The angels surround and help the priest when he is celebrating Mass.
Saint AugustineRead
What is reprehensible is that while leading good lives themselves and abhorring those of wicked men, some, fearing to offend, shut their eyes to evil deeds instead of condemning them and pointing out their malice.
Interpretation
It criticizes those who ignore evil actions due to fear of conflict.
Saint Augustine's quote emphasizes the moral responsibility of individuals to confront and condemn wickedness, even if such actions result in discomfort or conflict. It highlights a troubling tendency for some people to remain silent about wrongdoing due to the desire to maintain peace or to avoid offending others, suggesting that true virtue requires courage to address and expose malice in society.
In practice
During a community meeting discussing a local issue, one could quote Augustine to encourage individuals to speak against systemic injustices.
The angels surround and help the priest when he is celebrating Mass.
There 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.
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.
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.
Whatever skills I have acquired, whatever gifts I have been given, I place them at Your service.
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.
The soul can split the sky in two and let the face of God shine through.
So the unwanting soul sees what's hidden, and the ever-wanting soul sees only what it wants.
Let's face a historical truth: we have never had a "free market", we have always had government intervention in the economy, and indeed that intervention has been welcomed by the captains of finance and industry. They had no quarrel with "big government" when it served their needs.
At the heart of every being lies creation's dream of a principle that will one day give organic form to its fragmented treasures. God is unity.
Impartial - unable to perceive any promise of personal advantage from espousing either side of a controversy.
I say the same of humility and of all the virtues; the wiles of the devil are terrible, he will run a thousand times round hell if by so doing he can make us believe that we have a single virtue which we have not. And he is right, for such ideas are very harmful, and such imaginary virtues, when they come from this source, are never unaccompanied by vainglory; just as those which God gives are free both from this and from pride.
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