Tag Archives: mark

Late have I loved You – Augustine of Hippo

Posted on by

Late have I loved You, O Beauty so ancient and so new; late have I loved You! For behold You were within me, and I outside; I sought You outside and in my unloveliness fell upon those lovely things that You have made. You were with me and I was not with You. I was kept from You by those things, yet had they not been in You, they would not have been at all.

You called and shouted to me to break open my deafness: You sent forth Your beams and shined upon me and chased away my blindness: You breathed fragrance upon me, and I drew in breath and now I pant for You: I tasted You, and now hunger and thirst for You: You touched me, and I burn for You peace.

[Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, Book 10]

Excerpt from Gospel of the Day – Take up your cross – Mark 8:34-35, 1th of Hathor- Augustine of Hippo

Posted on by

take-up-your-cross

“When He had called the people to Himself, with His disciples also, He said to them, “Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it.” (Mark 8:34-5)

What is, Let him take up his cross? Let him bear whatever trouble he has; so let him follow Me. For when he shall begin to follow Me in conformity to My life and precepts, he will have many to contradict him, he will have many to hinder him, he will have many to dissuade him, and that from among those who are even as it were Christ’s companions. They who hindered the blind men from crying out were walking with Christ. Whether therefore they be threats or caresses, or whatsoever hindrances there be, if you wish to follow, turn them into your cross, bear it, carry it, do not give way beneath it. There seems to be an exhortation to martyrdom in these words of the Lord. If there be persecution, ought not all things to be despised in consideration of Christ?

The world is loved; but let Him be preferred by whom the world was made. Great is the world; but greater is He by whom the world was made. Fair is the world; but fairer is He by whom the world was made. Sweet is the world; but sweeter is He by whom the world was made. Evil is the world; and good is He by whom the world was made.

[Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 46 on the New Testament]