"We are travellers…not yet in our native land" – St. Augustine
“When at last I cling to you with all my being, for me there will be no more sorrow, no more toil. Then at last I shall be alive with true life, for my life will be wholly filled by you. You raise up and sustain all whose lives you fill, but my life is not yet filled by you and so I am a burden to myself”
-St Augustine, Confessions 10.28
I was recently involved in a Facebook discussion where someone attributed the following quotation to St. Augustine:
“In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; and, in all things, charity”
I have previously heard these attributed to St. Augustine, but I had always been extremely doubtful of its origin. After commenting to this effect, someone else on the thread said he thought it was John Wesley, which sounded a bit more like it. However, after some digging, I found a post which confirmed that it definitely wasn’t Wesley.
After further research, I found that many people attributed these words to a relatively obscure German Lutheran theologian from the seventeenth century named Rupertus Meldenius, also known as Peter Meiderlin), who wrote a tract on Christian Unity (1627). However, after further digging, it appears that the earliest usage of the phrase is in 1617 by Marco Antonio de Dominis, Archbishop of Split, in his anti-Papal work “De Republica Ecclesiastica”.
Be always displeased at what you are, if you desire to attain to what you are not
– St. Augustine
It’s Theology On Tap time again!
In this previous round of talks, a local San Diego priest, Fr. Mark Menegatti gave a talk on one of my favourite Early Church Fathers.
Fr. Menegatti’s talk was on St. Augustine of Hippo. This was rather appropriate since Fr. Menegatti is himself an Augustinian! His talk was entitled: “Why everyone can read, know and love the Theologian Saint Augustine”
As usual, the talk is available for download below:
Main Talk (Download)
Q&A (Download)
To fall in love with God is the greatest romance; to see Him the greatest adventure; to find Him the greatest human achievement
– St. Augustine of Hippo
A couple of days ago on Facebook, my friend Rachel referred to the “seven gifts of the Spirit”. These are the gifts mentioned in the Prophet Isaiah:
And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him,
the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the spirit of counsel [right judgement] and might [fortitude],
the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord [piety]…
– Isaiah 11:2-3
I commented briefly on Rachel’s Facebook posting, saying that St. Augustine associated these seven gifts with Christ’s beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:3-10). In today’s post I wanted to explain in a little more detail what St. Augustine taught about the relationship between these gifts and the beatitudes…
“Man’s maker was made man that He, Ruler of the stars, might nurse at His mother’s breast; that the Bread might hunger, the Fountain thirst, the Light sleep, the Way be tired on its journey; that Truth might be accused of false witnesses, the Teacher be beaten with whips, the Foundation be suspended on wood; that Strength might grow weak; that the Healer might be wounded; that Life might die.”
― St. Augustine of Hippo
