Augustine For Today

January 1 – MARY, MOTHER OF GOD
“You, to whom I am speaking, are the members of Christ. Of whom were you born? ‘Of Mother Church,’ I hear the reply of your hearts. You became sons of this mother at your baptism, you came to birth then as members of Christ. Now you in turn must draw to the font of baptism as many as you possibly can. You became sons when you were born there yourselves, and now by bringing others to birth in the same way, you have it in your power to become the mothers of Christ.”
Sermon 25

Augustine For Today

December 31 – SAINT SYLVESTER
“Let us walk in Jesus’ ways, following the paths he has shown us; above all let us pursue the way of humility, since he himself became the way of humility for our sake … But how did he bring himself down? John tells us: The Word was made flesh and lived among us. The Word of God could not be slain; and so, for the immortal word to be able to die for us, he became man and lived among us. The Immortal put on mortality in order to die for us, and by his death to slay the death of us all. This is the Lord’s doing; this is his gift to us.”
Sermon 23A

Augustine For Today

December 30
“God not only made a written covenant with us to win our faith, but he also gave us a mediator of his pledge. This mediator was not a prince, an angel, or an archangel, but his only Son; through his own Son he meant both to show us and give us the way by which he would lead us to the promised goal. He was not satisfied with sending his Son to show us the way. He made him the way itself.”
Exposition of the Psalms, 109

Augustine For Today

December 29 – SAINT THOMAS BECKET
“The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. By Christ as man you wend your way to Christ as God. God is too much for you; but God has become man. What was a long way away from you has come down right next to you through a man. The place for you to stay in, that’s God; the way for you to get there, that’s man. It’s one and the same Christ, both the way to go by and the place to go to.”
Sermon 261

Augustine For Today

December 28 – THE HOLY INNOCENTS
“Rejoice, you just; it is the birthday of the Justifier. Rejoice you who are weak and sick; it is the birthday of the Savior, the Healer. Rejoice, captives; it is the birthday of the Redeemer. Rejoice, slaves; it is the birthday of the one who makes you lords. Rejoice, free people; it is the birthday of the one who makes you free. Rejoice, all Christians; it is the birthday of Christ.”
Sermon 184

Augustine For Today

December 27 – SAINT JOHN THE EVANGELIST
“You are told to love God. If you say to me: Show me whom I am to love, what shall I say if not what Saint John says: No one has ever seen God! But in case you should think that you are completely cut off from the sight of God, he says: God is love, and he who remains in love remains in God. Love your neighbor, then, and see within yourself the power by which you love your neighbor; there you will see God, as far as you are able.”
Homily on the Gospel of John, 17

Augustine For Today

December 26
“Just as that one man laid down his life for us all, so the martyrs too imitated him, and laid down their lives for their brothers and sisters; and in order that this bumper crop of Christian peoples might spring up like sprouting seeds, they watered the earth with their blood. So we too are the fruit of their toil. We admire them, they are sorry for us. They strewed their bodies like garments on the road, when the colt carrying the Lord was led into Jerusalem; let us at least cut branches from the trees, pluck hymns and praises from the Holy Scriptures, and offer them in a joint expression of rejoicing.”
Sermon 280

Augustine For Today

December 25
“God wishes to make you god, not by nature in the case of him who gives you birth, but through gift and adoption. In the same way that he came to participate in your mortality through humanity, he has made you participate in immortality through elevation.”
Sermon 166

Augustine For Today

December 24
“In bending down to pick us up, he chose the smallest day, but the one from which light starts increasing. Thus by his very coming in this sort of way he is silently exhorting us, as effectively as if he shouted it aloud, to learn to be rich in the one who became poor for us; to accept freedom in the one who for our sake accepted the form of a slave; to take possession of the heavens in the one who for our sake sprang from the earth.”
Sermon 192, 3

Augustine For Today

December 23
“He showed them where he was staying; they came and were with him. What a happy day they spent, what a happy night! Who is there who can say to us what they learned from the Lord? Let us also build and prepare in our heart a house where he may enter in and teach us and converse with us.”
Homily on John 7.9.3