Do you wish to be great? Then begin by being. Do you desire to construct a vast and lofty fabric? Think first about the foundations of humility. The higher your structure is to be, the deeper must be its foundations.
–Saint Augustine (354-430)
Our thoughts in this present life should turn on the praise of God, because it is in praising God that we shall rejoice for ever in the life to come; and no one can be ready for the next life unless he trains himself for it now. So we praise God during our earthly life, and at the same time we make our petitions to him. Our praise is expressed with joy, our petitions with yearning. We have been promised something we do not yet possess, and because the promise was made by one who keeps his word, we trust him and are glad; but insofar as possession is delayed, we can only long and yearn for it. It is good for us to persevere in longing until we receive what was promised, and yearning is over; then praise alone will remain.
–Saint Augustine (354-430)
The sky and the earth and the waters and the things that are in them, the fishes, and the birds and the trees are not evil. All these are good; it is evil men who make this evil world.
–Saint Augustine (354-430)
What you see is the bread and the chalice; that is what your own eyes report to you. But what your faith obliges you to accept is that the bread is the body of Christ and the chalice is the blood of Christ.
–Saint Augustine (354-430)
We have not lost those who leave the world from which we must ourselves depart; but we have sent them before us into that other life, where the better they are known to us, the dearer to us will they become.
–Saint Augustine (354-430)
Following the greeting, “The Lord be with you,” which you know so well, you heard the words, “Lift up your heart.” Now the whole life of true Christians is a matter of lifting up the heart. To lift up the heart is a duty of Christians who are such in very fact and not in name alone. To lift up the heart — what does this mean? It means that you must trust in God, not in yourself since God is so superior to you. When you trust in yourself, your heart stays fettered to the Earth, not fixed on God. So when you hear the priest say, “Lift up your heart,” you respond, “We have lifted it up to the Lord.” See to it, then, that your response rings true,
–Saint Augustine (354-430)
