Friday, March 10, 2017

Lent IX

O ye sons of men, how long will you be dull of heart? why do you love vanity, and seek after lying? (Psalm 4:3)

That is to say, how long will you have a heart of stone, a hard one, inclined to the earth, thinking of nothing but the goods of the world? For, according to the Lord, "The hearts are weighed down by excess, drunkenness, and the cares of this world;" and because hardened hearts are not susceptible of celestial thoughts, but only of terrestrial and transitory, they only love what is terrestrial and transitory; and as we take trouble only in seeking for the things we ardently love, the Prophet adds, "Why do you love vanity, and seek after lying?" The goods of this world are called vain and fallacious, because they are neither stable nor solid, though they may seem to be so; and are therefore, with justice, designated as false and fallacious, especially when compared to those of eternity.

[St. Robert Bellarmine, A Commentary on the Book of the Psalms, O'Sullivan, tr., Loreto (Fitzwilliam NH: 2011), p. 5.]