Augustine For Today
February 3 – Blessed Stephen Bellesini, O.S.A.
So far as the God whom I fear grants me the strength, I shall search everywhere. I shall recall the straying; I shall seek after those on the verge of being lost. If you do not want me to suffer, do not stray, do not become lost. It is not enough that I lament your straying and loss. No, I fear that in neglecting you, I shall also kill what is strong.
Sermon 46, 15
This Day in Province History: February 3, 1880
Prior General, Fr. Giovanni Belluomini, wrote to Fr. Pacifico Neno, Prior Provincial of the American Province, informing him that his resignation as Provincial tendered one month earlier, has been denied, owing to the wishes of the friars of the Province.
Augustine For Today
February 2 – Presentation of the LORD
A woman cried out: Happy is the womb that bore you, blessed is that womb! But the Lord, not wishing people to seek happiness in a purely physical relationship, replied: More blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it. Mary heard God’s word and kept it, and so she is blessed. She kept God’s truth in her mind, a nobler thing that carrying his body in her womb. The truth and the body were both Christ: he was kept in Mary’s mind insofar as he is truth; he was carried in her womb insofar as he is man; but that is kept in the mind is of a higher order than what is carried in the womb.
Sermon 25
Augustine For Today
February 1 – Saint Severus
Every work that effects our union with God in a holy fellowship is a true sacrifice; every work, that is, which is referred to that final end, that ultimate good, by which we are able to be in the true sense happy. As a consequence, even that mercy by which aid is given to man is not a sacrifice unless it is done for the sake of God.
City of God, 10, 6
Augustine For Today
January 31 – Saint John Bosco
Do you love me? Tend my sheep. Surely this means: ‘If you love me, your thoughts must focus on taking care of my sheep, not taking care of yourself. You must tend them as mine, not as yours; seek in them my glory, not yours; my sovereign rights, not yours; my gain, not yours. Otherwise you will find yourself among those who belong to the ‘times of peril,’ those who are guilty of self-love and the other sins that go with that beginning of evils.’
On the Gospel of John 123, 5
Augustine For Today
January 30 – Saint Martina
In loving your neighbor and caring for him you are on a journey. Where are you traveling if not to the Lord God, to him whom we should love with our whole heart, our whole soul, our whole mind? We have not yet reached his presence, but we have our neighbor at our side. Support, then, this companion of your pilgrimage if you want to come into the presence of the one with whom you desire to remain forever.
On the Gospel of John 17, 7-9
Augustine For Today
January 29 – Saint Valerius
The disciples saw the Lord in the flesh, face to face; they hear the words he spoke, and in turn they proclaimed the message to us. So, we also have heard, although we have not seen. Are we then less favored than those who both saw and heard? If that were so, why should John add: so that you too may have fellowship with us? They saw, and we have not seen; yet we have fellowship with them, because we and they share the same faith. And our fellowship is with God the Father and Jesus Christ his Son. And we write this to you to make your joy complete – complete in that fellowship, in that love and in that unity.
On the First Letter of John 1
Augustine For Today
January 28 – Saint Thomas Aquinas
O Lord my God, how deep are your mysteries! How far from your safe haven have I been cast away by the consequences of my sins! Heal my eyes and let me rejoice in your light.
Confessions XI, 31
Augustine For Today
January 27 – Saint Angela Merici
You ask, ‘What does walking mean?’ I’ll tell you very briefly; it means forging ahead, in case you should possibly not understand, and start walking sluggishly. Forge ahead, always examine yourself without self-deception, without flattery, without buttering yourself up. After all, there’s nobody inside you before whom you need feel ashamed, or whom you need to impress. There is someone there, but one who is pleased with humility; let him test you, and you, too, test yourself.
Sermon 169, 18
Augustine For Today
January 26 – Saints Timothy and Titus
We pray to him as God, he prays for us as a servant. In the first case he is the Creator, in the second a creature. Himself unchanged, he took to himself our created nature in order to change it, and made us one man with himself, head and body. We pray then to him, through him, and in him; we speak along with him and he speaks along with us.
Exposition of the Psalms 85