❤️🔥Saint Augustine of Hippo, one of the most influential Doctors of the Church, had a remarkable conversion journey, moving from a life of pleasure and adherence to the Manichaean heresy to a profound Catholic faith, driven by the prayers of his mother, Saint Monica, and the preaching of Saint Ambrose. As Bishop of Hippo, he vigorously combated the heresies of his time, such as Pelagianism and Donatism, and left a monumental theological legacy, including works like 'Confessions' and 'The City of God,' which shaped Western Christian thought by exploring the relationship between divine grace, human will, and the nature of the Church.
📜 Introit (Ecclus 15:5 | Ps 91:2)In medio Ecclesiae aperuit os ejus... In the midst of the Church the Lord opened his mouth: and filled him with the spirit of wisdom and understanding: He clothed him with a robe of glory. Ps. It is good to give praise to the Lord: and to sing to Thy Name, O Most High. ℣. Glory be to the Father.
✉️ Epistle (II Tim 4:1-8)
Dearly beloved: I charge thee, before God and Jesus Christ, who shall judge the living and the dead, by His coming and His kingdom: Preach the word: be instant in season, out of season: reprove, entreat, rebuke in all patience and doctrine. For there shall be a time when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, they will heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears: and will indeed turn away their hearing from the truth, but will be turned unto fables. But be thou vigilant, labor in all things, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill thy ministry. Be sober. For I am even now ready to be sacrificed, and the time of my dissolution is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. As to the rest, there is laid up for me a crown of justice which the Lord the just judge will render to me in that day: and not only to me, but to them also that love His coming.
📖 Gospel (Mt 5:13-19)
At that time, Jesus said to His disciples: You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt lose its savor, wherewith shall it be salted? It is good for nothing any more but to be cast out, and to be trodden on by men. You are the light of the world. A city seated on a mountain cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but upon a candlestick, that it may shine to all that are in the house. So let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in Heaven. Do not think that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For amen I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall not pass of the law, till all be fulfilled. He therefore that shall break one of these least commandments, and shall so teach men, shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven. But he that shall do and teach, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
🤔 Reflections
🖋️The day's readings perfectly mirror the vocation of Saint Augustine as a bishop and doctor. The Lord made him the "salt of the earth" to preserve the Church from the corruption of heresies and the "light of the world" to illuminate minds with divine wisdom. "Ye are the salt of the earth; but what the Lord adds, 'if the salt have lost its savour,' shows that they must, under the appearance of the divine wisdom, be on their guard against losing their soundness" (St. Augustine, On the Sermon on the Mount). He lived out St. Paul's exhortation to Timothy, preaching the word tirelessly, "in season, out of season," fighting the good fight against the errors of his time and keeping the faith. "You are not sent to two cities only, or ten, or twenty, not to a single nation, as were the prophets of old; but to the land and the sea, to the whole world, and to a world in a wretched state" (St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew). The life of a bishop like Augustine demands radical coherence: "He who, by the necessity of his position, is required to speak the highest things, is compelled by the same necessity to exhibit the highest things in his life" (St. Gregory the Great, Pastoral Rule).
↔️The Gospel of Saint Matthew presents the metaphors of salt and light in the context of the Sermon on the Mount, linking them to good works that glorify God. Saint Mark complements the image of salt with a communal dimension, exhorting: "Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another" (Mk 9:50), focusing on the internal virtue that generates harmony. Saint Luke places the parable of the flavorless salt immediately after the discourse on the cost of discipleship and total renunciation (Lk 14:34-35), emphasizing that a disciple who loses his fervor becomes useless for the Kingdom. Luke also presents the image of the light on a lampstand (Lk 8:16), but he connects it directly to the act of hearing the word of God and putting it into practice, so that the truth may not be hidden.
✍️Saint Paul deepens the themes of the Gospel in his epistles. He applies the metaphor of salt directly to communication, instructing that "your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer every man" (Col 4:6), uniting wisdom and charity in the apostolate. The concept of being "light" is detailed in practical exhortations, such as "walk as children of the light" (Eph 5:8), whose fruit is manifested in "all goodness and justice and truth." He also echoes the image of the city on a hill by asking the Philippians to shine "as lights in the world, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation" (Phil 2:15). Regarding the law, Paul clarifies in Romans that faith does not nullify it but rather establishes it (Rom 3:31), explaining that justification in Christ is the true fulfillment that legalism alone could not achieve.
🏛️The documents of the Magisterium echo the perpetuity of the Law and the importance of good works. The Council of Trent, in its Decree on Justification, affirms that God's commandments are not impossible for the justified man and that good works, performed with the help of divine grace, are truly meritorious and contribute to an increase of glory, in line with "that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father." Pope Leo XIII's encyclical Providentissimus Deus reinforces the sanctity and inerrancy of all of Scripture, aligning with Christ's declaration that "one jot or one tittle shall not pass of the law." Likewise, the condemnation of modernism in Pope Pius X's encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis defends the immutability of doctrine, a reflection of the Church's role as the "salt" that must preserve the deposit of faith against the corruption of error and time.
🧐 See English articles here.