Christ is Risen! A brief commentary on St. Augustine's Sermon 228b

Jan Van Eyck's The Adoration of the Lamb of God

Today I would like to offer a commentary on one of St. Augustine’s sermons purported to have been given during the Resurrection of the Lord perhaps prior to 411 AD. This would have placed the sermon between the first 16 years of his episcopate, and we place this cutoff point because it was at the Council of Carthage in 411 AD that St. Marcellinus (a Roman official) and the Catholic bishops exiled the Donatists from northern Africa and seized their properties, which eliminated much of St. Augustine’s need to address questions of the unity of the Church and Donatism. It is disputed by some scholars that this sermon is a true sermon of St. Augustine, but some (like Edmund Hill OP, whose work I’ve used before) believe it to be a true sermon and so I will proceed anyway in presenting it.

Letter 54: St. Augustine’s Reply to the Inquiries of Januarius (Book 1 of 2)

Franco Nero as St. Augustine
in Augustine: The Decline of
the Roman Empire by Christian
Duguay

This letter comes from St. Augustine’s fifth or sixth year of being a bishop in Hippo and it is written to a certain Januarius who is asking about how it is that a faithful Christian ought to fast before receiving the Eucharist. St. Augustine replies in two books, the first one significantly smaller than the last one, and these are recorded as letters 54 and 55. Letters 54 and 55 were written around 400 AD, and seem to not only be replying to Januarius’ questions but also partially a response to another writer whose writings disturbed Januarius. The first book will comment on the Eucharistic fast and its purpose, as well as an outline of God’s plan of salvation for all those in the Church. I hope that it will be an enlightening look into St. Augustine’s conception of the sacraments (Divine mysteries), and of the Most Blessed Sacrament.

I Am the Living Bread which has come down from Heaven. A brief commentary on this Sunday's Readings

This Sunday’s readings in the Ordinary Form Catholic mass will be:

6th century icon of Christ
from St. Catherine Monastery
at Mount Sinai*

1 Kings 19:4-8

Psalm 34:2-3, 4-5, 6-7, 8-9

Ephesians 4:30- 5:2

John 6:41-51

Below I only hope to offer a small reflection on such a great amount of Our Lord’s word’s to us. I am very new to reading Scripture, and so most of my focus will be on reading the New Testament works in the context of the Psalms and then perhaps the Old Testament works. A Christian who is deep in his faith would understand these texts far better than I do. I hope to look somewhat to the Patristic texts as well to get a view of the Church’s faith regarding the Sacred Mystery of Jesus the Living Bread from Heaven.

St. Ambrose on the Eucharist, Preliminary Look

Today’s post is written on this Holy Thursday, the day by which the Lord instituted the Eucharist, the offering of Himself in the appearances of bread and wine for our sake and goodness, that He and His offering might be in us and renew us. I would like to post a brief posting on St. Ambrose, the bishop of Milan who converted St. Augustine into Catholicism. St. Ambrose has quite a few things to say regarding the Eucharist, and is certainly more to the point than St. Augustine’s multifaceted perception of the Sacrament. St. Augustine does call Holy Communion the sacrifice, but his view of the Body and Blood of the Lord involves not only a consideration of Christ and the Gospel, but also His Body the Church and the elect. It would require me much time to consider St. Augustine’s doctrine of the Eucharist, as would it too to fully consider St. Ambrose’s addressing of the Most Holy Sacrament, but here I provide a snippet from other more worthy websites.