The angels surround and help the priest when he is celebrating Mass.
Saint AugustineRead
All diseases of Christians are to be ascribed to demons; chiefly do they torment freshly-baptized Christians, yea, even the guiltless new-born infants.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Saint Augustine suggests that spiritual or demonic influences are responsible for the suffering of Christians, particularly new believers and innocent infants.
In this quote, Saint Augustine highlights the belief that the trials and ailments faced by Christians are not merely physical but have a deeper spiritual cause, often attributed to demonic forces. He emphasizes the vulnerability of freshly-baptized Christians and innocent infants, suggesting that their new faith or purity makes them targets for spiritual torment, thus illustrating the ongoing struggle between good and evil within the realm of faith.
Themes
DiseaseDemonsFaithSpiritualitySufferingInnocence
In practice
Example use cases
During a church sermon discussing the nature of suffering in faith.
More from Saint Augustine
All quotes βThere is no health in those who are displeased by an element in Your creation, just as there was none in me when I was displeased by many things You had made. Because my soul didn't dare to say that my God displeased me, it refused to attribute to You whatever was displeasing.
Saint AugustineRead
Bad times, hard times, this is what people keep saying; but let us live well, and times shall be good. We are the times: Such as we are, such are the times.
Saint AugustineRead
Who can map out the various forces at play in one soul? Man is a great depth, O Lord. The hairs of his head are easier by far to count than his feeling, the movements of his heart.
Saint AugustineRead
Whatever skills I have acquired, whatever gifts I have been given, I place them at Your service.
Saint AugustineRead
Everyone who observes himself doubting observes a truth, and about that which he observes he is certain; therefore he is certain about a truth. Everyone therefore who doubts whether truth exists has in himself a truth on which not to doubt.... Hence one who can doubt at all ought not to doubt the existence of truth.
Saint AugustineRead
Similar quotes
It has appeared that from the inevitable laws of our nature, some human beings must suffer from want. These are the unhappy persons who, in the great lottery of life, have drawn a blank.
Thomas MalthusRead
You wanted to kill your father in order to be your father yourself. Now you are your father, but a dead father.
Sigmund FreudRead
...Genuine pathological openness is about as seductive as Tourette's Syndrome.
David Foster WallaceRead
The best way to make every one poor is to insist on equality of wealth.
Napoleon BonaparteRead
The deterioration of every government begins with the decay of the principles on which it was founded.
Baron De MontesquieuRead
Perhaps when distant people on other planets pick up some wavelength of ours all they hear is a continuous scream.
Iris MurdochRead