Hello everyone. I hope you are well and keeping safe.
This past week we celebrated the feasts of St Monica (331-387A.D.) on the 27th and St Augustine (354-430 A.D.) on the 28th. I am sure you know their stories and the powerful force of prayer that changed their lives. Augustine was a dreamer who as a young man basically tried it all! All the while however, he was looking for truth and meaning in life so he joined that group and this group only to be dissatisfied and feeling very empty. His mother, Monica, all this time was praying for him to be baptized and to be transformed by Christ. Her tears were well known for her son. God blessed those tears and eventually Augustine became a Catholic and then soon a priest and bishop and forever has left a lasting impact on the Church’s life for centuries to come in spirituality, liturgy, theology and philosophy.
When St. Joseph’s Seminary in Yonkers was built in the late 19th Centrury, the archbishop at the time, Michael Augustine Corrigan, was behind every detail of it. So in the sanctuary of the church, on both sides of the altar are the Archangels on the one side and the other side the famous “Doctors” of the Church. So, on one side is the central figure and image of St. Michael the Archangel. On the other side, St Augustine. Hmmmm? “Michael” and “Augustine”? Michael Augustine Corrigan. Talk about leaving one’s signature!
Happy Sunday. Here a few words from these great saints.
Speaking to her weeping sons at her deathbed, Monica said to them; ““Lay this body anywhere, and take no trouble over it. One thing only do I ask of you, that you remember me at the altar of the Lord wherever you may be”. St. Augustine, Confessions, Bk IX.10-11
“Late have I loved you, beauty so old and so new: late have I loved you. And see, you were within and I was in the external world and sought you there, and in my unlovely state I plunged into those lovely created things which you made. You were with me, and I was not with you. The lovely things kept me far from you, though if they did not have their existence in you, they had no existence at all. You called and cried out loud and shattered my deafness. You were radiant and resplendent, you put to flight my blindness. You were fragrant, and I drew in my breath and now pant after you. I tasted you, and I feel but hunger and thirst for you. You touched me, and I am set on fire to attain the peace which is yours.” St. Augustine, Confessions