May 27, Saint Augustine Of Canterbury. breski1 May 27, 2010 (d. 605?) In the year 596, some 40 monks set out from Rome to evangelize the Anglo-Saxons in England. Leading the group was Augustine, the …More
May 27, Saint Augustine Of Canterbury.
breski1 May 27, 2010 (d. 605?)
In the year 596, some 40 monks set out from Rome to evangelize the Anglo-Saxons in England. Leading the group was Augustine, the prior of their monastery in Rome. Hardly had he and his men reached Gaul (France) when they heard stories of the ferocity of the Anglo-Saxons and of the treacherous waters of the English Channel. Augustine returned to Rome and to the pope who had sent them—St. Gregory the Great (September3 )—only to be assured by him that their fears were groundless. Augustine again set out. This time the group crossed the English Channel and landed in the territory of Kent, ruled by King Ethelbert, a pagan married to a Christian. Ethelbert received them kindly, set up a residence for them in Canterbury and within the year, on Pentecost Sunday, 597, was himself baptized. After being consecrated a bishop in France, Augustine returned to Canterbury, where he founded his see. He constructed a church and monastery near where the present cathedral, begun in 1070, now stands. As the faith spread, additional sees were established at London and Rochester.
Work was sometimes slow and Augustine did not always meet with success. Attempts to reconcile the Anglo-Saxon Christians with the original Briton Christians (who had been driven into western England by Anglo-Saxon invaders) ended in dismal failure. Augustine failed to convince the Britons to give up certain Celtic customs at variance with Rome and to forget their bitterness, helping him evangelize their Anglo-Saxon conquerors
Laboring patiently, Augustine wisely heeded the missionary principles—quite enlightened for the times—suggested by Pope Gregory the Great: purify rather than destroy pagan temples and customs; let pagan rites and festivals be transformed into Christian feasts; retain local customs as far as possible. The limited success Augustine achieved in England before his death in 605, a short eight years after he arrived in England, would eventually bear fruit long after in the conversion of England. Augustine of Canterbury can truly be called the “Apostle of England.”
Comment:
Augustine of Canterbury comes across today as a very human saint, one who could suffer like many of us from a failure of nerve. For example, his first venture to England ended in a big U-turn back to Rome. He made mistakes and met failure in his peacemaking attempts with the Briton Christians. He often wrote to Rome for decisions on matters he could have decided on his own had he been more self-assured. He even received mild warnings against pride from Pope Gregory, who cautioned him to “fear lest, amidst the wonders that are done, the weak mind be puffed up by self-esteem.” Augustine’s perseverance amidst obstacles and only partial success teaches today’s apostles and pioneers to struggle on despite frustrations and be satisfied with gradual advances.
Quote:
In a letter to Augustine, Pope Gregory the Great wrote: "He who would climb to a lofty height must go by steps, not leaps."
Patron Saint of:
England
breski1 May 27, 2010 (d. 605?)
In the year 596, some 40 monks set out from Rome to evangelize the Anglo-Saxons in England. Leading the group was Augustine, the prior of their monastery in Rome. Hardly had he and his men reached Gaul (France) when they heard stories of the ferocity of the Anglo-Saxons and of the treacherous waters of the English Channel. Augustine returned to Rome and to the pope who had sent them—St. Gregory the Great (September3 )—only to be assured by him that their fears were groundless. Augustine again set out. This time the group crossed the English Channel and landed in the territory of Kent, ruled by King Ethelbert, a pagan married to a Christian. Ethelbert received them kindly, set up a residence for them in Canterbury and within the year, on Pentecost Sunday, 597, was himself baptized. After being consecrated a bishop in France, Augustine returned to Canterbury, where he founded his see. He constructed a church and monastery near where the present cathedral, begun in 1070, now stands. As the faith spread, additional sees were established at London and Rochester.
Work was sometimes slow and Augustine did not always meet with success. Attempts to reconcile the Anglo-Saxon Christians with the original Briton Christians (who had been driven into western England by Anglo-Saxon invaders) ended in dismal failure. Augustine failed to convince the Britons to give up certain Celtic customs at variance with Rome and to forget their bitterness, helping him evangelize their Anglo-Saxon conquerors
Laboring patiently, Augustine wisely heeded the missionary principles—quite enlightened for the times—suggested by Pope Gregory the Great: purify rather than destroy pagan temples and customs; let pagan rites and festivals be transformed into Christian feasts; retain local customs as far as possible. The limited success Augustine achieved in England before his death in 605, a short eight years after he arrived in England, would eventually bear fruit long after in the conversion of England. Augustine of Canterbury can truly be called the “Apostle of England.”
Comment:
Augustine of Canterbury comes across today as a very human saint, one who could suffer like many of us from a failure of nerve. For example, his first venture to England ended in a big U-turn back to Rome. He made mistakes and met failure in his peacemaking attempts with the Briton Christians. He often wrote to Rome for decisions on matters he could have decided on his own had he been more self-assured. He even received mild warnings against pride from Pope Gregory, who cautioned him to “fear lest, amidst the wonders that are done, the weak mind be puffed up by self-esteem.” Augustine’s perseverance amidst obstacles and only partial success teaches today’s apostles and pioneers to struggle on despite frustrations and be satisfied with gradual advances.
Quote:
In a letter to Augustine, Pope Gregory the Great wrote: "He who would climb to a lofty height must go by steps, not leaps."
Patron Saint of:
England
Thanks be to God for St Augustine of Canterbury. Were it not for his supernatural efforts in evangelisation, the Brisitsh Isles would have remained pagan for rather a long time...... 
Then again, with the Egyptian-Irish monastic Chrisitanity in the North coming in from Ireland via Aidan and the rest, we would have been quite different today when this extreem form of Christianity reached the South …More
Thanks be to God for St Augustine of Canterbury. Were it not for his supernatural efforts in evangelisation, the Brisitsh Isles would have remained pagan for rather a long time...... Then again, with the Egyptian-Irish monastic Chrisitanity in the North coming in from Ireland via Aidan and the rest, we would have been quite different today when this extreem form of Christianity reached the South of Britian. What a happy thing that it did NOT!! The Roman form, thanks to St Augustine, triumphed!! 
MAY 27, 2011
DAILY PRAYER WITH REGNUM CHRISTI
LOVING TO THE EXTREME
May 27, 2011
Friday of the Fifth Week of Easter
Father Edward Hopkins, LC
John 15:12-17
Jesus said to his disciples: "This is my commandment: love one
another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down
one's life for one's friends. You are my friends if you do what I
command you. I no longer call you slaves, …More
MAY 27, 2011
DAILY PRAYER WITH REGNUM CHRISTI
LOVING TO THE EXTREME
May 27, 2011
Friday of the Fifth Week of Easter
Father Edward Hopkins, LC
John 15:12-17
Jesus said to his disciples: "This is my commandment: love one
another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down
one's life for one's friends. You are my friends if you do what I
command you. I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not
know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I
have told you everything I have heard from my Father. It was not you
who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear
fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my
name he may give you. This I command you: love one another."
Introductory Prayer: I believe in you, O Lord, in your great love
for me. You are my creator and redeemer. I trust in your friendship;
I trust that you will share with me all the insights and desires to
love as you have loved. I love you, Lord, for you have loved me
first. I want to love you by helping to bring your love and life to
others.
Petition: With the love of your heart, inflame my heart!
1. A New Commandment: "And can love be commanded?" Pope Benedict XVI
poses this very objection in his encyclical, "Deus Caritas Est.".
Love is not merely a sentiment; it is an act of will. "God does not
demand of us a feeling which we ourselves are incapable of producing"
(n. 17). We cannot be ordered to "like" someone or to "fall in
love", but we can "choose to love" our enemies. More importantly,
when we experience God's love for us, the joy of being loved leads us
to want to respond to that love. And God has loved us first: "It was
not you who chose me...." We experience his love for us as an ongoing
reality each time we receive the sacraments, but also each time we
reflect on the fact that he is keeping us in existence. This
personal experience enables us both to understand love and want to
share it.
2. Friends Forever: Like love, friendship is easily misrepresented
in today's world, for it is more than convenience, mutual tolerance
or mutual utility. Friends not only share love, they share secrets
and intimate knowledge. Love leads "to a community of will and
thought" (idem). I want to know what my friend is thinking and
desiring so that I can share in those thoughts and even satisfy those
desires. "The love-story between God and man consists in the very
fact that this communion of will increases in a communion of thought
and sentiment, and thus our will and God's will increasingly
coincide: God's will is no longer for me an alien will, something
imposed on me from without by the commandments, but it is now my own
will based on the realization that God is in fact more deeply
present to me than I am to myself" (idem).
3. Chosen to Bear Fruit: Jesus' commands are few, but they all have
to do with love: "Do this in memory of me"; "Love one another"; "Love
your enemies"; "Go and make disciples of all nations", etc. The
essential and urgent nature of this command of love is linked to the
very mission of Christ. We are chosen and have been appointed to go
and love others. If this love is authentic, grown from the vine of
his love and great in sacrifice, it will bear fruit. The fruit which
lasts, that for which he died, is an eternal life of friendship with
God. What others most need from me then, is not material goods or
consolation, or even my friendship, but an experience of God's love
for them, namely, knowledge of Christ. "Seeing with the eyes of
Christ, I can give others much more than their outward necessities; I
can give them the look of love which they crave" (ibid., n. 18).
Conversation with Christ: Dear Lord Jesus, grant me a constant,
growing desire to live your commandment of love. Awaken in me an
awareness of your ever-present love in my life. Let this inspire me
to love without measure, without distinction of persons, without
fears of losing all that is less than love.
Resolution: I will choose to serve someone today, not because I
feel the desire to do so, but for love of Christ.
meditation.regnumchristi.org
DAILY PRAYER WITH REGNUM CHRISTI
LOVING TO THE EXTREME
May 27, 2011
Friday of the Fifth Week of Easter
Father Edward Hopkins, LC
John 15:12-17
Jesus said to his disciples: "This is my commandment: love one
another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down
one's life for one's friends. You are my friends if you do what I
command you. I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not
know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I
have told you everything I have heard from my Father. It was not you
who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear
fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my
name he may give you. This I command you: love one another."
Introductory Prayer: I believe in you, O Lord, in your great love
for me. You are my creator and redeemer. I trust in your friendship;
I trust that you will share with me all the insights and desires to
love as you have loved. I love you, Lord, for you have loved me
first. I want to love you by helping to bring your love and life to
others.
Petition: With the love of your heart, inflame my heart!
1. A New Commandment: "And can love be commanded?" Pope Benedict XVI
poses this very objection in his encyclical, "Deus Caritas Est.".
Love is not merely a sentiment; it is an act of will. "God does not
demand of us a feeling which we ourselves are incapable of producing"
(n. 17). We cannot be ordered to "like" someone or to "fall in
love", but we can "choose to love" our enemies. More importantly,
when we experience God's love for us, the joy of being loved leads us
to want to respond to that love. And God has loved us first: "It was
not you who chose me...." We experience his love for us as an ongoing
reality each time we receive the sacraments, but also each time we
reflect on the fact that he is keeping us in existence. This
personal experience enables us both to understand love and want to
share it.
2. Friends Forever: Like love, friendship is easily misrepresented
in today's world, for it is more than convenience, mutual tolerance
or mutual utility. Friends not only share love, they share secrets
and intimate knowledge. Love leads "to a community of will and
thought" (idem). I want to know what my friend is thinking and
desiring so that I can share in those thoughts and even satisfy those
desires. "The love-story between God and man consists in the very
fact that this communion of will increases in a communion of thought
and sentiment, and thus our will and God's will increasingly
coincide: God's will is no longer for me an alien will, something
imposed on me from without by the commandments, but it is now my own
will based on the realization that God is in fact more deeply
present to me than I am to myself" (idem).
3. Chosen to Bear Fruit: Jesus' commands are few, but they all have
to do with love: "Do this in memory of me"; "Love one another"; "Love
your enemies"; "Go and make disciples of all nations", etc. The
essential and urgent nature of this command of love is linked to the
very mission of Christ. We are chosen and have been appointed to go
and love others. If this love is authentic, grown from the vine of
his love and great in sacrifice, it will bear fruit. The fruit which
lasts, that for which he died, is an eternal life of friendship with
God. What others most need from me then, is not material goods or
consolation, or even my friendship, but an experience of God's love
for them, namely, knowledge of Christ. "Seeing with the eyes of
Christ, I can give others much more than their outward necessities; I
can give them the look of love which they crave" (ibid., n. 18).
Conversation with Christ: Dear Lord Jesus, grant me a constant,
growing desire to live your commandment of love. Awaken in me an
awareness of your ever-present love in my life. Let this inspire me
to love without measure, without distinction of persons, without
fears of losing all that is less than love.
Resolution: I will choose to serve someone today, not because I
feel the desire to do so, but for love of Christ.
meditation.regnumchristi.org
May 27, Saint Augustine Of Canterbury
In the year 596, some 40 monks set out from Rome to evangelize the Anglo-Saxons in England. Leading the group was Augustine, the prior of their monastery in Rome. Hardly had he and his men reached Gaul (France) when they heard stories of the ferocity of the Anglo-Saxons and of the treacherous waters of the English Channel. Augustine returned to Rome and to the …More
May 27, Saint Augustine Of Canterbury
In the year 596, some 40 monks set out from Rome to evangelize the Anglo-Saxons in England. Leading the group was Augustine, the prior of their monastery in Rome. Hardly had he and his men reached Gaul (France) when they heard stories of the ferocity of the Anglo-Saxons and of the treacherous waters of the English Channel. Augustine returned to Rome and to the pope who had sent them—St. Gregory the Great (September3 )—only to be assured by him that their fears were groundless. Augustine again set out. This time the group crossed the English Channel and landed in the territory of Kent, ruled by King Ethelbert, a pagan married to a Christian. Ethelbert received them kindly, set up a residence for them in Canterbury and within the year, on Pentecost Sunday, 597, was himself baptized. After being consecrated a bishop in France, Augustine returned to Canterbury, where he founded his see. He constructed a church and monastery near where the present cathedral, begun in 1070, now stands. As the faith spread, additional sees were established at London and Rochester.
Work was sometimes slow and Augustine did not always meet with success. Attempts to reconcile the Anglo-Saxon Christians with the original Briton Christians (who had been driven into western England by Anglo-Saxon invaders) ended in dismal failure. Augustine failed to convince the Britons to give up certain Celtic customs at variance with Rome and to forget their bitterness, helping him evangelize their Anglo-Saxon conquerors
Laboring patiently, Augustine wisely heeded the missionary principles—quite enlightened for the times—suggested by Pope Gregory the Great: purify rather than destroy pagan temples and customs; let pagan rites and festivals be transformed into Christian feasts; retain local customs as far as possible. The limited success Augustine achieved in England before his death in 605, a short eight years after he arrived in England, would eventually bear fruit long after in the conversion of England. Augustine of Canterbury can truly be called the “Apostle of England.”
Comment:
Augustine of Canterbury comes across today as a very human saint, one who could suffer like many of us from a failure of nerve. For example, his first venture to England ended in a big U-turn back to Rome. He made mistakes and met failure in his peacemaking attempts with the Briton Christians. He often wrote to Rome for decisions on matters he could have decided on his own had he been more self-assured. He even received mild warnings against pride from Pope Gregory, who cautioned him to “fear lest, amidst the wonders that are done, the weak mind be puffed up by self-esteem.” Augustine’s perseverance amidst obstacles and only partial success teaches today’s apostles and pioneers to struggle on despite frustrations and be satisfied with gradual advances.
Quote:
In a letter to Augustine, Pope Gregory the Great wrote: "He who would climb to a lofty height must go by steps, not leaps."
Patron Saint of:
England
In the year 596, some 40 monks set out from Rome to evangelize the Anglo-Saxons in England. Leading the group was Augustine, the prior of their monastery in Rome. Hardly had he and his men reached Gaul (France) when they heard stories of the ferocity of the Anglo-Saxons and of the treacherous waters of the English Channel. Augustine returned to Rome and to the pope who had sent them—St. Gregory the Great (September3 )—only to be assured by him that their fears were groundless. Augustine again set out. This time the group crossed the English Channel and landed in the territory of Kent, ruled by King Ethelbert, a pagan married to a Christian. Ethelbert received them kindly, set up a residence for them in Canterbury and within the year, on Pentecost Sunday, 597, was himself baptized. After being consecrated a bishop in France, Augustine returned to Canterbury, where he founded his see. He constructed a church and monastery near where the present cathedral, begun in 1070, now stands. As the faith spread, additional sees were established at London and Rochester.
Work was sometimes slow and Augustine did not always meet with success. Attempts to reconcile the Anglo-Saxon Christians with the original Briton Christians (who had been driven into western England by Anglo-Saxon invaders) ended in dismal failure. Augustine failed to convince the Britons to give up certain Celtic customs at variance with Rome and to forget their bitterness, helping him evangelize their Anglo-Saxon conquerors
Laboring patiently, Augustine wisely heeded the missionary principles—quite enlightened for the times—suggested by Pope Gregory the Great: purify rather than destroy pagan temples and customs; let pagan rites and festivals be transformed into Christian feasts; retain local customs as far as possible. The limited success Augustine achieved in England before his death in 605, a short eight years after he arrived in England, would eventually bear fruit long after in the conversion of England. Augustine of Canterbury can truly be called the “Apostle of England.”
Comment:
Augustine of Canterbury comes across today as a very human saint, one who could suffer like many of us from a failure of nerve. For example, his first venture to England ended in a big U-turn back to Rome. He made mistakes and met failure in his peacemaking attempts with the Briton Christians. He often wrote to Rome for decisions on matters he could have decided on his own had he been more self-assured. He even received mild warnings against pride from Pope Gregory, who cautioned him to “fear lest, amidst the wonders that are done, the weak mind be puffed up by self-esteem.” Augustine’s perseverance amidst obstacles and only partial success teaches today’s apostles and pioneers to struggle on despite frustrations and be satisfied with gradual advances.
Quote:
In a letter to Augustine, Pope Gregory the Great wrote: "He who would climb to a lofty height must go by steps, not leaps."
Patron Saint of:
England