St Rita of Cascia High School - Cascian Yearbook (Chicago, IL)

Page 33 text:

THE LIGHT OF THE AGES: SAINT AUGUSTINE The Feast of St. Augustine, August 28, 1950 He walked in the days ot rampant vice When souls were bartered by rolling dce- When might was right, and truth was slight- And culture and lore were dim as night. Whe-n pen was weak in body and soul- And sword was every human goal. When pagan gods were toast ot the mob- And sounds cf the people were groan and sob. This was a spot for a champion true To fight for Christ with the chosen few! His arms were Heart, the Crcss, the Pen, To win the minds and souls of men. With Ambrose, Monica, Peter and Paul, He rose from darkness a specter small To Sainthcod's stature strong and tall. With Christ Augustine would rise or fall. The grace ot Christ made Austin strong To carry His Crcss for tar and long. On ths Day we pray for Grace To set a steady, mortzl pace, And s:e the Master face to face! fArnenl Pig: 29 H1192

Page 32 text:

Saint Augustine Ha FEAST OF ST. AUGUSTINE August 28, 1950 While Augustine is called the Doctor of Grace, because of his refutation of Pelagianism and his ex- position of the subtle influence of God on the human soul, he might well be termed Doctor of the Church for his matchless exposition of its corporate divine life and its essential unity, lt was his City of God, his favorite theme. De ecclesia numquam satis. The Church, he says, is now what the earthly paradise was. Therefore those who slay men by seducing them from the Church are sons of Satan. Just as unity was the characteristic mark of the Romans, so unity must be the distinctive mark of the spiritual polity, the Church of God. To be out of the unity of Christ's Mystical Body is, in Augustine's eyes, to be not merely a heretic, but a pariah, an outcast, without country or home or kindred. As St. Paul may be said to have seen Christo- centric, filled with Christ, breathing His spirit in all P' K' ji hav . 3 9 is-1 his utterances, so Augustine may be said to have been filled with the Church, Christ's incarnate Spouse, and to breathe reverence and love for her in his every word. How accurately he discerned the importance of unity for he-r continued existence and growth, the his! tory of the divisions of Christendom in later centuries abundantly testifies, His horror at the thought of be- ing separated from the center of Christian unity was duplicated centuries later by the greatest scholar of his age, John Henry Newman, who, finding himself in the same relative position to the center of Christian unity as the heretical Monophysite-s of the fourth cen- tury, exclaimed: My stronghold was antiquity: now here, in the middle of the fifth century, l found, as it seemed to me, Christendom of the sixteenth and nine- teenth centuries reflected. I saw my face in that mir- ror and l was a Monophysitelu

Page 34 text:

Augustine, Exponent of Grace Augustine taught 'Eternal Grace To Heaven galn, to sin effaceg lt served your soul a radiant hem! On which to build his cwn free Will Grace and Will the need will fill To lead the climb to l-leaven's Hill.