August 2018

Day 9 St. Augustine of Hippo Novena – Audio and Text

A Novena Prayer to St. Augustine

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Day 9

St. Augustine has written:

“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. The lovely things kept me far from you, though if they did not have their existence in you, they had no existence at all. You called and cried out loud and shattered my deafness. You were radiant and resplendent, you put to flight my blindness. You were fragrant, and I drew in my breath and now pant after you. I tasted you, and I feel but hunger and thirst for you. You touched me, and I am set on fire to attain the peace which is yours.” (from the “Confessions“)

Heavenly Father,
we turn to you now with the intentions we hold in our hearts,
as pray as St. Augustine has taught:

Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
enlighten our minds to perceive the mysteries
of the universe in relation to eternity.

Spirit of right judgment and courage,
guide us and make us firm in our baptismal decision
to follow Jesus’ way of love.

Spirit of knowledge and reverence,
help us to see the lasting value of justice
and mercy in our everyday dealings with one another.

May we respect life
as we work to solve problems of family and nation,
economy and ecology.

Spirit of God,
spark our faith,
hope and love into new action each day.

Fill our lives with wonder and awe
in your presence which penetrates all creation.

Intercede for us, , St. Augustine
That God may favorably hear our plea
And that He may grant us the grace
To accept His will in all things,
Through Jesus Christ, our Lord,
In the unity of the Holy Spirit,
One God forever and ever.

Amen.

For the complete 9 Day novena visit the “Discerning Hearts St. Augustine of Hippo Novena – Mp3 audio and text page“

GWML#15 St. Augustine and “The Confessions” – Great Works in Western Literature with Joseph Pearce

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Episode 15 – Great Works in Western Literature with Joseph Pearce – St. Augustine

The Confessions of Saint Augustine is considered one of the greatest Christian classics of all time. It is an extended poetic, passionate, intimate prayer that Augustine wrote as an autobiography sometime after his conversion, to confess his sins and proclaim God’s goodness. Just as his first hearers were captivated by his powerful conversion story, so also have many millions been over the following sixteen centuries. His experience of God speaks to us across time with little need of transpositions.

Based on the Ignatius Critical Edition, this series examines, from the Judeo-Christian perspective, the life, the times, and influence of authors of great works in literature .

Joseph Pearce is currently the Writer-in-Residence and Visiting Fellow at Thomas More College of Liberal Arts in Merrimack, New Hampshire. He is also Visiting Scholar at Mount Royal Academy in Sunapee, New Hampshire. He is also Visiting Scholar at Mount Royal Academy in Sunapee, New Hampshire. He is co-editor of the Saint Austin Review (or StAR), an international review of Christian culture, literature, and ideas published in England (Family Publications) and the United States (Sapientia Press). He is also the author of many books, including literary biographies of Solzhenitsyn, J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, G. K. Chesterton, and Oscar Wilde.

To learn more about the authors and titles available in the Ignatius Critical Editions

Day 8 St. Augustine of Hippo Novena – Audio and Text

A Novena Prayer to St. Augustine

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:18 — 2.1MB) | Embed

Day 8

St. Augustine has written:

“I look forward, not to what lies ahead of me in this life and will surely pass away, but to my eternal goal. I am intent upon this one purpose, not distracted by other aims, and with this goal in view I press on, eager for the prize, God’s heavenly summons. Then I shall listen to the sound of Your praises and gaze at Your beauty ever present, never future, never past. But now my years are but sighs. You, O Lord, are my only solace. You, my Father, are eternal. But I am divided between time gone by and time to come, and its course is a mystery to me. My thoughts, the intimate life of my soul, are torn this way and that in the havoc of change. And so it will be until I am purified and melted by the fire of Your love and fused into one with You.” (from the “Confessions“)

Heavenly Father,
we turn to you now with the intentions we hold in our hearts,
as pray as St. Augustine has taught:

Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
enlighten our minds to perceive the mysteries
of the universe in relation to eternity.

Spirit of right judgment and courage,
guide us and make us firm in our baptismal decision
to follow Jesus’ way of love.

Spirit of knowledge and reverence,
help us to see the lasting value of justice
and mercy in our everyday dealings with one another.

May we respect life
as we work to solve problems of family and nation,
economy and ecology.

Spirit of God,
spark our faith,
hope and love into new action each day.

Fill our lives with wonder and awe
in your presence which penetrates all creation.

Amen.

For the complete 9 Day novena visit the “Discerning Hearts St. Augustine of Hippo Novena – Mp3 audio and text page“

IP#335 Leah Libresco – Building the Benedict Option on Inside the Pages with Kris McGregor podcast

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What a delight to speak with Leah Lebresco about her book “Building the Benedict Option: A Guide to Gathering Two or Three Together in His Name.” Practical and inspiring, Leah, along with with little help from her friends, helps us to see and experience the “communion” in community. A much needed work for today!

You can find the book here

From the book description:

Building the Benedict Option is a combination spiritual memoir and practical handbook for Christians who want to build communities of prayer, socialization, and evangelization in the places where they live and work.

Beginning when the author was a new convert, she desired more communal prayer and fellowship than weekly Mass could provide. She surveyed her friends–busy, young, urban professionals like herself–and created enriching or supportive experiences that matched their desires and schedules. The result was a less lonely and more boisterous spiritual and social life.

No Catholic Martha Stewart, Libresco is frank about how she plans events that allow her to feed thirty people on a Friday night without feeling exhausted. She is honest about the obstacles to prayer and the challenge to make it inviting and unobtrusive. Above all, she communicates the joy she has experienced since discovering ways to open her home (even when it was only a small studio apartment).

The reader will close this book with four or five ideas for events to try over the next few weeks, along with the tools to make them fruitful. From film nights to picnics in the park to resume-writing evenings, there are plenty of ideas to choose from and loads of encouragement to make more room in one’s life for others.

You might also like:
IP#316 Rod Dreher – The Benedict Option on Inside the Pages with Kris McGregor

Day 7 St. Augustine of Hippo Novena – Audio and Text

A Novena Prayer to St. Augustine

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:52 — 1.7MB) | Embed

Day 7

St. Augustine has written:

“As Christians, our task is to make daily progress toward God. Our pilgrimage on earth is a school in which God is the only teacher, and it demands good students, not one who play truant. In this school we learn something every day. We learn something from commandments, something from examples, and something from sacraments. These things are remedies for our wounds and materials for study.”

Heavenly Father,
we turn to you now with the intentions we hold in our hearts,
as pray as St. Augustine has taught:

Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
enlighten our minds to perceive the mysteries
of the universe in relation to eternity.

Spirit of right judgment and courage,
guide us and make us firm in our baptismal decision
to follow Jesus’ way of love.

Spirit of knowledge and reverence,
help us to see the lasting value of justice
and mercy in our everyday dealings with one another.

May we respect life
as we work to solve problems of family and nation,
economy and ecology.

Spirit of God,
spark our faith,
hope and love into new action each day.

Fill our lives with wonder and awe
in your presence which penetrates all creation.

Amen.

For the complete 9 Day novena visit the “Discerning Hearts St. Augustine of Hippo Novena – Mp3 audio and text page“

BTP- L5 – Letter 165 – The Letters of St. Elizabeth of the Trinity – Beginning to Pray w/Dr. Anthony Lilles podcast

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Dr. Lilles continues the spiritual explorations of the Letters of St. Elizabeth of the Trinity. In this episode, we discuss letter 165, with a special focus on the power of the Eucharist and meets us in our suffering:

[ June 14, 1903]
Dijon Carmel, June 14
J. M. + J. T.

“Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.”2

Monsieur l’Abbé, It seems to me that nothing better expresses the love in God’s Heart than the Eucharist: it is union, consummation, He in us, we in Him, and isn’t that Heaven on earth? Heaven in faith while awaiting the face-to-face vision we so desire. Then “we will be satisfied when His glory appears,”3 when we see Him in His light. Don’t you find that the thought of this meeting refreshes the soul, this talk with Him whom it loves solely? Then everything disappears and it seems that one is already entering into the mystery of God! . . .

This whole mystery is so much “ours,” as you said to me in your letter. Oh! pray, won’t you, that I may live fully my bridal dowry. That I may be wholly available, wholly vigilant in faith, so the Master can bear me wherever He wishes. I wish to stay always close to Him who knows the whole mystery, to hear everything from Him. “The language of the Word is the infusion of the gift,”4 oh yes, it is really so, isn’t it, that He speaks to our soul in silence. I find this dear silence a blessing. From Ascension to Pentecost, we were in retreat in the Cenacle, waiting for the Holy Spirit, and it was so good.5 During that whole Octave6 we have the Blessed Sacrament exposed in the oratory; those are divine hours spent in this little corner of Heaven where we possess the vision in substance under the humble Host. Yes, He whom the blessed contemplate in light and we adore in faith is really the same One. The other day someone wrote me such a beautiful thought, I send it on to you: “Faith is the face-to-face in darkness.”7 Why wouldn’t it be so for us, since God is in us and since He asks only to take possession of us as He took possession of the saints? Only, they were always attentive, as Père Vallée says: “They are silent, recollected, and their only activity is to be the being who receives.”8 Let us unite ourselves, therefore, Father, in making happy Him who “has loved us exceedingly,”9 as Saint Paul says. Let us make a dwelling for Him in our soul that is wholly at peace,10 in which the canticle of love, of thanksgiving, is always being sung; and then that great silence, the echo of the silence that is in God! . . . Then, as you said, let us approach the all-pure, all-luminous Virgin, that she may present us to Him whom she has penetrated so profoundly, and may our life be a continual communion, a wholly simple movement toward God. Pray to the Queen of Carmel for me; I, for my part, pray fervently for you, I assure you, and I remain with you in adoration and love! . . .

Sister Marie Elizabeth of the Trinity, r.c.i.

Catez, Elizabeth of the Trinity. The Complete Works of Elizabeth of the Trinity volume 2: Letters from Carmel (pp. 105-106). ICS Publications. Kindle Edition.

Special thanks to Miriam Gutierrez for her readings of St. Elizabeth’s letters

For other episodes in the series visit
The Discerning Hearts “The Letters of St. Elizabeth of the Trinity” with Dr. Anthony Lilles’

Anthony Lilles, S.T.D. is an associate professor and the academic dean of Saint John’s Seminary in Camarillo as well as the academic advisor for Juan Diego House of Priestly Formation for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. For over twenty years he served the Church in Northern Colorado where he joined and eventually served as dean of the founding faculty of Saint John Vianney Theological Seminary in Denver. Through the years, clergy, seminarians, religious and lay faithful have benefited from his lectures and retreat conferences on the Carmelite Doctors of the Church and the writings of St. Elisabeth of the Trinity.

Day 6 St. Augustine of Hippo Novena – Audio and Text

A Novena Prayer to St. Augustine

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:52 — 1.7MB) | Embed

Day 6

St. Augustine has written:

“As Christians, our task is to make daily progress toward God. Our pilgrimage on earth is a school in which God is the only teacher, and it demands good students, not one who play truant. In this school we learn something every day. We learn something from commandments, something from examples, and something from sacraments. These things are remedies for our wounds and materials for study.”

Heavenly Father,
we turn to you now with the intentions we hold in our hearts,
as pray as St. Augustine has taught:

Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
enlighten our minds to perceive the mysteries
of the universe in relation to eternity.

Spirit of right judgment and courage,
guide us and make us firm in our baptismal decision
to follow Jesus’ way of love.

Spirit of knowledge and reverence,
help us to see the lasting value of justice
and mercy in our everyday dealings with one another.

May we respect life
as we work to solve problems of family and nation,
economy and ecology.

Spirit of God,
spark our faith,
hope and love into new action each day.

Fill our lives with wonder and awe
in your presence which penetrates all creation.

Amen.

For the complete 9 Day novena visit the “Discerning Hearts St. Augustine of Hippo Novena – Mp3 audio and text page“

Day 5 St. Augustine of Hippo Novena – Audio and Text

A Novena Prayer to St. Augustine

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:59 — 1.8MB) | Embed

Day 5

St. Augustine has written:

“A person who is a good and true Christian should realize that truth belongs to his Lord, wherever it is found, gathering and acknowledging it even in pagan literature, but rejecting superstitious vanities and deploring and avoiding those who ‘though they knew God did not glorify him as God or give thanks but became enfeebled in their own thoughts and plunged their senseless minds into darkness. Claiming to be wise they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for the image of corruptible mortals and animals and reptiles’ [Rom. 1:21-3]”―(from “On Christian Doctrine“)

Heavenly Father,
we turn to you now with the intentions we hold in our hearts,
as pray as St. Augustine has taught:

Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
enlighten our minds to perceive the mysteries
of the universe in relation to eternity.

Spirit of right judgment and courage,
guide us and make us firm in our baptismal decision
to follow Jesus’ way of love.

Spirit of knowledge and reverence,
help us to see the lasting value of justice
and mercy in our everyday dealings with one another.

May we respect life
as we work to solve problems of family and nation,
economy and ecology.

Spirit of God,
spark our faith,
hope and love into new action each day.

Fill our lives with wonder and awe
in your presence which penetrates all creation.

Amen.

For the complete 9 Day novena visit the “Discerning Hearts St. Augustine of Hippo Novena – Mp3 audio and text page“

St. Augustine of Hippo Novena Day 4 – Discerning Hearts Podcast

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Day 4

St. Augustine has written:

“You are surprised that the world is losing its grip, that the world is grown old? Think of a man: he is born, he grows up, he becomes old. Old age has its many complaints: coughing, shaking, failing eyesight, anxious, terribly tired. A man grows old; he is full of complaints. The world is old; it is full of pressing tribulations. . . . Do not hold onto the old man, the world; do not refuse to regain your youth in Christ, who says to you, ‘The world is passing away, the world is losing its grip, the world is short of breath. Do not fear. Thy youth shall be renewed as an eagle”

Heavenly Father,
we turn to you now with the intentions we hold in our hearts,
as pray as St. Augustine has taught:

Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
enlighten our minds to perceive the mysteries
of the universe in relation to eternity.

Spirit of right judgment and courage,
guide us and make us firm in our baptismal decision
to follow Jesus’ way of love.

Spirit of knowledge and reverence,
help us to see the lasting value of justice
and mercy in our everyday dealings with one another.

May we respect life
as we work to solve problems of family and nation,
economy and ecology.

Spirit of God,
spark our faith,
hope and love into new action each day.

Fill our lives with wonder and awe
in your presence which penetrates all creation.

Amen.

For the complete 9 Day novena visit the “Discerning Hearts St. Augustine of Hippo Novena – Mp3 audio and text page“

Day 4 St. Augustine of Hippo Novena – Audio and Text

A Novena Prayer to St. Augustine

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:06 — 1.9MB) | Embed

Day 4

St. Augustine has written:

“You are surprised that the world is losing its grip, that the world is grown old? Think of a man: he is born, he grows up, he becomes old. Old age has its many complaints: coughing, shaking, failing eyesight, anxious, terribly tired. A man grows old; he is full of complaints. The world is old; it is full of pressing tribulations. . . . Do not hold onto the old man, the world; do not refuse to regain your youth in Christ, who says to you, ‘The world is passing away, the world is losing its grip, the world is short of breath. Do not fear. Thy youth shall be renewed as an eagle”

Heavenly Father,
we turn to you now with the intentions we hold in our hearts,
as pray as St. Augustine has taught:

Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
enlighten our minds to perceive the mysteries
of the universe in relation to eternity.

Spirit of right judgment and courage,
guide us and make us firm in our baptismal decision
to follow Jesus’ way of love.

Spirit of knowledge and reverence,
help us to see the lasting value of justice
and mercy in our everyday dealings with one another.

May we respect life
as we work to solve problems of family and nation,
economy and ecology.

Spirit of God,
spark our faith,
hope and love into new action each day.

Fill our lives with wonder and awe
in your presence which penetrates all creation.

Amen.

A Novena Prayer to St. Augustine

For the complete 9 Day novena visit the “Discerning Hearts St. Augustine of Hippo Novena – Mp3 audio and text page“

A Novena Prayer to St. Augustine

For the complete 9 Day novena visit the “Discerning Hearts St. Augustine of Hippo Novena – Mp3 audio and text page“

A Novena Prayer to St. Augustine

For the complete 9 Day novena visit the “Discerning Hearts St. Augustine of Hippo Novena – Mp3 audio and text page“

Special thanks to Miriam Gutierrez for her readings of St. Elizabeth’s letters

For other episodes in the series visit The Discerning Hearts “The Letters of St. Elizabeth of the Trinity” with Dr. Anthony Lilles’

A Novena Prayer to St. Augustine

For the complete 9 Day novena visit the “Discerning Hearts St. Augustine of Hippo Novena – Mp3 audio and text page“

A Novena Prayer to St. Augustine

For the complete 9 Day novena visit the “Discerning Hearts St. Augustine of Hippo Novena – Mp3 audio and text page“

For the complete 9 Day novena visit the “Discerning Hearts St. Augustine of Hippo Novena – Mp3 audio and text page“

A Novena Prayer to St. Augustine

For the complete 9 Day novena visit the “Discerning Hearts St. Augustine of Hippo Novena – Mp3 audio and text page“

For other episodes in the series visit
The Discerning Hearts “The Letters of St. Elizabeth of the Trinity” with Dr. Anthony Lilles’