Christian Art | Jesus Christ The Good Shepherd
Office Of Readings | Week 24, Saturday, Ordinary Time | From The Sermon Of Saint Augustine On The Shepherds | Offer The Bondage Of Consolation
‘Offer the bondage of consolation.’
Saint Augustine develops his teaching on pastoral responsibility by focusing on how shepherds should address the realities of suffering and temptation in the Christian life. He begins with the principle from Hebrews 12:6: “God chastises every son whom he acknowledges.” This verse provides both warning and reassurance: chastisement is not a sign of rejection but of belonging, since even Christ, though sinless, endured suffering in the flesh. By sharing in discipline, the faithful are confirmed as adopted children of God and coheirs with Christ.
For Augustine, pastoral negligence appears in two forms: deceiving the weak with false promises of exemption from suffering, or overwhelming them with fear when they hear of trials to come. Both errors leave believers unprepared: the first through complacency, the second through despair. The pastor’s task is therefore to strike a balance, preparing the faithful realistically for temptation while also offering the “bandage of consolation.”
This involves a double teaching. On the one hand, the shepherd must recall Christ’s example of endurance and the inevitability of trials in the Christian life. On the other, he must strengthen the fearful by quoting Paul’s assurance in 1 Corinthians 10:13: “God is faithful; he will not allow you to be tempted beyond your strength.” Augustine weaves together these two strands—warning and promise, rebuke and encouragement—presenting them as complementary aspects of God’s fatherly discipline.
The sermon also highlights different responses to hearing about suffering. Some, stirred by zeal, seek martyrdom, desiring to “drain the cup” of Christ’s passion. Others, when trials come, falter and grow disheartened. Augustine insists that both responses require pastoral care: the zealous must not despise ordinary endurance, and the fearful must be reassured that God measures trials to human capacity.
The shepherd, therefore, is called to imitate the divine healer, binding wounds with both truth and mercy. Augustine echoes the language of Hosea 6:1—“He has struck, but he will heal us”—in reminding his audience that God both chastises and consoles. In this way, pastors are to ensure that discipline leads not to despair but to perseverance, and that the flock, whatever their temperament, are sustained in the hope of Christ.
From The Sermon Of Saint Augustine On The Shepherds | Offer The Bondage Of Consolation
Scripture says: God chastises every son whom he acknowledges. But the bad shepherd says: “Perhaps I will be exempt.” If he is exempt from the suffering of his chastisements, then he is not numbered among God’s sons. You will say: “Does God indeed punish every son?” Yes, every one, just as he chastised his only Son. His only Son, born of the substance of the Father, equal to the Father in the form of God, the Word through whom all things were made, he could not be chastised. For this reason he was clothed with flesh so that he might know chastisement. God punishes his only Son who is without sin; does he then leave unpunished an adopted son who is with sin?” The Apostle says that we have been called to adoption. We have been adopted as sons, that we might be coheirs with the only Son, and also that we might be his inheritance: Ask of me and I will give you the nations as your inheritance. Christ gave us the example by his own sufferings.
But clearly one who is weak must neither be deceived with false hope nor broken by fear. Otherwise he may fail when temptations come. Say to him: Prepare your soul for temptation. Perhaps he is starting to falter, to tremble with fear, perhaps he is unwilling to approach. You have another passage of Scripture for him: God is faithful. He does not allow you to be tempted beyond your strength. Make that promise while preaching about the sufferings to come, and you will strengthen the man who is weak. When someone is held back because of excessive fear, promise him God’s mercy. It is not that temptations will be lacking, but that God will not permit anyone to be tempted beyond what he can bear. In this manner you will be binding up the broken one.
When they hear of the trials that are coming, some men arm themselves more and, so to speak, are eager to drain the cup. The ordinary medicine of the faithful seems to them but a small thing; for their part they seek the glorious death of the martyrs. Others hear of the temptations to come, and when they do arrive, as arrive they must, they become broken and lame. Yet it is right that such things befall the Christian, and no one esteems them except the one who desires to be a true Christian.
Offer the bandage of consolation, bind up what has been broken. Say this: “Do not be afraid. God in whom you have believed does not abandon you in temptations. God is faithful. He does not allow you to be tempted beyond your strength. It is not I who say this, but the Apostle, and he says further: Are you willing to accept his trial, the trial of Christ who speaks in me? When you hear this you are hearing it from Christ himself, you are hearing it from the shepherd who gives pasture to Israel. For of him it was said: You will give us tears to drink in measure. The Apostle says: He does not allow you to be tempted beyond your strength. This is also what the prophet intends by adding the words: in measure. God rebukes but also encourages, he brings fear and he brings consolation, he strikes and he heals. Do not reject him.”
Christian Prayer With Jesus Christ
Faithful God,
you discipline those you love
and do not abandon those you call your children.
Give us courage in trial,
steadfastness in weakness,
and comfort in fear.
Strengthen your Church with the example of Christ,
who suffered for us,
and with the promise of your Spirit,
who sustains us in every testing.
Bind our wounds with your mercy,
and keep us in the hope of eternal life,
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
Glossary Of Christian Terms
Hebrews 12:6 – “The Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he acknowledges.” A central scriptural foundation for Augustine’s reflections on divine chastisement.
Adoption – In Pauline theology, believers are adopted as children of God through Christ (Romans 8:15–17), becoming coheirs with him.
1 Corinthians 10:13 – Paul’s assurance that God does not allow believers to be tempted beyond their strength, frequently cited by Augustine as a source of encouragement.
Chastisement – The discipline or correction by which God strengthens and purifies believers.
Martyrdom – The act of bearing witness to Christ even unto death. Some Christians actively sought it, while others feared the trials it entailed. Augustine acknowledges both responses.
Bandage of consolation – Augustine’s metaphor for the pastor’s task of offering reassurance alongside warning, echoing the biblical imagery of God binding up the wounded (Ezekiel 34:16).
In the Catholic Church, Purgatory is believed to be a place or state of suffering that is temporary and where the souls of those who have died in a state of grace but are not yet fully purified are purified before they can enter heaven. It is believed to be a place of spiritual and moral purification, where the soul is cleansed of any remaining attachments to sin [ … ]
We process. Glass exhibition cases, old reliquaries. A forearm here; here a nun’s fingertip. In chapel, at a glance, there are the usual faces. But they all stand to attention. Jonathan breaks from the procession to – fire the organ with oomph and dignity: Ride on! ride on in majesty! The angel-squadrons of the sky look down with sad and wondering eyes to see the approaching sacrifice. When we’ve done the readings, the Arch holds that tree in his hands to deliver the homily. He rocks quietly on his feet, some few seconds, as if balance defeated it. A way you might affect as the Spirit moves… Copying. Then he says: ‘Our palm fronds may seem to us today rather dry. I mean this not in a literal sense, but by the standards of those who originally lined the roadways in order to welcome Jesus into Jerusalem, as they proclaimed Jesus to be the Messiah, who would be clambering up and ripping their palm branches fresh from off the trees. I think perhaps also our faith is somewhat distant from that of the people there on that highroad into Jerusalem, and something of our sense of the meaning has shifted in vividness from what it was then. And of course the expectation of all those many people is markedly different, but in many important respects the same. There are the same essential qualities to all our faith in God, which springs complete from our humanity, and that is one and the same in value for all of us, and time is consistent on this point. So then, let us renew the fullness of Catholic faith, and let us ask the Lord’s blessing as we embark upon our Holy Week. ‘Our Lord enters into Jerusalem in order to refresh us. He is to die in order that we may have life. There is a living reality here, both spiritual and as entangled in the joy of our daily living. We have Ladies’ Day where I grew up. They still have it, and they close the roads off, and little children parade, dressed-up like spring brides. When I was a boy, there was a May Day festival, and there was a May pole on the field, with the people dancing, like Morris dancers might be one way of visualizing this if you’ve never seen it, with their ribbons tied onto the top of the May pole, and they would weave around each other, dressing the pole, which is what we called it. It was like a dance with red and white and blue ribbons all hung off of the top of the May pole, which stood there all year, only like a telegraph pole, but it was concreted in, and then there was a slide, and swings – one baby-swing and two you could have a go at – terrible health and safety but that’s what it was in those days. ‘There was a round-a-bout – we used to run it round and round to try to get it off its central axis. It were rusty as anything and creaked like mad – on concrete. And climb up where it was all greased up at the top. Ruth, who was big as the next four of us, used to sit there sucking on the lollipops we nicked for her from Raddies, and she’d direct matters. We were trying to destroy it, and get it to dislodge from its central axis, and fly away – roll off into that farmer’s field, which he only ever kept for silage, but we never succeeded. There was a car someone had left there so we spent forever smashing that up, until someone who lived in one of the houses there took exception to our doing that, so he put thick grease under the door handles and gave us a right talking to. ‘It would only be a few stands, hot-dogs and things like that. The man selling the hot dogs would have his records on full blast. There’d be a couple of set-up stalls. Air-rifles – that sort of thing. But we all had them, and we all went shooting, of course, if not with twelve bores then with smaller gauge. Or pay a pound – I have no idea how much it was in actual fact then – it might have only been a few pennies – and we’d get all that time smashing up the crockery the man would put up for us to smash on the dressers. That was my particular favourite thing to do at these festivals, by the way, in case you were wondering. You got a little bucket of so many cricket balls. ‘I dread to think what went into those hot dogs. Probably EE rules would forbid it now. But it was a fair mix in those days. A lot of young people then were C of E. We’ve done a lot to hang onto our young people, which is a tremendous encouragement when you consider how things are, while in recent decades the Church of England hasn’t been so successful. People still want it on feast days and what are essentially now civic celebrations. It’s strange to see, though, how all the little stands there people have are run by the police and people like that along those lines. There’s no May pole. That was a sort of faith that ran and ran beneath all the theoreticals of it in the 1960s and the 1970s and into the 1980s. The May pole isn’t there now in the particular place I’m thinking of. Considering May poles were officially suppressed hundreds of years ago – as a part of the protestant reformation. One or two of you are probably thinking I’m remembering things from that time! ‘I should have liked to say that those processionals were so hardwired into us, that even after the last thirty years, when I became a bishop, they are still with us. They were […]
Saint Cyril of Alexandria draws attention in this reading to the spiritual and sacramental union of believers with Christ and one another. His theology, formed during the height of the Trinitarian and Christological controversies of the fourth and fifth centuries, centres on the mystery of the Incarnation and the salvific unity it brings to humanity. This passage illustrates a core tenet of Cyril’s thinking: that through Christ’s incarnation and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the faithful are mystically united both with Jesus Christ and with each other [ … ]
