In his three years as Archbishop of San Salvador, Oscar Romero cited St. Augustine often. As
part of our Romero for the Year of Faith, here is a collection of such quotes
for St. Augustine’s Feast Day.
Christian
and bishop
This morning here in the
cathedral of San Salvador, I repeat the words of the famous bishop, Saint
Augustine: with you I am a Christian and for you I am a bishop. (St Augustine, Sermons, 340, 1: PL 38, 1483;
Romero’s March 23, 1978 Homily.)
The word remains
Saint Augustine places
before us a beautiful statement when he says: The voice is a sound that is
heard by the ear, but in this voice one hears the Word, an idea. (St
Augustine, Sermons, 288,3; PL 38, 1304.) This is what is happening here this
morning in the Cathedral and through our radio broadcast. People are listening
to this voice but once this voice is transmitted, it ends—it is a sound. The
word, however, remains because the word is an idea. This means that everyone who proclaims Christ
is a voice. The voices, however, pass away, preachers die, but the Word remains. The Word remains and this is a great comfort to all preachers—their
voice will disappear but their words which are a proclamation of Christ, will
remain in the hearts of those who desire to accept them.
The Church is the incarnate
Christ in real, concrete flesh. Today this flesh can be the flesh of a
prostitute and tomorrow this flesh can be that of a saint who, like Mary
Magdalene, repents. Today this flesh can be the flesh of Saint Augustine
involved in all forms of worldly pleasure and seemingly incapable of living a
chaste life and tomorrow this flesh can be the flesh of the sinner Saint
Augustine who repents. (Romero’s December 17, 1978 Homily.)
We
believe what we want to believe
Saint Augustine used a
phrase that I believe is very appropriate for these times: libenter id quod volumus credimus, that is, with great pleasure we believe
what we want to believe. For this reason it becomes very difficult to
believe the truth because many times we do not want to believe the truth, the
truth disturbs our conscience. But even though the truth might disturb us, we
must accept it and we must believe in it so that the Lord might always bless us
with that freedom of those who love the truth and who do not sell the truth or
our pens or voices or the media to the highest bidder for some financial gain
or personal interest or some other materialistic reality. How sad it is to see
that so many people have sold their words and so many voices on the radio earn
their living by nourishing themselves on the slanderous words that they
produce. Most often the truth will not produce money but only bitterness, yet
it is better to be free with the truth then to have great wealth as a result of
lies. (Romero’s May 7, 1978 Homily.)
Appearances
are not enough
It is not enough to come to
Mass on Sunday. It is not enough to call oneself Catholic. It is not enough to
bring one’s children to the Church for the sacrament of Baptism even though
this might be a great feast in society. Appearances are not enough and God
cannot be paid with appearance. God desires the garment of justice. God wants
Christians to clothe themselves in the garment of love. God wants those who
participate in his feast to make a personal effort because Jesus is the primary
One who saves us. But as Saint Augustine says: God, who has created us without
us, will not save us without our cooperation. (St Augustine, Sermons, 169, 13: PL 38, 915.)
God’s does not need our consent to create us, but to save us we need to use our
freedom; we need to know how to use material things and our person freely and
with a sense of justice and charity.
(Romero’s October 15, 1978 Homily.)
Late
Have I Loved You, Beauty Ever Ancient Ever New
There are many people who do
not allow themselves to be filled with religion because they prefer to be
lacking in religion. Let us fill our interior lives and then like Saint Augustine,
the sinner, we shall say: Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever
ancient, ever new, late have I loved you! You were within me, but I was
outside, and it was there that I searched for you. In my unloveliness I plunged
into the lovely things which you created. You were with me, but I was not with
you. Created things kept me from you; yet if they had not been in you they
would have not been at all. You called, you shouted, and you broke through my
deafness. You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness. You breathed
your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you. I have tasted
you, now I hunger and thirst for more. You touched me, and I burned for your
peace. (St Augustin, Confessions, X, 27: PL 32, 795.) Saint Augustine
knew the Lord and was saved and was holy. It does not matter how sinful people
might be when they enter into this beautiful relationship with the Lord. Today
we are called to this interior disposition and called to put aside all
emptiness and those realities that lead us to make religion an exterior
practice.
We know that if we try to
obey the Law of God, then when we are in need of God we can invoke his name and
yes, he is with us. God has not abandoned us. We are the ones who become aware
of his nearness. Saint Augustine said: You were with me but I was not with you.
But when we pray with calmness to act with justice and to obey God, then we
experience the nearness of God. O Beauty ever ancient, ever new! (Romero’s September 2, 1979 Homily.)
Saint Augustine says that he
was foolish when he sought the beauty that he saw in creatures and forgot that
it was God who had given them this beauty. He desired this beauty and saw this
beauty as opposed to God and forgot that the God who had given this beauty was
the same God that he carried within his being. He lived outside of himself and
forgot that he had within himself all that is true and beautiful.
What a marvelous description
of the sinner. Sinners are people who have gone outside themselves and have not
discovered that they carry God within themselves. Thus they prostituted themselves
and all creation and forgot that all these things come from God. If they were
mindful of the fact that their lands and estates and cattle were gifts that God
had given them, they would not use them as instruments of exploitation, they
would not use them in a selfish and unjust manner but rather they would use
them and celebrate these gifts in a way that is similar to what occurred at
Gilgal: they harvested the grain and praised God who had given them the land
and the fruits of the land; they shared with their sisters and brothers and
celebrated a true Passover feast, a feast of the reconciliation of humankind
around the table of the fruits of the earth: reconciliation instead of a
quarrel. (Romero’s March 16, 1980 Homily.)
Humanity’s
desire for God’s truth
It is a wonderful time to
experience this longing for justice and truth and the Absolute and
transcendence, all of which correspond to a profound desire of the human person
that can only be filled by the Spirit of God who comes to take possession of us
and fills the emptiness that we experience. Saint Augustine looked at the world
for solutions to his problems but did not find the answer and said: You
have made us Lord for you and our hearts are restless until they find their
rest in you. (St Augustine,
Confessions, I, 1, PL. 32, 661; Romero’s June 3, 1979 Homily.)
We are restless, until we
rest in God. Blessed are those innocent ones who have never betrayed the Law of
God. They are few, but thanks to God, there are some. God has made me for
himself and my reason for being, the cultivation of my qualities and the
development of my faculties must be centered in God—in fact, I will have a
happy life only if I center my life on the glory of God. (Romero’s September 11, 1977 Homily.)
My beloved sisters and
brothers, we stand before the reality of transcendence and this is only
achieved through dialogue with God and intimacy with the Lord. (Romero’s August 26, 1979 Homily.) Even if one of us were atheist and gloried in
not believing in God, do not define our nature or our relationship with the
Creator. Even if we protest before God, nevertheless we are still transcendent
beings oriented toward God. Even for those who are incredulous, the words of
Saint Augustine, the great humanist who walked along the paths of unbelief and
was unhappy, take on great significance … Only God is the center of gravity in
whom women and men find rest, like when the stone falls and lands in the bottom
of a great abyss or when Jesus ascends to God.
(Romero’s May 27, 1979 Homily.)
There is a mutual attraction
between the God who created us for himself and men and women who have been
gifted with intelligence, freedom and many abilities that must not be abused
but used to discover their fullness in the One who is the objective of their
nature, the One who is the beginning and the end of their being. (Romero’s December 10, 1978 Homily.)
The
Church as a tree that grows stronger with watering
The first believers in
Christ performed signs: they were not harmed by poison and spoke new languages.
These were signs of God’s power and showed that the power of God, who created
all things, was with the Church. There is no vanity or sense of exhibitionism,
there is no game involved in these charisms and wonderful signs of curing and
speaking new languages. All of these occurred at the time when they were most
needed—as Saint Augustine said: these things were done in order to water the
tree, the Church. Every new tree
needs to be watered and cared for, but once the tree grows stronger and larger
it no longer needs the same care. When the tree flowers ... each flowering and
each branch is like a sign of new life that indicates that there is life and
tenderness and freshness in the tree and this continues for centuries and
perhaps even for thousands of years … this is also the life of the Church. The
Church continues to be this wonderful work of God that is present in history
and will be a part of history so long as she orients people toward
transcendence. (Romero’s May 27, 1979 Homily.)
Prayer
is God’s weakness and our strength
Let us continue to dream
like Christ who placed the Church, with all its weaknesses, under his
protection. Saint Augustine spoke these words that I would like all of you to
remember: Prayer is God’s weakness and the power of women and men. It is
like a father who experiences the weakness of his child. He feels weak also and
approaches his child and helps the child in his weakness. This is the situation
of our Church: we are weak but we have the power of God. We pray often because
we draw God near to us and God becomes weak when the weak ask for God’s
protection. (Romero’s October 16, 1977Homily.)
The
victory that overcomes the world
Saint Augustine said: Look
at the executioner holding his triumphant sword over the body of a martyr! Who
has conquered? There is no doubt
that the executioner has conquered his victim. But the one who has conquered by
the brute force of the sword has not understood the greatness of the one who
was willing to give his life for a higher ideal. This is the true victory that
overcomes the world. (St. Augustine,
Commentaries on the Psalms, Psalm 36, 2, 3; PL 36, 365; Romero’s September 23,1979 Homily.)
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