Thursday, August 28
A detail of Botticelli's St. Augustine
Like Mother, Like Son
Too late have I loved you, O Beauty so ancient, O Beauty so new. Too late have I loved you! You were within me but I was outside myself, and there I sought you! In my weakness I ran after the beauty of the things you have made. You were with me, and I was not with you. The things you have made kept me from you - the things which would have no being unless they existed in you! You have called, you have cried, and you have pierced my deafness. You have radiated forth, you have shined out brightly, and you have dispelled my blindness. You have sent forth your fragrance, and I have breathed it in, and I long for you. I have tasted you, and I hunger and thirst for you. You have touched me, and I ardently desire your peace.
--St. Augustine
The feast of St. Augustine of Hippo, bishop, doctor of Grace, father of the Church, is remembered today, following on the heels of his mother's memorialization yesterday. St. Augustine died this day at Hippo in the year 430 after a life full of virtue, prayer and scholarship, as well as his earlier life of debauchery, Manichaenism and a common-law marriage. Like St. Peter, he is living proof that when one is open to the grace of God, all things are possible. He is patron of brewers, sore eyes, and numerous dioceses, including St. Augustine in Florida, Kalamazoo and Superior in Wisconsin. He is the ultimate origin of the epigram, familiar in misquoted form as "When in Rome, do as the Romans do," in reference to his observance of local fasting and feasting customs as he travelled from diocese to diocese. He is also one of the saints depicted in the wall-paintings of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart at Notre Dame.His emblem is a flaming heart, recalling his words: Our hearts were made for You, O Lord, and they are restless until they rest in you.
Today is also the feast of St. Edmund Arrowsmith, one of the forty martyrs of England and Wales, executed today in 1628 by being hanged, drawn and quartered. His hand is preserved at St. Oswald's in Ashton-at-Makerfeld, England. His birth name was Brian, but he preferred his confirmation name of Edmund instead. So today, all Edmunds, Eds, Eddies and Brians out there, rejoice in the memory of their patron.
Today we also recall the Egyptian ex-robber, monk and martyr St. Moses the Black; St. Julian of Auvergne; the Elizabethan ex-Protestant cleric Bl. William Dean and a St. Vivian, who seems to be identical with St. Bibiana or Vibiana, formerly patroness of the ill-fated old Cathedral at Los Angeles and invoked to ward off hangovers, which is what ensues after having seen the new Cathedral there.
![[SMMMHDH]](http://www.mgilleland.com/music/smmmhdh.png){kind=small}
