45. What is adoration? .... ......... ........ ...... 57
41. What is praise?
Whereas adoration bows the head before God's majesty, praise raises it up to him, seeking his Face. Since God deserves praise and of his greatness there is no end, "do not think that he can be praised enough whose greatness is endless. Should not then your praise be endless since he has no end?""' Thus, our life is a continual seeking of God's Face and praising his name.
St. Augustine knew the human heart in all its depth and weakness. He was aware of the temptation to focus on God's gifts more than on the divine Giver. He cautions his hearers about this and offers some concrete advice on how to avoid this vice.
"Celebrating your acts of power, one age shall praise your doings to another. Oh, the splendor of your glory, your renown! Men will proclaim your fearful power and I shall relate your greatness; they will celebrate your generous kindness and joyfully acclaim your righteousness - only yours will act thus. See whether this man, upon meditating on your works, has turned his gaze toward the works and away from the Worker. Observe whether or not he has descended from the Maker of all things to the things he has made. For what he has made has been made as a ladder to ascend to him, not descend from him. For if you love these things more than you love him, you shall not possess him. What does it profit you to have an abundance of works if the Worker should leave you? Certainly, you should love those things, but love him more - and love them for his sake.
"Praise of God sets you on your way and should determine what you ought to love and what you should fear; what you should seek, and what you should avoid ... The time to choose is at hand. The time of recompense is later. So let the wonders of your deeds (which have no end) be told now ... so let your praise have no end.""')
Our author goes on to say, "The silence of the heart is the cooling of charity, the cry of praise is charity's fervor."120 A life founded on divine love has to express itself in praise: "You are great, 0 Lord, and greatly to be praised; great is your power, and of your wisdom there is no end. And man, as a part of your creation, desires to praise you, man, who carries within himself his own mortality, that witness of his sin and still more, the witness that you resist the proud. Yet man, but a particle of your creation, desires to praise you. You move us to delight in praising you; for you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in you.""' St. Augustine adds, "The thirteen books of my Confessions praise the just and good God of my merits and evils. Merits, because he has given them to me; evils, because he has freed me of them."`22
Praise is such a fundamental element of Christian life, Augustine claims, that he feels compelled to use the following words: "the sum total of man's work is this: to praise God."123 Yet it is not enough to simply praise God if we truly love him, "What will be your occupation if not that of praising him whom you love and making others love him as you do?""'
Augustine establishes praise at a primordial level that goes so far as to aptly define our eternal life:
"Toils and wailing shall cease, prayers diminish, but hymns of praise continue. There shall be the dwelling place of the blessed ... for he will be present for whom we sigh. We shall be like him and see him as he is (1 John 3:2). There our task will be to praise God and enjoy his presence. What else could we ask for when he satisfies our every desire, he who has made all things? We shall dwell and be dwelt in; and be subject to him so that he may be all in all (1 Cor. 15:28) ... Let this then be the sole object of our longing when we have reached that passage, dear brothers. Let us prepare ourselves, then, to rejoice in God - to praise him.""'
He who has come to truly know God and love him as he ought can truly praise God. "We can exult in the Lord if our praise recognizes in him that only he responds to our desires ... the rule is very brief: he pleases God who is pleased by God. And, beloved, do not think that this has to do with pleasure. See how many of you oppose God because you are not pleased with his works. True enough, when he wants to work against the will of men, because he is Lord, because he knows what he should do, he does not take into account so much our will as our well-being. Those who would rather that their own will were fulfilled before God's, think to please God with their will, rather than correct their will by conforming it to his. Hence, we cannot exult in him except with praise. Nor can we ask of him, except after we have praised him."126 Praising him more then, we please him more. And pleasing him more, he pleases us more.
Not being pleased with the nature of God's will can have a natural foundation - above all when his will demands sacrifice and suffering from his children. The conformity of human will to divine will in order to truly praise God is seen most clearly in Jesus Christ in Gethsemane. His human nature felt repulsion for what he knew to be the will of the Father. Your will be done! (Matt. 26:42) spoken by Christ in his crisis moment makes possible the most pleasing praise.
42. Does this mean we manipulate God through our charming praise?
"He is not praised in the same way as by those theater-lovers who praise charioteers, hunters, actors of every sort, and by their praising, others are invited to praise, and even urged to shout in unison ... Our God is not so. He should be praised with the will, loved with charity. He should be loved and praised gratuitously. But what does `gratuitous' mean? It means praising him for his own sake, and not for the sake of something else. For if you were to praise God that he might give you something else, you cease to love God freely. You would cringe if your wife loved you for your money and, in the event poverty ensued, she would consider adultery. Since you want to be loved freely by your spouse, would you love God with something else in view? I will praise your name, 0 Lord, for it is a good thing ... Why? Because `it is a good thing.' I can find nothing better than your name.""'
43. What makes our praise so pleasing to God?
Integrity of life.
"Would you sing a psalm? Then do not sound God's praises with voice alone, but put your works in harmony with your voice. Sing out with your voice if you would be pleasing to the ear, but do not silence your heart, nor let your life fall silent. Singing a psalm, you commit no vice. When you eat and drink, sing a psalm - not by mixing in harmonious sounds pleasing to the ear, but in moderate eating and drinking with frugality and temperance. For the apostle says, whatever you eat or drink, whatever you do at all, do it for the glory of God (1 Cor. 10:31) ... Even when sleep overcomes you, do not allow an evil conscience to awaken you. In this way, the innocence of your sleep praises God.
"Let your praises be pleasing to our God. How? By praising him with the goodness of our lives. Take heed of that, and then your praise will be pleasing to him. Elsewhere it says, Praise is unseemly in a sinner's mouth (Ecclus. 15:9). If praise in the mouth of a sinner is unseemly, then it cannot be pleasing, for only what is seemly pleases ... Perhaps praise pleases man when he hears it with elegant and clever sentiments from a sweet-sounding voice. But `let praise be pleasant to our God,' whose ears hear what comes not from the mouth but from the heart; not the tongue, but the very life of him who
44. Other than God's deserving our praise, does Augustine offer any motivations to praise God?
"Oh, the splendor of your glory, your renown . . . Men will proclaim your fearful power, and I shall assert your greatness ... Consider whether or not this man who meditates on your work, has descended from him who made all things, to the things he has made. Of those things that he has created, this man has made a ladder to God, rather than descend from God. For if you love them more than you love him, you will not have him. And what does it profit you to have an overflow of works if the Worker abandons you? Certainly, you should love them, but love him more. For he does not extend promises without extending threats. If he held out no promise, there would be no motivation; if he held out no threats, there would be no correction.
"Those who praise you, 0 Lord, speak of the excellence of your terrible deeds, the greatness of the work of your hands which punish and distribute discipline. They shall speak and will not remain silent. They will not proclaim your everlasting kingdom and silence your everlasting fire. For it is the praise of God that sets you on your way that ought to show you both what you should love and what you should fear; what you should seek, and what you should shun; what you should choose, and what you should reject. The time to choose is now. The time of reward is later. Let the excellence of your terrible things be proclaimed now. Although it is endless, so, too, your greatness has no end, and they shall not be silent about it. How shall they tell of it if it has no end? They shall proclaim it with their praise; and because there is no end of it, so, too, there will be no end to his praise."129