Wednesday, August 28, 2019
FEAST OF ST. AGUSTINE OF HIPPO
Ester, Chapter 9,
Verse 2-4
2 The Jews mustered in their cities
throughout the provinces of King Ahasuerus to attack those who sought to do
them harm, and no one could withstand them, for fear of them fell upon all the peoples.
3 Moreover,
all the officials of the provinces, the satraps, governors, and royal
procurators supported the Jews out of fear
of Mordecai; 4 for Mordecai was powerful in the
royal palace, and the report was spreading through all the provinces that he
was continually growing in power.
The Jews destroyed their tormentors and the feast of
Purim was established but what the heck is a satrap.
Satraps
today
·
It
is also used in modern times to refer (usually derogatorily) to the loyal
subservient lieutenants or clients of some powerful figure (with equal
imprecision also styled mogul, tycoon,
or the like), in politics or business.
·
In
Portuguese, Italian
and Spanish, the word sátrapa not only carries the
aforementioned ancient historical meaning, but in modern usage also applies to
people who abuse power or authority. It can refer as well to those living in
luxurious and ostentatious conditions or to individuals who act astutely and
even disloyally.
·
The
College of 'Pataphysics used the title Transcendent Satrap
for certain of its members, including Marcel
Duchamp, Jean Baudrillard and the Marx brothers.
·
In
the Serbian language, satrap is used to mock a person who displays servile
tendencies to an authority figure.
·
THRUSH,
the primary antagonist organization in the TV series The Man From U.N.C.L.E., was divided into
satrapies, based on geographic location.
St. Augustine (354-430) was born at Tagaste, Africa,
and died in Hippo. His father, Patricius, was a pagan; his mother, Monica, a
devout Christian. He received a good Christian education. As a law student in
Carthage, however, he gave himself to all kinds of excesses and finally joined
the Manichean sect. He then taught rhetoric at Milan where he was converted by
St. Ambrose. Returning to Tagaste, he distributed his goods to the poor, and
was ordained a priest. He was made bishop of Hippo at the age of 41 and became
a great luminary of the African Church, one of the four great founders of
religious orders, and a Doctor of the universal Church.
"Though I am but dust and ashes, suffer me to
utter my plea to Thy mercy; suffer me to speak, since it is to God's mercy that
I speak and not to man's scorn. From Thee too I might have scorn, but Thou wilt
return and have compassion on me. ... I only know that the gifts Thy mercy had
provided sustained me from the first moment. ... All my hope is naught save in
Thy great mercy. Grant what Thou dost command, and command what Thou wilt"
(St. Augustine of Hippo, Confessions,
6, 19).
As a young man, Augustine prepared for a
career as a teacher of Rhetoric and subsequently taught in Carthage and Rome.
Unfortunately, despite having a saint for a mother, as his career progressed,
he wandered far from his Christian upbringing, and his life sank into an abyss
of pride and lust. Like many young pagan men of his time, he lived with a
mistress and conceived a child with her out of wedlock. However, the Lord did
not want to lose hold of this lost sheep altogether: thus, inspired by the
writings of the Roman philosopher Cicero (and, no doubt, prompted by the Holy
Spirit), Augustine began what would prove to be a lifelong search for wisdom.
This search took him first to the religious cult called the "Manichees,"
a strange sect that believed the material world is the product of the powers of
"darkness," while the spiritual realm is the realm of
"light." After becoming disillusioned with the bizarre theories of
the Manichees, Augustine adopted the philosophy of the Neo-Platonists. This was
a school of philosophy centered on the writings of the ancient philosopher
Plotinus, who described the mystical journey that all people ought to undertake
as "the flight of the alone to the Alone," in other words, as a
mystical, solitary search for the ineffable Source of all things. In 386,
Augustine moved to Milan to a new teaching post, and there, by divine
providence, he encountered the preaching of the archbishop of the city, the
great theologian St. Ambrose. As a result of the example and preaching of this
great saint, as well as the prayers and tears of his saintly mother, Augustine
was quickly plunged into a profound inner struggle, wrestling with his sins of
the flesh and with temptations to intellectual pride. The turning point of this
struggle came in the summer of 386 when Augustine was sitting in a garden,
recollecting his past life and gazing into the depths of his own soul. He
describes what happened next in his autobiographical Confessions
(written in 397)[3]:
Such things I said, weeping in the most bitter sorrow
of my heart. And suddenly, I heard a voice from some nearby house, a boy's
voice or a girl's voice, I do not know but it was a sort of sing-song repeated
again and again, "Take and read, take and read." I ceased weeping and
immediately began to search my mind most carefully as to whether children were
accustomed to chant these words in any kind of game, and I could not remember
that I had ever heard any such thing. Damming back the flood of my tears I arose,
interpreting the incident as quite certainly a divine command to open my book
of Scripture and read the passage at which I should open. ... I snatched it up,
opened it, and in silence read the passage upon which my eyes first fell: "Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in
chambering and impurities, not in contention and envy, but put ye on the Lord
Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh in its concupiscences"
(Rom 13:13). I had no wish to read further, and no need. For in that instant,
with the very ending of the sentence, it was as though a light of utter
confidence shone in my heart, and all the darkness of uncertainty vanished
away.
Then we [Augustine and his friend Alypius] went in to my mother and told her, to her great joy. We related how it had come about: she was filled with triumphant exultation and praised You who are mighty beyond what we ask or conceive: for she saw that You had given her more than with all her pitiful weeping she had ever asked. For You converted me to Yourself ... (Confessions, 8.11-12).
Then we [Augustine and his friend Alypius] went in to my mother and told her, to her great joy. We related how it had come about: she was filled with triumphant exultation and praised You who are mighty beyond what we ask or conceive: for she saw that You had given her more than with all her pitiful weeping she had ever asked. For You converted me to Yourself ... (Confessions, 8.11-12).
A prayer by St. Augustine
Breathe in me, O Holy Spirit, that my
thoughts may all be holy;
Act in me, O Holy Spirit, That I love but
what is holy;
Strengthen me, O Holy Spirit, to defend
all that is holy;
Daily Devotions
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