St. Monica's Feast is today and St. Augustine's is tomorrow and that is fitting. Without his saintly mother Augustine would not have been the saint he became after his conversion. I have always loved Augustine and talked the Academic Dean in college into letting me into an upper level Latin class because it was all on the Confessions of St. Augustine. Fortunately I had an English translation to work from and remember getting up early on Sunday mornings when all were still asleep to work out the week's translations. I was interested and so learned a good deal of Latin that semester but was lost when put into the next Latin class on Pliny because the
Academic Dean taught it and would put the English on the board and ask us to put it back into Latin. That was far beyond me and made me realize how little I knew. I have kept my love for Augustine through all the years and here are a couple of quotes from him that are cited in Into the Silent Land: "We must fly to our beloved homeland. There the Father is, and there is everything."
We are called home "from the noise that is around us to the joys that are silent. Why do we rush about...looking for God who is here at home with us, if all we want is to be with him."
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