The angels surround and help the priest when he is celebrating Mass.
Saint AugustineRead
Try as they may to savor the taste of eternity, their thoughts still twist and turn upon the ebb and flow of things in past and future time. But if only their minds could be seized and held steady, they would be still for a while and, for that short moment, they would glimse the splendor of eternity, which is forever still.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote explores the struggle to capture the essence of eternity amid the distractions of time.
Saint Augustine reflects on the human tendency to be preoccupied with past regrets and future worries, which prevents us from experiencing the present moment. He suggests that if individuals could quiet their minds and focus on the now, they would have the profound realization of the eternal nature of existence, which exists beyond the constraints of time.
Themes
EternityPresentTimeMindfulnessStillness
In practice
Example use cases
In a meditation workshop, to emphasize the importance of being present.
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
The prevalence of suicide, without doubt, is a test of height in civilization; it means that the population is winding up its nervous and intellectual system to the utmost point of tension and that sometimes it snaps.
Havelock EllisRead
God is better served in resisting a temptation to evil than in many formal prayers.
William PennRead
An inner process stands in need of outward criteria.
Ludwig WittgensteinRead
We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Sahara.
Richard DawkinsRead
Still shaking, in the pew, I understood that it isn't the dead we cry for. We cry for ourselves, and I didn't deserve my own pity.
Chris CleaveRead
God makes me play well. That is why I always make the sign of a cross when I walk out on to the pitch. I feel I would be betraying him if I didn't.
Diego MaradonaRead