"Let death, the last enemy, be removed, and my flesh will be for ever my friend."

"Take away death, and the body is good. Let death, the last enemy, be removed, and my flesh will be for ever my friend. Nobody, after all, ever hated his own flesh."

"mortem tolle, et bonum est corpus. detrahatur mors nouissima inimica, et erit mihi in aeternum caro mea amica. nemo enim unquam carnem suam odio habuit."

     St. Augustine, Sermon 155.15, trans. Hill, WSA III/5, 93.  I was put onto this by Alban Massie, "Augustin, les manichéens et la manducation de la chair," Communio:  revue catholique internationale 43, no. 5 (septembre-octobre 2018):  80 (75-84).  Latin from the CAG as present in Past Masters.
     "You were already consoling yourself with the reflection, 'I would indeed like my body too to be in life; but because it can't be, at least let my spirit be, at least let my soul be.' Wait, though, don't worry. . . .  In this way you will be delivered from the body of this death (Rom 7:24), not by not having a body, or by having another one, but by not dying any more" (italics mine).