3. See Mk 12:25.
SERMON 223J 239
2. This is the kind of list of wicked vigil keepers, though not necessarily so exhaustive, one expected in Sermon 223G, where instead one got bandits, or burglars, latrones, keeping awake in order to seduce. See Sermon 223G above, note 4.
3. See Mk 12:25.
SERMON 223K
AT THE EASTER VIGIL
Date: uncertain1
Two kinds of sleep, two kinds of wakefulness, corresponding to two sorts of day and night
The blessed apostle Paul said, You are all children of the light and children of the day; we do not belong to the night or the darkness. And so let us not sleep like the rest do, but let us keep awake and be sober. Because those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, are drunk at night. Let us, however, who are of the day, be sober2 (1 Thes 5:5-8). What sort of night is this, brothers and sisters, which Truth does not wish us to be in, which it says those are in who sleep? And what sort of sleep is this, from which it sets us apart as children of the light and the day, and what sleep is it that we are being exhorted not to doze off into?
Undoubtedly it is not this night which begins with the setting of the sun, but the one which begins with the setting3 of mankind; not the one ended by the first glimmer of dawn, but the one ended by the renewal of the soul. Bad people are asleep in this night, even when they are awake; good people are not in this night, even when they are asleep. This ordinary night brings the day to an end when it comes; that damnable night removed us from the day who made this day. This sleep, which we are now fighting against as we try to keep awake, takes the form, when the senses are lulled, of a guiltless death; that sleep into which unbelievers sink in their hearts, thrusts their inner eyes down into the death of sin.4 Against the first kind let us heed the injunction, Watch and pray (Mk
14:38); against the second let us say, Enlighten my eyes, lest I should ever fall asleep in death (Ps 13:3).
And so, with the aid of all these lamps shining during this night, let us stave ott the sleep of the body in this solemn vigil; but against that sleep of the heart, we ourselves ought to be lamps shining in this age of the world as in the night!