Browsing Category Saint of the Day

The Rev’d Alban Butler (1710-1773) undertook to write a thoroughgoing account of saints for the Catholic Book Society (Derby, England: Thomas Richardson & Son). What resulted was a massive 12-volume (one per month) work: The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints: Compiled from Original Monuments and Other Authentic Records. The first edition was completed in 1759, and became a classic in hagiography, with later editions that included commentary, such as the 1842-1846 work, used here.
[Because subsequent research showed that certain individuals never existed or had actually been pagan deities cloaked in a Christian veneer, or because the miracles were simply too “out there” for a more modern audience, a severe gelding of Butler’s magisterial work took place in 1956. Alas.]
Out of each day’s multiple stories, I shall lift up those vignettes to riff on. Enjoy and (if it’s in your particular vernacular) be edified! – TK

Humble Bragging: St. Augustine (August 28)

Tim Koch Saint of the Day 0 Comment

Here’s a conundrum: What does it mean to praise praise praise a person for his or her humility?! Does it mean that the humble person’s self-knowledge was wrong wrong wrong? In which case, why praise such a person? Or, if the person was correct in assessing that this person was the worst of all sinners, the lowest of the low, the most wretched of sinners, then what is there to praise in such a person other than a correct self-assessment?

Well, that’s what we have with one of the Big Influencers of Christianity (and one whose writings and influences have continued to influence Christians toward self-hatred, in my assessment)–Saint Augustine! Because Augustine spent so much of his time defeating his lust, despising himself for his humanness, and writing copiously in his encouragement of Christians (all humans, actually) to think of themselves as low-lifes who are Big Zeroes (or worse) before the All-Holy God, here is how Butler introduces this Saint and Doctor of the Church (and this is not an atypical intro at all for those who are fans of Augustine):

So great is the veneration which popes, councils, and the whole church, have paid to the memory of this glorious saint through every succeeding age since his time, that to load our history with a list of his illustrious panegyrists (orators who praise) would be a superfluous labour; and barely to copy the sober praises, which the most judicious Christian critics have bestowed on his extraordinary learning and sanctity, would be like carrying water to the sea. For the name of the great St. Austin [another name for Augustine] is alone the highest elogium and panegyric, raises in all persons the most exalted idea, and commands the most profound respect. This perfect model of true penitents, this triumphing champion of our holy faith, and confounder of heresies [i.e., brooking NO theological disagreements and insisting on doctrinal purity], this bright light and most glorious doctor of the church of Christ was born on the 13th of November . . . .

So no praise of the most famous self-hating Christian (Judas not being a Christian as such) is sufficient, and any praise would be but another case of “carrying water to the sea.”

Here’s what this tells me: the Church places almost inestimable value upon those who exemplify and who call upon others to regard their own wills, desires, opinions, and selves as rubbish and who, out of this worthless estate, turn to the Church to provide them with what they should think, how they should act, and what party line they should espouse.

If that’s the brand of Christianity you want, then Augustine is Your Saint! For me, Augustine’s work and example are poisonous, and Mr. Yuk, the green-faced character above, expresses it best.