Spiritual Quote of the Day (St. Augustine of Hippo, on Why Christ Came)

“Before all else, Christ came so that people might learn how much God loves them, and might learn this so that they would catch fire with love for Him who first loved them, and so that they would also love their neighbor as He commanded and showed by His example—He who made Himself their neighbor by loving them when they were not close to Him but were wandering far from Him.” —“Doctor of the Church” St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD), On Catechizing the Uninstructed (400 AD)

Spiritual Quote of the Day (St. Augustine of Hippo, on Injustice and Empire)

“Remove justice, and what are kingdoms but gangs of criminals on a large scale?  What are criminal gangs but petty kingdoms? A gang is a group of men under the command of a leader, bound by a compact of association, in which the plunder is divided according to an agreed convention.

“If this villainy wins so many recruits from the ranks of the demoralized that it acquires territory, establishes a base, captures cities and subdues peoples, it then openly arrogates to itself the title of kingdom, which is conferred on it in the eyes of the world, not by the renouncing of aggression but by the attainment of impunity.

“For it was a witty and truthful rejoinder which was given by a captured pirate to Alexander the Great.  The king asked the fellow, ‘What is your idea, in infesting the sea?’  And the pirate answered, with uninhibited insolence, ‘The same as yours, in infesting the earth! But because I do it with a tiny craft, I’m called a pirate; because you have a mighty navy, you’re called an emperor.’”—Catholic theologian and philosopher St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD), City of God, translated by Henry Bettenson (1972)

Spiritual Quote of the Day (St. Augustine of Hippo, on Faith, Hope, and Love)

“When, then, we believe that good is about to come, this is nothing else but to hope for it. Now what shall I say of love? Without it, faith profits nothing; and in its absence, hope cannot exist. The Apostle James says: ‘The devils also believe, and tremble.’ — that is, they, having neither hope nor love, but believing that what we love and hope for is about to come, are in terror. And so the Apostle Paul approves and commends ‘the faith that works by love’; and this certainly cannot exist without hope. Wherefore there is no love without hope, no hope without love, and neither love nor hope without faith.”— Roman Catholic memoirist, theologian, and bishop St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD), The Enchiridion: Being a Treatise on Faith, Hope and Love, translated by Professor J. F. Shaw (1883)

Spiritual Quote of the Day (St. Augustine of Hippo, on Rejecting Truth)

“Why, then, doth truth beget hatred and that man of thine, preaching the truth, become an enemy unto them, whereas a happy life is loved, which is naught else but joy in the truth; unless that truth is loved in such a sort as that those who love aught else wish that to be the truth which they love, and, as they are willing to be deceived, are unwilling to be convinced that they are so? Therefore do they hate the truth for the sake of that thing which they love instead of the truth. They love truth when she shines on them, and hate her when she rebukes them. For, because they are not willing to be deceived, and wish to deceive, they love her when she reveals herself, and hate her when she reveals them.”— St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD), Confessions, translated by J. G. Pilkington (1943)

Spiritual Quote of the Day (St. Augustine of Hippo, on Christ From Birth to Ascension)

"But our very Life came down to earth and bore our death, and slew it with the very abundance of his own life. And, thundering, he called us to return to him into that secret place from which he came forth to us—coming first into the virginal womb, where the human creature, our mortal flesh, was joined to him that it might not be forever mortal—and came ‘as a bridegroom coming out his chamber, rejoicing as a strong man to run a race.’ For he did not delay, but ran through the world, crying out by words, deeds, death, life, descent, ascension—crying aloud to us to return to him.  And he departed from our sight that we might return to our hearts and find him there. For he left us, and behold, he is here.  He could not be with us long, yet he did not leave us.” —St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD), The Confessions of St. Augustine (401 AD), translated by Albert C. Outler (1955)

The image accompanying this post, The Ascension, was created in 1801 by the British-American painter Benjamin West (1738-1820).

Spiritual Quote of the Day (Flannery O’Connor, on Why ‘The Artist Penetrates the Concrete World’)

“St. Augustine wrote that the things of the world pour forth from God in a double way: intellectually into the minds of the angels and physically into the world of things. To the person who believes this—as the western world did up until a few centuries ago—this physical, sensible world is good because it proceeds from a divine source….The artist penetrates the concrete world in order to find at its depths the image of its source, the image of ultimate reality. This in no way hinders his perception of evil but rather sharpens it, for only when the natural world is seen as good does evil become intelligible as a destructive force and a necessary result of our freedom.”— American short-story writer and novelist Flannery O’Connor (1925-1964), “Novelist and Believer,” originally delivered at Sweet Briar College, VA, reprinted in Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose (1957)

Spiritual Quote of the Day (St. Augustine, on How ‘Christ is the Day’)

“Awake, then, while it is day: the day shines, Christ is the day. He is ready to forgive sins, but to them that acknowledge them; ready to punish the self-defenders, who boast that they are righteous, and think themselves to be something when they are nothing.”—St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD), “Homilies on the Gospel of John (Chapter III: 6-21),” in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (Christian Classics Ethereal Library), edited by Philip Schaff (1888)

Spiritual Quote of the Day (St. Augustine of Hippo, on the Traits of the City of God)

“The king is Truth, the law is Love, and the duration is Eternity.”—Roman Catholic memoirist, theologian, and bishop St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD), Letter 138, to imperial envoy and Roman martyr Flavius Marcellinus (A.D. 412), in Letters of St. Augustine

Spiritual Quote of the Day (St. Augustine, on the Reward of the Saints)

“Here below [the saints] endure obloquy for the City of God, which is hateful to the lovers of this world. That City is eternal; no one is born there, because no one dies. There is the true felicity, which is no goddess, but the gift of God. From there we have received the pledge of our faith, in that we sigh for her beauty while on our pilgrimage. In that City the sun does not rise ‘on the good and on the evil’; the ‘sun of righteousness’ spreads its light only on the good; there the public treasury needs no great efforts for its enrichment at the cost of private property; for there the common stock is the treasury of truth.”— Theologian, philosopher, and bishop St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD), City of God, translated by Henry Bettenson (1984)

Spiritual Quote of the Day (St. Augustine of Hippo, on How Christ Draws Us to Him)

“Offer a handful of grass to a sheep and you draw it after you. Show a boy nuts and he is enticed. He is drawn by the things he is running to take, drawn because he desires, drawn without any physical pressures, drawn simply by the pull on his appetite. If, then, the things that lovers see as the delights and pleasures of earth can draw them, because it is true that ‘everyone is drawn by his delight’, then does not Christ draw when he is revealed to us by the Father?” —St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD), homily on St. John’s Gospel, in Ordinary Graces: Christian Teachings on the Interior Life, edited by Lorraine Kisly (2000)

Spiritual Quote of the Day (St. Augustine, on ‘The Path of Charity’)

“Let me ask of my reader, wherever, alike with myself, he is certain, there to go on with me; wherever, alike with myself, he hesitates, there to join with me in inquiring; wherever he recognizes himself to be in error, there to return to me; wherever he recognizes me to be so, there to call me back: so that we may enter together upon the path of charity, and advance towards Him of whom it is said, Seek His face evermore.” — St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD), On the Trinity, translated by Arthur West Haddan (1887)

Spiritual Quote of the Day (St. Augustine, on Jesus at Bethlehem)

“Look at how He miniaturized Himself so that He could lie in that manger. That doesn't mean He had to leave something behind in order to fit. He just received what He wasn't while remaining what He was.

“Behold, we have the infant Christ in front of us.

“Let’s grow old with Him.”—St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD), “Sermo CXCVI: Christmas #13,” translated by William Griffin, in The Best Christian Writing 2006, edited by John Wilson

The image accompanying this post is The Nativity, by Italian painter Federico Barocci (1535-1612.)

Spiritual Quote of the Day (St. Augustine of Hippo, on God’s Mercy)

“What mercy could be greater, so far as we poor wretches are concerned, than that which drew the Creator of the heavens down from heaven, clothed the Maker of the earth with earthly vesture, made Him, who in eternity remains equal to His Father, equal to us in mortality, and imposed on the Lord of the universe the form of a servant, so that He, our Bread, might hunger; that He, our Fulfillment, might thirst; that He, our Strength, might be weakened; that He, our Health, might be injured; that He, our Life, might die? And all this [He did] to satisfy our hunger, to moisten our dryness, to soothe our infirmity, to wipe out our iniquity, to enkindle our charity. What greater mercy could there be than that the Creator be created, the Ruler be served, the Redeemer be sold, the Exalted be humbled and the Reviver be killed?” — Theologian, philosopher, and bishop St. Augustine of Hippo (354 AD-430 AD), The Fathers of the Church: St. Augustine: Sermons on the Liturgical Seasons, Volume 38, Sermon 207, translated by Sister Mary Sarah Muldowney (1959)