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Master·evangeli.net

Today's Gospel + short theological explanation

August 28th: Memorial of Saint Augustine, Bishop and Doctor of the Church
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Gospel text (Mt 23,8-12): Jesus said to his disciples: «You, do not let yourselves be called Master because you have only one Master (…)».

St. Augustine, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (354-430)

EDITORIAL TEAM evangeli.net (based on texts by Benedict XVI) (Città del Vaticano, Vatican)

Today we celebrate the greatest Father of the Latin Church, Saint Augustine: a man of passion and faith, of the highest intelligence and tireless pastoral solicitousness. He is the one who has left the greatest number of works (more than a thousand publications, among which "Confessions", "The City of God", "De Trinitate" or "Retractationes" stands out.) Faith and reason are "the two forces that lead us to know." His two formulas with which he expresses this coherent synthesis between faith and reason are famous: "Believe to understand" and "understand to believe."

The presence of God in man is deep and mysterious, but it can be discovered in the own intimacy: "You made us, Lord, for you, and our hearts are restless, until they rest in you"; "You were more within me than the most intimate of me." St. Augustine was a man who never lived superficially; the thirst, restless and constant search for Truth is one of the fundamental characteristics of his existence: "It seems to me that men must be led back to the hope of finding the truth" ...

— He addresses one of his most beautiful prayers to the Truth, which is Christ himself: “Late have I loved you, beauty so old and so new: late have I loved you. And see, you were within and I was in the external world and sought you there, and in my unlovely state I plunged into those lovely created things which you made. You were with me, and I was not with you… ”