Posts

Posted on

Saint Anthony, Abbot

AUGUSTINE:

It is not in one’s own power, however admirable and trustworthy may be the knowledge one has of the facts, to determine the order in which he will recall them to memory. For the way in which one thing comes into one’s mind before or after another proceeds not as we will, but simply as it occurs to us. It is reasonable enough to suppose that each of the Evangelists believed it to have been his duty to relate what he had to relate in that order in which it had pleased God to suggest it to his recollection. read more

Posted on

Wednesday of the First Week in Ordinary Time

JEROME:

Can you imagine Jesus standing before your bed and you continue sleeping? It is absurd that you would remain in bed in his presence. Where is Jesus? He is already here offering himself to us. “In the middle,” he says, “among you he stands, whom you do not recognize.” “The kingdom of God is in your midst.” Faith beholds Jesus among us.

PHOTIUS:

Human beings had been afraid of death because they are held in slavery. The slavery of death means to be a subject of sin. “The sting of death is sin.” Now, by his death Christ destroyed “the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil,” the inventor and the leader of sin. Sin became a disease. However, as we have been released from the oppression of that slavery, so we have been also delivered from the fear of death. And that is evident from the following illustrations. Before we feared and tried to avoid death as the supreme and invincible evil, but now we perceive it as prelude transition into the superior life and accept it joyously from those who persecute us for the sake of Christ and his commandments. read more

Posted on

Monday of the First Week in Ordinary Time

JEROME:

The sweetness of the apple makes up for the bitterness of the root. The hope of gain makes pleasant the perils of the sea. The expectation of health mitigates the nauseousness of medicine. One who desires the kernel breaks the nut. So one who desires the joy of a holy conscience swallows down the bitterness of penance.

ORIGEN:

Now we can see how in a short time this religion has grown up, making progress through the persecution and death of its adherents and through their endurance of confiscation of property and every kind of bodily torture. And this is particularly remarkable since the teachers themselves were neither very skillful nor very numerous. For in spite of all, this word is being “preached in all the world,” so that Greeks and barbarians, wise and foolish now are adopting the Christian religion. Hence there can be no doubt that it is not by human strength or resources that the word of Christ comes to prevail with all authority and convincing power in the minds and hearts of all humanity. read more