promises to give us after the death of this body, or even after the end of this
SERMON 221 203 but day has not ended since a shining earth has taken the place of the shining sky.
In comparison with this vigil, others are scarcely to be regarded as vigils
2. But if any of you are curious about the reasons for this great vigil of ours, it is possible with a little application to find a reliable answer. I mean, the one who has endowed us with the glory of his name, has himself lit up this night; and the one to whom we say You will light up my darkness (Ps 18:28), bestows light on our hearts. So just as our eyes rejoice to gaze upon this brilliant display of lights, in the same way our minds may be enlightened to see the reason for the splendor of this night.
Why is it, then, that Christians keep vigil today on this annual feast? Now, you see, is the supreme occasion when we keep watch; and when in our desire to know the reason we inquire, and say, "When do we keep a vigil? On such and such days we keep vigil"; we don't really think of any other solemnity but this one. In comparison with it, others are scarcely to be regarded as vigils.5
The apostle, indeed, urged the Church to be assiduous with vigils as with fasts, and gave himself as an example, when he said, in fasting very often, in vigils very often (2 Cor 11:27).6 But the vigil of this night is such that it alone among all the others can claim the common name for its own proper name, and be known simply as "The Vigil." So first I will say a few things, as the Lord may grant me, about vigils in general, and afterward about today's in particular.
The reason for vigils
3. In that life, which we are now toiling away to earn our rest in, which Truth promises to give us after the death of this body, or even after the end of this world, we are never going to sleep, just as we are never, of course, going to die. After all, what else is sleep but a daily death, which doesn't definitively remove us from here, and doesn't hold a person in its grip all that long? And what else is death but a long-lasting and very deep sleep, from which God can wake a person up? So then, where no death can come, neither can its reflection, sleep, intervene. Finally, sleep only affects mortal creatures. It doesn't constitute the resting of the angels; because they are always alive, they don't restore their tissues with sleep. Just as life there is without end, so too is wakefulness; there to be alive is simply to keep awake, to keep awake is simply to be alive.
We, though, in this body, which being perishable weighs down the soul (Wis 9:15), can only keep alive if we restore our strength sometimes by sleeping; and so we interrupt our lives with the semblance of death, in order to be able to live at least during the intervals. And thus people who regularly make a practice of chastely and innocently keeping awake at nights7 are without any doubt prac¬ ticing how to live like the angels (to the extent, you see, that the weakness of this flesh is an earthly burden, it restricts heavenly desires); by longer vigils they