This Day in Province History: November 22, 1964
Austin Preparatory School in Reading, Massachusetts, was dedicated by Richard Cardinal Cushing in the presence of the Prior Provincial, James A. Donnellon, and a large number of friars, diocesan clergy and laity. It had an overall capacity of 1200 students.
This Day in Province History: November 21, 1897
Archbishop Sebastiano Martinelli, Apostolic Delegate and Prior General, dedicated the newly completed church of Our Mother of Good Counsel, Bryn Mawr, in the presence of Archbishop Patrick Ryan, who presided, and auxiliary bishop Edmond Prendergast.
This Day in Province History: November 20, 1878
The first community cemetery was blessed at Villanova, north of the church. Thomas Mark Darragh, a professed cleric, was the first friar interred there that day.
Augustine For Today
November 20 – SAINT BENIGNUS
“Perfect love or charity is the final, perfect gift of the Holy Spirit. First, however, comes the gift which consists in the forgiveness of sins, the benefaction by which we are delivered from the power of darkness, and the prince of this world is thrown outside by our faith; he is the one who is at work in the children of unbelief … It is by the Holy Spirit who gathers the people of God together into one, that the unclean spirit is cast out, who is divided against himself.”
Sermon 71, 19-20
Thirty-fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time • Year C
The letter to the Colossians continues to open out the nature of Christ’s kingship in some of the richest language of the New Testament. His intimacy with his Father makes it possible for us to claim in faith that every dimension of creation is organically interconnected with one another because Jesus is the means by which the Father created the universe of nature and humanity, and the world that transcends the sensual.
This Day in Province History: November 19, 1923
Today is the anniversary of the death of Fr. Thomas C. Middleton, O.S.A., Villanova College’s first librarian, 10th President from 1876 to 1878, and founder and first president of the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia.
Augustine For Today
November 18
“Pride is a great evil; it is even the foremost evil, the beginning, root and cause of all sin. It was pride that overthrew the angel and made the devil. And even when overthrown, he passed on the cup of pride to upright humanity. He aroused pride in the human being who had been created in the image of God, and that pride made humanity shameful. The devil entered humanity and persuaded Eve to defy God’s law and use her own power. … ‘If you eat, he said, you will be like gods’ (Gen 3:5). Consider, then, whether it was not pride that persuaded her. The two who had been created human wanted to be gods. They assumed what they were not and lost what they were; they did not lose their human nature, but they lost blessedness, both present and future. They lost the place to which they were to be raised, deceived by the one who had been thrown down from there”
Sermon 340A
Augustine For Today
November 17 – SAINT ELIZABETH OF HUNGARY
“Whoever has injured another by open insult, or by abusive or even incriminating language, must remember to repair the injury as quickly as possible by an apology, and the one who suffered the injury must also forgive without further wrangling. But if they have offended one another, they must forgive one another’s trespasses for the sake of your prayers which should be recited with greater sincerity each time you repeat them. Although one is often tempted to anger, yet prompt to ask pardon from one he admits to having offended, such a one is better than another who, though less given to anger, finds it too hard to ask forgiveness.”
The Rule, VI.42
Augustine For Today
November 16 – SAINT MARGARET OF SCOTLAND
“No one shall perform any task for his or her own benefit, but all your work shall be done for the common good, with greater zeal and more dispatch that if each one were to work for himself or herself alone. For charity, as it is written, is not self-seeking meaning that it places the common good before its own, not its own before the common good. So, whenever you show greater concern for the common good than for your own, you may know that you are growing in charity. Thus, let the abiding virtue of charity prevail in all things that minister to the fleeting necessities of life.”
The Rule, V.31
Augustine For Today
November 15 – SAINT ALBERT THE GREAT
“How wonderful will be our happiness in heaven! Our undying body will be freed from the need to perform the ordinary tasks of this life. Who can describe the beauty of our bodies in that new life? Just imagine how they will act in that place where there is nothing ugly! Whatever our spirits decide will be accepted happily by our bodies. And our spirits will not be tempted to choose anything unbecoming either for themselves or for their friends, their bodies. We shall have perfect peace because there will be nothing inside or outside of us to cause upset. All of our parts will be drawn to praise the Lord. Our whole being will become one magnificent organ striking melodies in praise of the wonderful artist who made us inside and out and placed us at the center of the overpowering structure of this universe, a universe that will ravish us with its beauty.”
City of God 22.30