Temptations
St. Augostine
Who is the slave of sin where he flees? Wherever he goes, He takes behind himself.
Bad conscience cannot escape from him; Indeed, he never disassociates himself, because the sin he committed has always brought him behind. He committed sin to procure bodily pleasure; the pleasure is past, the sin remains; what he enjoyed was gone, there was regret.
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Free from sin
Unfortunate slavery! Let us all turn to Christ, call upon the sin of God's deliverance.
Only the Lord can free us from this slavery: he who did not suffer it frees us because he is the only one who came into this flesh without sin ... for he can only free from sin who has come without sin and is is made a victim for sin.
This is our Hope, oh brothers, that liberate the one who is free, and releases us from his slaves. We were slaves of greediness, and, released, we become slaves of charity ... Your will be free if it is good. You will be free if you are a slave: free from sin, the slave of justice.
It is inevitable that sin lies in your limbs; let him take at least the kingdom, do what he commands. Will anger come to an end? Do not allow anger to curse, do not give anger to your hand or foot to strike. This unreasonable wrath would not arise if there were no sin in your limbs; however, deprive him of power, so that he cannot have weapons to fight against you: when he does not have more weapons, he will cease to emerge. Be faithful in the service of God, in the freedom of Christ; subjecting your mind to the law of your God. Do not follow your lusts: following the reinforcements; and how do you reinforce them as you can win them? How can you win your enemies, if you are fed them with the same strength?
The first freedom consists in being free of crimes. Be careful, my brothers, be careful to understand what it is now and what this freedom will be in the future. For just that it may be one in this life, even if it deserves the name of righteousness, it is not without sin. It is true that many were told that they were just and blameless, but in the sense that no crime could be rebuked; and it does not seem right, as men, to move reproach to those who are not criminals. But God does not condemn some sins, justifying and praising others; nobody approves it, and everyone deceives them. Just as a doctor hates illness of the sick person and does everything to eliminate the disease and release the sick person, so God with his grace works in us to extinguish sin and release man. But when do you ask, will sin be eliminated? If it is limited, why is not it deleted? It is limited to the lives of those who are on the go, and is eliminated in the lives of those who have reached perfection. When one begins to have no serious sins - and no Christian must have them - he begins to raise his head to freedom; but this is but the beginning of freedom, not perfect freedom.
Free from passions
Why, will someone ask, is not perfect freedom? Because "I feel in my lips another law in conflict with the law of my reason", so "not what I would do but what I detest" (Rm 7,23,19). Partial freedom, partial slavery: not yet complete, not yet pure, not yet full is freedom, because we are not yet in eternity. In part we retain the weakness, and partly we have achieved freedom. All our sins in baptism have been destroyed; but is weakness vanished when the iniquity has been destroyed? If she had disappeared, she would live on sinless land. Who will dare to say this if not who is superb, if not who is unworthy of the mercy of the liberator, if not who will deceive himself and in which there is no truth? Now, since there is some weakness in us, I say that to the extent that we serve God we are free, but to the extent that we follow the law of sin we are slaves. The Apostle confirms what we are saying: "According to the inner man I delight in the law of God".
(Rm 7,22).
We are free as we delight in the law of God: it is the freedom that proclaims this delight. When you find your delight in God, you will be free. Do not be afraid of punishment, he loves justice. In that part where justice was incomplete, Paul feels a slave, and where he delights in God's law, he does not feel slave but a friend of law; and being a friend is therefore free. What should we do to the weakness that remains in us? We turn to the one who says, "If the Son will release you, you will be truly free." To him he addresses the same Apostle, exclaiming: "0h me unhappy, who will free me from this body of death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.".
The soul lives by avoiding the things that are trying to die. Refrain from the inhuman ferocity of pride, the lazy of lust, by the deceiving name of science, and the fairs become tedious, docile animals, harmless snakes; they are allegorical expressions of soul feelings. Free will be as freer as it will be as healthy and healthier as it will be more submissive to divine mercy and grace.
Christ is resurrected, he freed you from the carnal desires, freed you from the perverse lusts, took away that superfluity with which you were born, and how much worse you had added by living badly.
True freedom is identified with the same health, and freedom will not be lost if the will remains good. Because sin sinned, in the sinful man, he found the hard need to have sin within himself, until he healed all the infirmities, and there was so much liberty that in it there was immutable the will to live happily together with the necessity volunteer and happy to live also holy and never sin again.
