonam desideras. Uxorem vis ducere: bonam quaeris. Filios tibi nasci vis: bonos optas. Et ut etiam de rebus vilissimis loquar, caligas emis, et non vis malas: et vitam amas malam? Quid te offendit vita tua, quam solam vis malam, ut inter omnia bona tua solus sis malus? Neque tardes converti ad Dominum, et ne differas de die in diem (Eccli. V, 8). Verba Dei sunt, non mea.
Non a me haec audisti, sed ego tecum audio a Domino. Forte respondes: Cras, cras. O vox corvina! Corvus non redit ad arcam, columba redit. Si enim tunc vis poenitentiam agere quando peccare non potes, peccata te dimiserunt, non tu illa. Satis alienus a fide est, qui ad agendam poenitentiam tempus senectutis exspectat. Metuendum est, ne dum sperat misericordiam, incidat in judicium. Neque enim tunc veniam inveniet, qui modo aptum veniae tempus perdidit.
Ibi jam a Deo non potest mereri quod petit, qui hic noluit audire quod jussit. Qui tempus poenitentiae datum sibi negligit, frustra ante tribunal Christi preces effundit. Festinare debet ad Deum convertendo unusquisque, dum potest, ne si, dum potest, noluerit, omnino cum tarde voluerit, non possit.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Isa.55.7 — Let the wicked forsake his way, and the man of iniquity his thoughts; and let him return to the LORD, and He will have mercy on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.
- ↩Ezek.18.32 — For I have no pleasure in the death of the one who dies, declares the Lord GOD; so turn and live.
- ↩Acts.3.19 — Repent therefore, and turn again, so that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.
- ↩Gen.8.7 — And he sent out the raven, and it kept going out and returning until the waters had dried up from the earth.
- ↩Gen.7.6-Gen.8.12 — Noah was six hundred years old when the floodwaters came upon the earth. Gen.7.7 — And Noah went into the ark, with his sons, his wife, and his sons' wives with him, because of the waters of the flood. Gen.7.8 — From the clean animals and from the animals that are not clean, and from the birds, and everything that creeps on the ground Gen.7.9 — Two by two they came to Noah, into the ark, male and female, just as God had commanded Noah. Gen.7.10 — And it came to pass after seven days, and the waters of the flood were upon the earth. Gen.7.11 — In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep were broken open, and the windows of the heavens were opened. Gen.7.12 — And the rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights. Gen.7.13 — On that very day Noah entered the ark—Shem, Ham, and Jephthah, Noah's sons, and Noah's wife, and the three wives of his sons with them— Gen.7.14 — They, and every living creature after its kind, and every beast after its kind, and every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth after its kind, and every bird after its kind, every bird of every wing. Gen.7.15 — And they came to Noah, into the ark, two by two, from all flesh in which was the breath of life. Gen.7.16 — And those who entered, male and female of all flesh, came in, just as God had commanded him; and the LORD shut him in. Gen.7.17 — And the flood continued forty days upon the earth, and the waters increased and lifted up the ark, and it rose above the earth. Gen.7.18 — And the waters prevailed and increased greatly upon the earth, and the ark went on the face of the waters. Gen.7.19 — And the waters prevailed exceedingly, exceedingly upon the earth, and all the high mountains under the whole heavens were covered. Gen.7.20 — The waters rose fifteen cubits higher, and the mountains were covered. Gen.7.21 — And all flesh that creeps upon the earth perished—bird, livestock, beast, every swarming thing that swarms upon the earth—and every human being. Gen.7.22 — All in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life, everything that was on the dry land died. Gen.7.23 — He blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground, from human to beast, to creeping thing, to bird of the heavens; they were blotted out from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those who were with him in the ark. Gen.7.24 — The waters surged over the earth for one hundred fifty days. Gen.8.1 — And God remembered Noah, and all the living creatures and all the livestock that were with him in the ark; and God caused a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters subsided. Gen.8.2 — The springs of the deep were stopped up, and the windows of the sky were closed, and the rain from the sky was restrained. Gen.8.3 — The waters receded from the earth, steadily withdrawing, and the waters diminished after one hundred and fifty days. Gen.8.4 — And in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. Gen.8.5 — And the waters continued to recede steadily until the tenth month; on the first day of the tenth month, the tops of the mountains became visible. Gen.8.6 — And at the end of forty days, Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made. Gen.8.7 — And he sent out the raven, and it kept going out and returning until the waters had dried up from the earth. Gen.8.8 — Then he sent out the dove from him, to see whether the waters had receded from the face of the earth. Gen.8.9 — But the dove found no resting place for the sole of her foot, and she returned to him into the ark, for the waters were over the face of all the earth. So he put out his hand and took her, and brought her to himself into the ark. Gen.8.10 — And he waited yet another seven days, and again he sent out the dove from the ark. Gen.8.11 — and the dove came to him at evening time, and behold, a freshly plucked olive leaf was in her mouth; and Noah knew that the waters had receded from the earth. Gen.8.12 — And he waited another seven days, and he sent out the dove again, and she did not return to him again.
Notes
- 1 ↩'Vox corvina' — the raven here symbolizes the soul that does not return to God, echoing the raven sent from Noah's ark that never came back (Gen 8:7). The exclamation is a rebuke against procrastination in conversion.
- 2 ↩'Peccata te dimiserunt, non tu illa' — the reversal is theologically pointed: the sinner imagines repentance as a free act of the will, but when the opportunity to sin has simply passed (through age or incapacity), it is sin that has released the person, not the person who has released sin. The penance is hollow.
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