Sublime

Augustine might make Christianity plausible again for those who’ve been burned—who suspect that the “Christianity” they’ve seen is just a cover for power plays and self-interest, or a tired moralism that seems angry all the time, or a version of middle-class comfort too often confused with the so-called American Dream.

Miracles do not happen in contradiction with nature, but in contradiction with what we know about nature. Saint Augustine

Don’t worry, be happy. As modern people we have chosen Montaigne over Augustine. We traded pious self-cultivation for undemanding self-esteem. But is love of self really enough to be happy? You know the answer to that, dear reader. And so did Augustine.

It was St. Francis who said, “Wherever you go, preach the gospel; when necessary use words.” Depicted as the only Christian saint looking down to the earth rather than upward to God, he has always held a deep appeal for me. It was St. Francis who gave up the life of a rich merchant’s son that had been ordained for him and decided to go forth on a d

Don’t worry, be happy. As modern people we have chosen Montaigne over Augustine. We traded pious self-cultivation for undemanding self-esteem. But is love of self really enough to be happy? You know the answer to that, dear reader. And so did Augustine.

The first major evolution was to come through the work of St Augustine in the fourth century. He felt that the Stoics’ man-made efforts to achieve happiness were an affront to our existence as mortals who are no longer at one with our Maker. We cannot be truly happy, because we desire a perfect unity with God that we are unable to achieve in this l

One day a disciple of Saint Augustine asked him which virtue was the first. Saint Augustine answered: humility. The second, he said, is also humility, as is the third as well. And his answer would have been the same thing if he was asked a hundred times. Humility, therefore, is the foundation of all the virtues. The virtue of humility teaches us to