Augustine For Today

December 13 – SAINT LUCY
“It is God alone who both gives virginity and protects it. And God is love! Love, therefore, is the guardian of virginity, but humility is the dwelling-place of this guardian. He indeed dwells there who said that the Holy Spirit rests on the humble, the peaceful, and the one who fears his words … Humble spouses more easily follow the Lamb than proud virgins.”
On Holy Virginity 51,52

Augustine For Today

December 12 – OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE
“Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, not to make the world, not to create all things visible and invisible, not to perform miracles and raise the dead, but that I am meek and humble of heart. Do you want to be great? Then begin with what is very small. Do you want to construct a lofty building? Think first of the foundation, which is humility. The more massive the building one has in mind and plans to construct, the deeper the foundations must be laid.”
Sermon 69, 2-3

Augustine For Today

December 11 – SAINT DAMASUS
“Let me seek you, Lord, even while I am calling upon you, and call upon you even as I believe in you; for to us you have indeed been preached. My faith calls upon you, Lord, this faith which is your gift to me, which you have breathed into me through the humanity of your Son and the ministry of your preacher.”
Confessions I.1.1

Augustine For Today

December 10
“Everyone must do what he or she can. If one person is not capable of as much as another, then he or she can still attain it in the other who does have this capability. The condition is that one love and esteem in the other the attainments which one does not have because of one’s own limitations. Thus, the person with fewer capabilities ought not to impede the person with more; nor should those who are more gifted put pressure on others who are less gifted. You have to render an account of your conscience to God alone. But the only thing that you owe one another is love for one another.”
Letter 130.16.31

Augustine For Today

December 9 – SAINT JUAN DIEGO
“It is by loving that one becomes a member of Christ, becomes through love incorporated into the body of Christ; and there will be the one Christ loving himself … when therefore you love a member of Christ, you’re loving Christ, you’re loving the Son of God; when you’re loving the Son of God you love the Father. Love can never be separated. Choose for yourself what you love, and the rest will follow.”
On the Letter of John 10.3

Augustine For Today

December 8 – THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION
“My Dioscorus, I wish that, with complete piety, you would submit to him, and not seek any other way to attaining lasting truth but the one shown us by him who, being God, sees our weakness. This way consists, first, of humility, second of humility, and third, of humility. No matter how often you would ask me, I would say the same. It is not that there are no other precepts to be mentioned. But, unless humility precedes, accompanies, and follows whatever good we do, unless it be a goal ever before us, alongside us to cling to, before us as a restraint, we will find that we have done little good to rejoice in; pride’s hand having bereft us of everything.”
Letter 118.22

Augustine For Today

December 7 – SAINT AMBROSE
“I had not yet groaned in prayer for you to come to my help, but my mind was intent on questioning and restless for argument. Ambrose himself I believed to be a happy man, as the world judges such things, because so many powerful persons showed him honor. His celibacy alone appeared to me to be a hard thing. But what hopes he held, what struggles against temptations arising from his exalted station, what comforts amid adversities, how sweet the joys of that secret mouth within his heart as it fed upon and savored again the bread you gave him – such things I could not guess at, nor had I any experience of them.”
Confessions VI,3.3.

Augustine For Today

December 6 – SAINT NICHOLAS
“Love with your whole heart him who is beautiful beyond all the sons of men. Gaze upon the beauty of him who loves you … Consider how beautiful in him is the very thing for which the proud mock him. With the eyes of your heart gaze upon the wounds of the crucified Jesus, the marks left in the risen Lord, the blood of the dying Christ, the treasure of believers, the price of our redemption! Reflect on how priceless all that is! Place it on the scales of love and weigh it … He wants to be wholly fixed in your hearts, he who for your sake let himself be fixed to the cross.
On Holy Virginity 54.55ff

Augustine For Today

December 5
“O Lord my God, my one hope, listen to me lest out of weariness I should stop wanting to seek you, but let me seek your face always, and with ardor. Do you yourself give me the strength to seek, having caused yourself to be found and having given me the hope of finding you more and more. Before you lies my strength and my weakness; preserve the one, heal the other. Before you lies my knowledge and my ignorance; where you have opened to me, receive me as I come in; where you have shut to me, open to me as I knock. Let me remember you, let me understand you, let me love you. Increase these things in me until you refashion me entirely.”
On the Trinity 15.51

Augustine For Today

December 4 – SAINT JOHN DAMASCENE
“Lord, you are our physician, healing the ills of all. You reduce the swelling of pride; you renew wasted life; you cut out what is superficial; you preserve what is necessary; you restore what has been lost; you cure what has been corrupted. Who then can despair of salvation? Since the Son of God has become so humble for our sake, who could believe that happiness could be found in the other things of life?”
The Christian Combat 11, 12