Feast of St. Augustine!

While it's raining here in Philly, it's still a great day for us OSAs and the Church, as celebrate the great feast of Augustine of Hippo and the gift he has been for us.  I'm getting ready to feast it up with the friars, but thought it would be fitting to blog this day, given I've been away from it for the past few weeks -not intentionally, solely on limited internet access which should be tended to shortly.  With that, I'll leave you with one of the many inspiring words from our dear patron:

"Late have I loved you, Beauty so ancient and so new, late have I loved you!  Lo you were within, but I outside, seeking there for you, and upon the shapely things you have made I rushed headlong, I misshapen.  You were with me, but I was not with you.  They held me back far from you, those things which would have no being were they not in you.  You called, shouted, broke through my deafness; you flared, blazed, banished my blindness; you lavished your fragrance, I gasped, and now I pant for you; I tasted you, and I hunger and thirst; you touched me, and I burned for your peace." (Confessions X, 27, 38)

Surely, these lines give us much on which to reflect and pray - of a God who is always closer to us than we are to ourselves.  Happy Feast Day!