"This eighth day therefore signifies the new life at the end of the world; the seventh the future rest of the sanctified on earth. For the Lord will reign with His holy ones, as the Scriptures say, and He shall have here a Church whither no one evil will enter, cut off from the purified of every taint of wickedness. [...]
For the Church shall first here appear in great splendour and honour and power. Then it shall not be possible to deceive, to lie, to conceal the wolf under sheep's clothing. For the Lord will come, as it is written, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and make manifest the counsels of the heart; and than shall every man have praise from God (I Cor. iv. 5). The wicked therefore shall not be there. For they shall already be cut off. The multitude of the sanctified will appear as winnowed grain heaped upon the threshing floor; and thus will be gathered into the heavenly barn of life everlasting. For as wheat, where it is threshed there also is it winnowed; and the place where the corn has been threshed, that it may be stripped from the straw, is adorned by the comely appearance of the winnowed grain. For after the winnowing we see on one side of the threshing floor the heap of chaff, and on the other the mass of wheat. Whither the chaff goes we already know, as well as how the grain gives joy to the husbandmen.
Therefore as the corn appears on the threshing floor before it is separated from the straw, and as after so much labour there is joy at the sight of the heaped up mass of the grain, which was concealed by the chaff, and not seen while being threshed out; then gathered into the barn and stored away; so in that world you shall see how this threshing floor is treaded; but the chaff is so close to the wheat, that this cannot be seen because it is not yet winnowed. Accordingly, after the winnowing of the last judgement the heap of the sanctified shall appear, shining in virtue, strong in their merits, and proclaiming the mercies of their Savior.
And this will be the seventh day. The first day as it were being all time from Adam until Noah, the second from Noah to Abraham, and the third, as Matthew's Gospel divides it, from Abraham to David. The fourth from David to the Babylonian transmigration, the fifth from the transmigration to the Coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ. The sixth therefore is counted from the Coming of Our Lord: we are in the sixth day. And so as in Genesis man on the sixth day was formed in the image and likeness of God, so we also in this time, upon as it were the sixth day of the whole of time, are reborn in Baptism; that we may receive again the image and likeness of Our Maker.
But when the sixth day has passed, the Sanctified and the Holy unto God will celebrate the Sabbath, and there shall be rest after the winnowing. But after the seventh day, when the splendid heap, the glory and the merit of the Sanctified, has appeared upon the threshing floor, we shall enter into that life, and into that rest of which it is said: That eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love him (I Cor. ii. 9).
Then we as it were return to the beginning. For as these seven days end, the eighth then becomes as it were the first: so when the seven ages of this passing world are ended and complete, we shall return to that blessed happiness and immortality from which man has fallen."
CALL TO ACTION: Clear your conscience and make restitution before it's too late... before the 8th day!
Source: "The Sunday Sermons of the Great Fathers" (St. Augustine Sermon for Low Sunday, "Christian Compassion"), Volume II, pages 276-277; Henry Regnery Company (copyright 1958); Imprimatur: E. Morrogh Bernard, Vic. Gen., Westmonasterii; Nihil Obstat: Hubertus Richards, S.T.L., L.S.S., Censor Deputatus
Photo by Markus Spiske