The angels surround and help the priest when he is celebrating Mass.
Saint AugustineRead
It was not the visible sun, but its invisible Creator who consecrated this day for us, when the Virgin Mother, fertile of womb and integral in her virginity, brought him forth, made visible for us, by whom, when he was invisible, she too was created. A Virgin conceiving, a Virgin bearing, a Virgin pregnant, a Virgin bringing forth, a Virgin perpetual. Why do you wonder at this, O man?
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the divine nature of creation and emphasizes the miraculous birth of Jesus through the Virgin Mary.
Saint Augustine's quote delves into the mystery of creation and the significance of the Virgin Mother's role in the Incarnation of Christ. He points out that while the sun is visibly radiant, it is ultimately its Creator—a higher power—that sanctified the day of Christ's birth. Augustine elicits wonder in mankind regarding the miraculous virginity of Mary, emphasizing that her conception, pregnancy, and bearing of Jesus were all divine acts that challenge human understanding.
In practice
In a sermon discussing faith and miracles.
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.
With a gentleman I am always a gentleman and a half, and with a fraud I try to be a fraud and a half.
In Jesus Christ, God took on a human face and became our friend and brother.
The curious mind embraces science; the gifted and sensitive, the arts; the practical, business; the leftover becomes an economist
On the one hand, faith is a profoundly personal contact with God, which touches me in my innermost being and places me in front of the living God in absolute immediacy in such a way that I can speak with Him, love Him, and enter into communion with Him.
Much of what we call evil is due entirely to the way men take the phenomenon. It can so often be converted into a bracing and tonic good by a simple change of the sufferer's inner attitude from one of fear to one of fight; its string can so often depart and turn into a relish when, after vainly seeking to shun it, we agree to face about and bear it.
Having no destination, I am never lost.
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