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The City of Man is not our true home. No, our true home is in the City of God. And it is to that city that we owe our affections and our ultimate loyalty.
I am wrestling with an issue that relates to this. I am puzzling through why there is so much emphasis in preaching and writing that focuses on how being a Christian will make my life better...better health, better relationships, better success. And yet, there is very little emphasis on how being a Christian will make my community and world better because I am living in my community and world as part of the Kingdom of God (He is King of Kings, and Lord of Lords) and functioning as His ambassador...calling people to return to the Kingdom. People have abandoned His Kingdom, even denied its existence, and they rebel against it. But they are still in the "Universal Kingdom" though not part of the "Heavenly Kingdom" which can only be entered by faith in Jesus Christ.
The result? The world, in general, is worse off for it...and is heading downhill, picking up speed with every passing day.
Memorial of St. Augustine is supressed by the Sunday liturgy. BTTT on 08-28-05!
August 28, 2007
St. Augustine
(354-430)
A Christian at 33, a priest at 36, a bishop at 41: many people are familiar with the biographical sketch of Augustine of Hippo, sinner turned saint. But really to get to know the man is a rewarding experience.
There quickly surfaces the intensity with which he lived his life, whether his path led away from or toward God. The tears of his mother, the instructions of Ambrose and, most of all, God himself speaking to him in the Scriptures redirected Augustines love of life to a life of love. Having been so deeply immersed in creature-pride of life in his early days and having drunk deeply of its bitter dregs, it is not surprising that Augustine should have turned, with a holy fierceness, against the many demon-thrusts rampant in his day. His times were truly decadentpolitically, socially, morally. He was both feared and loved, like the Master. The perennial criticism leveled against him: a fundamental rigorism. In his day, he providentially fulfilled the office of prophet. Like Jeremiah and other greats, he was hard-pressed but could not keep quiet. I say to myself, I will not mention him,/I will speak in his name no more./But then it becomes like fire burning in my heart,/imprisoned in my bones;/I grow weary holding it in,/I cannot endure it (Jeremiah 20:9). Quote:
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