Augustine For Today
FEBRUARY 12 – SAINT DAMIAN
“Lord, you frighten me! You demand from me what you gave me. You gave me my talents because you want to profit from them. You don’t want them hidden away in some secret place. You don’t want to get back only what you gave me. You want more. You want back all your money, every coin that bears your image – i.e., every human soul that ever existed.”
Sermon 125, 8
Augustine For Today
February 11 – Our Lady of Lourdes
The Virgin Mary is both holy and blessed, and yet the Church is greater than she. Mary is a part of the Church, a member of the Church, a holy, an eminent – the most eminent – member, but still only a member of the entire body. The body undoubtedly is greater than she, one of its members. This body has the Lord for its head, and head and body together make up the whole Christ. In other words, our head is divine – our head is God.
Sermon 25
Augustine For Today
February 10 – Saint Scholastica
In this faith, hope and love we pray always with unwearied desire. However, at set times and seasons we also pray to God in words, so that by these signs we may instruct ourselves and mark the progress we have made in our desire, and spur ourselves on to deepen it. The more fervent the desire, the more worthy will be its fruit.
Letter 130, 8
Augustine For Today
February 9 – Saint Appolonia
The deeper our faith, the stronger our hope, the greater our desire, the larger will be our capacity to receive that gift, which is very great indeed. No eye has seen it. No ear has heard it; it has no sound. It has not entered man’s heart; man’s heart must enter into it.
Letter 130, 8
Augustine For Today
February 8 – Saint Jerome Emiliani
Why (God) should ask us to pray, when he knows what we need before we ask him, may perplex us if we do not realize that our Lord and God does not want to know what we want (for he cannot fail to know it) but wants us rather to exercise our desire through our prayers, so that we may be able to receive what he is preparing to give us. His gift is very great indeed, but our capacity is too small and limited to receive it.
Letter 130, 8
Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time – Year C
It seems easy to judge and target James and John, as well as the other apostles upset at them, for they all wanted the same thing: to stand out and be “on top” with a sense of success and superiority. After all, hadn’t they learned anything about discipleship and self-giving? Jesus journeyed at length with them and had just told them for the third time that in his mission, he was going up to Jerusalem where he would suffer, die and be raised on the third day. But the apostles never seemed to get it! Their energy was taken up-as it can be for any of us-in the business of comparison and climbing.
Augustine For Today
February 7 – Blessed Anselm Polanco, O.S.A.
Let them love him who alone can neither deceive nor be deceived, who alone will not fail them. Let them love him because his promises are true. Faith sometimes falters because he does not reward us immediately. But hold out, be steadfast, endure, bear the delay, and you have carried the cross.
Sermon 96
Augustine For Today
February 6 – Saint Paul Miki and Companions
On the cross the Lord made the great exchange. There the purse which held our price was opened, for when the soldier’s spear opened his side, the price of the whole world poured forth. Thus he purchased the faithful and the martyrs. But the faith of the martyrs has been tested; their blood is the proof. They paid back the price Christ paid for them, thus fulfilling the words of Saint John: Just as Christ laid down his life for us, we too must lay down our lives for our brothers.
Sermon 329
Augustine For Today
February 5 – Saint Agatha
So that we might obtain this life of happiness, he who is true light itself taught us to pray, not in many words as though speaking longer could gain us a hearing. After all, we pray to one who, as the Lord himself tells us, knows what we need before we ask for it.
Letter 130, 8
Augustine For Today
February 4 – Saint Gilbert
Sacrifice, though performed or offered by man, is something divine; that is why the ancient Latins gave it this name of ‘sacrifice,’ of something sacred. Man himself, consecrated in the name of God and vowed to God, is therefore a sacrifice insofar as he dies to the world in order to live for God.
City of God, 10, 6