THERE is something in humility that strangely exalts the heart. - Saint Augustine of Hippo - (354 - 430)

"Learn of Me," says the Saviour, "for I am meek and humble of Heart." Jesus says "humble of heart," but was He not also humble of mind? Although He was without sin, Jesus humbled Himself like a sinner. He had nothing to be ashamed of. As the good thief put it: "This Man hath done nothing wrong." But we have done everything to be ashamed of. - Saint Peter Julian Eymard - (1811 - 1868)

IF I love Jesus, I ought to resemble Him. If I love Jesus, I ought to love what He loves, what He prefers to all else: humility. - Saint Peter Julian Eymard - (1811 - 1868)

If we possessed every virtue, but lacked humility, those virtues would be without root and would not last. - Saint Vincent de Paul - (1580 - 1660)

We must never glance at what is good in ourselves, much less ponder over it, but we should search out what is wrong and what is lacking. This is an excellent way of remaining humble. - Saint Vincent de Paul - (1580 - 1660)

You must ask God to give you power to fight against the sin of pride which is your greatest enemy - the root of all that is evil, and the failure of all that is good. For God resists the proud. - Saint Vincent de Paul - (1580 - 1660)

To remain humble, we should often on the greatness and humiliation of the Blessed Virgin. - Blessed Margaret Bourgeoys - (1620 - 1700)

The gate of Heaven is very low; only the humble can enter it. - Blessed Elizabeth Seton - (1774 - 1821) 

THERE is more value in a little study of humility and in a single act of it than in all the knowledge in the world. - Saint Teresa of Avila - (1515 - 82) 

THERE is something in humility that strangely exalts the heart. - Saint Augustine of Hippo - (354 - 430)

A SOUL, which exalts itself abases God; but a soul which abases itself exalts God. - Saint Augustine of Hippo - (354 - 430) 

THE EXAMINED LIFE  - The Confessions changes focus at this point and becomes more philosophical and theological. Here we begin to hear the self-examination of the Bishop of Hippo - Saint Augustine - and his interpretation of the nature of knowledge and of creation itself. -

- Page Five - Woe is me! Lord, have mercy on me! Woe is me! See! I do not hide my wounds; you are the Physician. I the sick. You are the merciful, I the miserable one. Is not the life of man upon all trail? Who wishes for troubles and difficulties? You command them to be endured, not to be loved. No man loves what he endures, though he may love to endure. For though he rejoices that he endures, he would rather there were nothing for him to endure. In adversity, I long for prosperity; in prosperity I fear adversity. What middle ground is there between these two - were the life of man is not all trail? Woe to the prosperities of the world, twice woe-woe from fear of adversity and woe from corruption of joy! Woe to the adversities of this world, twice woe, and triple woe: woe from longing for prosperity, woe because adversity itself is a hard thing, and woe for fear that it may make a shipwreck of our endurance! Is not the life of man upon earth all trail without intermission?

And all my hope is only in your exceeding great mercy. Give what you command, and command what you will. You command self-restraint, and "When I knew," said one, "that no man can be continent unless God gave it, that was a point of wisdom also to know whose gift it is." For self-restraint, verily, we are bound up and brought back together into wholeness, whereas we had been splintered in many ways. For he loves you too little who loves anything else with you which he does not love for you. O love, whoever burns and is never quenched! O Charity, my God! Enkindle me. You command continence; give me what you command and command what you will.

Truly you command that I should be continent from the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. You have commanded self-restraint from fornication, and as for wedlock itself, you have counseled something better than what you have permitted. And since you gave it, it was done, even before I became a minister of your Sacrament. But there yet lives in my memory (of which I have spoken at length) the images of such things as my bad habits had fixed there. These rush into my thoughts when I am awake, but in my sleep they not only seem pleasurable, but even to obtain my consent in what very closely resembles reality. Yes, the illusion of the image so far prevails in my soul and in my flesh, that when I am asleep, false visions persuade me to what the true ones cannot when I am awake. Am I not myself at such times. O Lord my God? There is yet so much difference between myself and myself in that instant in which I pass from waking to sleeping, or return from sleeping to waking! Where is reason, then, which resists such suggestions when awake and remains unmoved when such suggestions are urged on it? Is it closed up when my eyes are closed? Is it lulled asleep with senses of the body? But whence is it that often, even in sleep, we resist and mindful of our purpose and continuing most chastely in it, give no assent to such enticements? And there is yet so much difference that, when it happens otherwise, upon waking we return to peace of conscience, and by this very difference in the two states, discover that it was not we who did it, while we feel sorry that in some way it was done in us.

Is not your hand able, O Almighty God, to heal all the diseases of my soul and by your more abundant grace able to quench even the lascivious motions of my sleep? You will increase your gifts in me more and more, Lord, that my soul may follow me to you, disengaged from the bird-lime of lust; that it may not be in rebellion against itself, and may not commit dreams through these sensual images those debasing corruption, even to pollution of the flesh, nor give consent to them. For it is not too hard for the Almighty to work this - that nothing of this sort should have the very least influence over the pure affections of a sleeper, not even so slight a one as a thought might hold back - not just sometime during this life, but even at my present age, for you are able to do more than we can ask or think. But what I still am in this kind of evil, I have confessed to my good Lord, rejoicing with trembling in that which you have given me, and bemoaning that in which I am still imperfect; trusting that you will perfect your mercies in me, even to fullness of peace, which my outward and inward man shall have with you, when death is swallowed up in victory.

There is another evil of the day, which I wish were sufficient unto it. For by eating and drinking we repair the daily decays of the body, until you destroy both food and belly, when you shall slay my emptiness with a wonderful fullness, and clothe this corruptible with an eternal incorruption. But for the present, necessity is sweet to me, and I fight against this sweetness lest I be taken captive by it. I carry on a daily war by fasting, often bringing my body into subjection. And my pains are expelled by pleasure. For hunger and thirst are, in a manner, pains. They burn and kill like a fever unless the medicine of nourishment comes to relieve us. Since they are readily at hand from the comfort we receive through your gifts (with which land, water and air serve our weakness), our calamity is called pleasure.

This much you have taught me, that I should train myself to take food as medicine. But while I am passing from the discomfort of emptiness to the satisfaction of fullness, in that very passage itself the snare of lust lies in wait for me. For the passage itself is pleasurable; there is no other way to pass to that state of fullness, and necessity forces us us to pass. And although health is the reason for eating and drinking, yet a dangerous delight accompanies it, and frequently tries to control it in order that I may do for enjoyment's sake on what I say I do, or wish to do, for health's sake. Health and pleasure do not have the same limits. What is enough for health is too little for pleasure. And it is often questionable whether it is necessary care of the body which still asks nourishment, or whether a sensual snare of desire wants to be served. In this uncertainty, my unhappy soul rejoices and prepares in it an excuse to shield itself, glad that it is not clearly apparent what would suffice for the moderation of health, so that under the cloak of health it may conceal the business of pleasure. These temptations I try to resist daily, and I call your right hand to my aid, and refer my perplexities to you, because as yet I have no clear resolution in this matter.

I hear the voice of my God commanding, Let not your heart be overcharged with immoderate indulgence and drunkenness. Drunkenness is far from me; you will have mercy that it may never come near me. But over-eating sometimes creeps up on your servant; you will have mercy that it may depart from me. For no man can be continent unless you give it. You give us many things that we pray for, and whatever good we have received before we prayed, we received it from you. Yes, received it from you that we might afterward know that we received it from you. I was never a drunkard, but I have known drunkards who were made sober by you. It was from you, then, that they who never were drunkards might not be so, and it was your gift that both might know that it was from you.

I heard another voice of yours: "Do not follow your lusts and refrain yourself from your pleasures." And by your grace I have heard that which I have greatly loved: Neither if we eat are we the better; nor if we do not eat are we the worse. Which is to say, neither shall the one make me abound, nor the other make me miserable. I heard another also: For I have learned in whatever state I am, therewith to be content; I know how to abound and bow to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. See there a soldier of the heavenly camp - the dust as we are. But remember, Lord, that we are dust, and that of dust you have made man, and he was lost and is found, He [Paul] could not do this by his own strength, because he whom I so love who said these things the breath of your inspiration, was made of the same dust. He says, I can do all things through him who strengthens me. Strengthen me, that I may be able; grant what you command, and command what you will. He confesses to have received, and when he glories, he glories in the Lord. Another person I have heard begging that he might receive: "Take from me," he says, "the greediness of the belly." From this it appears to me, O my holy God, that when that is done which you command, it is by your gift that it is done.

You have taught me, good Father, that to the pure all things are pure; but that it is evil to the man who gives offence in eating. And that every creature of yours is good, and nothing is to be refused which is received with thanksgiving; and that food does not commend us to God, and that food does not commend us to God, and that no man should judge us in food or drink; that he who eats should not despise him who does not eat; and that he who does not eat should not judge him who eats. These things have I learned, thanks and praise be to you, my God, my Master, knocking at the door of my ears, enlightening my heart, delivering me out of all temptation. I do not fear the uncleanness of food, but the uncleanness of lust. I know that Noah was permitted to eat all kinds of flesh that was good for food. I know also that Elijah was fed with flesh; that John, endued with a wonderful abstinence, was not polluted by eating locusts alive, which he fed on. I know, too, that Esau was deceived by craving lentils, and that David blamed for desiring a drink of water; and that our King was tempted, not by flesh, but bread. Therefore the people in the wilderness deserved to be reproved, too - not so much for desiring flesh, but because in their desire for food, they murmured against the Lord. 

Placed, then, amid these temptations, I strive daily against lust for food and drink. For it is not the kind [of temptation] that I can resolve to cut off once and for all, and never touch it afterward, as I did with fornication. The bridle of the throat, therefore, is to be held moderately between slackness and strictness. And who is he, O Lord, who is not carried in some degree beyond the bounds of necessity in it? Whoever he is, he is a great one! Let him magnify your name. But I am not such a one, for I am a sinful man. Yet I, too, magnify your name, and he who has overcome the world makes intercession to you for my sins, numbering me among the weak members of his body, because your eyes have looked on my imperfect being and in your book shall all be written.

I am not greatly concerned with all the attraction of sweet scents. When that are absent, I do not miss them; when they are present, I do not refuse them, yet am ready to be without them. So I seem to myself, though possibly I am deceived. For that is also a lamentable darkness which conceals my capabilities from me, so that my mind, inquiring into itself concerning its own powers, does not readily dare to believe itself, because even what is already in it is largely concealed unless it is exposed by experience. And no one ought to be secure in this life, the whole of which is called a temptation, so that he who has been made better from worse may also from better be made worse. Our only hope, our only confidence, our only assured promise, is your mercy. 

The delights of the ear had more firmly entangled and conquered mw, but you have unbound and liberated me. Now, I still find some repose in those melodies into which your words breathe soul, when they are sung with a sweet and trained voice. Yet I do not allow myself to be held by them, for I can disengage myself from them when I wish. But with the words which are the life of melodies and by which they gain admission into me, they seek a place of some honour in my heart, and I can scarcely assign them a fitting one. For at times I seem to myself to give them more honour than is proper, sensing that our minds are more devoutly and fervently inflamed in devotion by the holy words themselves when they are sung this way, than when they are not. I notice that the different emotions of my spirit, by their sweet variety, have their appropriate expressions in the voice and singing, by some hidden relationship which stirs them up. But this gratification of my flesh, which must not be allowed to take control over my mind, often beguiles me. My feelings do not serve reason, so as to follow it patiently, but after having gained admission for the sake of reason, strive to grab the reins and take the lead. Thus in these things I sin without knowing it, but realize it afterwards.

At other times, anxiously shunning this very deception, I err by being too strict, and sometimes to the degree of wishing to have every melody of sweet music to which David's Psalter is often sung banished both from my ears and from the Church itself. That wat seems safer which I remember having often heard was followed by Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria. He made the reader of the psalm utter it with such a slight inflection of the voice that it was more like speaking than singing. Yet, again, when I remember the tears I shed at the songs of your Church in the early days of my recovered faith, and how even now I am moved not by the singing, but by what is being sung, when they are sung with a clear voice and skillful modulation, I recognize once more the great usefulness of this practice. Thus I vacillate between the perilous pleasure and proved soundness - inclined rather to approve the custom of singing in the church (though not pronouncing it as an irrevocable opinion), so that the weaker minds may rise to the feeling of devotion by the delight of the ears. yet when I happen to be more moved by the singing than by what is being sung, I confess that I have sinned gravely, and then would rather not have heard the singing. See my condition now! Weep with me and weep for me, you who can so control your inward feelings that good results follow. For you who do not act this way, these things do not concern you. But O my God, hear me and look upon me, and have mercy on me and heal me, you in whose presence I have become a puzzle to myself; and this is my infirmity.

There remain the delights of these eyes of my flesh, about which to make my confession in the hearing of the ears of your temple, those brotherly and devout ears, and so to conclude the temptations of the lust of the flesh which still assault me, as I groan earnestly, desiring to be clothed upon with my house from heaven.

My eyes love beautiful and varied forms, and bright and soft colours. Let these not occupy my soul; let God rather possess it, who made these things very good indeed - for he is my God, not these. Yes, these affect me during the whole waking day. No rest is given me from them, as there sometimes is in silence from music and from all voices....... - Page Five -  

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Wishing you, 'Happy Reading', and may God, the Father, the Son of the living God, Jesus Christ, fills your heart, mind, thoughts, and grants you: The Holy Spirit, that is, Wisdom, Knowledge, Understanding, Counsel, Piety, Fortitude, Fear of the Lord, and also His fruits of the Holy Spirit, that is, Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Trustfulness, Gentleness and Self-Control. Amen! God blessing be upon you!

Why do you call Me, "Lord, Lord" and not do what I say?' "Everyone who comes to Me and listens to My words and acts on them - I will show you what he/she is like. He/She is like a man/woman who when he/she built his/her house dug, deep, and laid the foundations on rock; when the river was in flood it bore down on that house but could not shake it, it was so well built. But the one who listens and does nothing is like the man/woman who built his/her house on soil, with no foundations: as soon as the river bore down on it, it collapsed; and what a ruin that house became!" - Luke 6:46-49 - 

If we live by the truth and in love, we shall grow in all ways into Christ Jesus, who is the head by whom the whole body is fitted and joined together, every joint adding its own strength, for each separate part to work according to it function. So the body grows until it has built itself up, in love." - Ephesians 4:15-16 - 

I still have many things to say to you but they would be too much for you now. But when the spirit of truth comes, he will lead you to the complete truth, since he will not be speaking as from himself, but will say only what he has learnt; and he will tell you of the things to come. He/She will glorify me, since all he/she tells you will be taken from what is mine. Everything the Father has is mine; that is why I said: all he/she tells you will be taken from what is mine." - John 16:12-15 - 

The devil is only permitted to tempt thee as much as is profitable for thy exercise and trial, and in order that thou, who didst not know thyself, mayest find out what thou art. - Saint Augustine of Hippo - ( 354 - 430 )

THERE is no doubt that through the reading of the Sacred Scriptures the soul is set aflame in God and becomes purified from all vices. - Saint Jerome - ( 342 - 420 ) 

The greatest of all evils is not to be tempted, because there are then grounds for believing that the devil looks upon us as his property. - Saint John Vianney - ( 1786 - 1859 )

Grace prevents the wicked, that he/she may become just. It follows the just, that he/she may not become wicked. - Saint Fulgentius - ( 468 - 533 )

GRACE can do nothing without the will and the will can do nothing without grace. - Saint John Chrysostom - ( 347 - 407 )

GRACE will not act without us, in order that we may will to do right. But when we will, it works along with us. Grace prevents him/her who is not willing, that he/she may will. It accompanies him/her who wills, lest he/she will in vain. - Saint Augustine of Hippo - ( 354 - 430 )

If we have obtained the grace of God, none shall prevail against us, but we shall be stronger than all who oppose us. - Saint John Chrysostom - ( 347- 407 )

IT is impossible for a soul to cross the dreadful ocean of sins, and to keep God's commandments and be saved, unless it is aided by the Spirit of Jesus Christ and borne along in the vessel of Divine grace. - Saint Macarius - ( 314 - 35 ) 

WHO is so strong as never to be overcome by temptation, except he/she who has the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ for his/her helper? - Saint Augustine of Hippo - ( 354 - 430 )

LET us ask for Divine grace. He/She who asks for anything else asks for nothing; not because all things are nothing, but because, in comparison of such a thing, all else that can be desired is nothing at all. - Saint Augustine of Hippo - ( 354 - 430 )

-   THE  EXAMINED  LIFE   - The Confessions changes focus at this point and becomes more philosophical and theological. Here we begin to hear the self-examination of the Bishop of Hippo - Saint Augustine - and his interpretation of the nature of knowledge and of creation itself. - 

- Page Four - Somehow we have it, but how I do not know. There is indeed a way in which one has it and then is happy, and there are some who are happy in the hope of having it. These have it in a lesser way than those who have it in very fact; yet they are better off than those who are neither happy in fact nor in hope. Yet even these, if they did not have it in some way, would not so greatly desire to be happy - and that they do desire it is most certain. How they have known it then. I do not know. By what sort of knowledge that have it, I do not know, and I am perplexed whether it is in the memory - for in that case, we would have been happy once.

I do not now inquire as to whether everyone was happy separately, or happy in that man who first sinned, in whom also we all died, and from whom we are all born with misery. I only ask whether the happy life is in the memory. For we could not love it if we did know it. We hear the name, and we all confess that we desire the thing, for we are not delighted with the mere sound. When a Greek hears it in Latin, he is not delighted, not knowing what is being spoken. But we Latins are delighted, as he would be too, if he heard it in Greek; because the thing itself which Greeks and Latins and men of all other tongues long for so earnestly is neither Greek nor Latin. It is therefore known to all, for could they with one voice be asked. "Do you want to be happy?" they would answer, without doubt, "We do." And this could not be unless happiness itself, signified by the name, were retained in their memory.

But is it the same as when one has seen Carthage remembers it? No. For a happy life is not seen with the eye, because it is not a body. Is it the same as when we remember numbers? No. For the one who has these in his knowledge does not have to look further to reach them. But a happy life we have in our knowledge and therefore love it, and yet we still desire to attain it, so that we may be happy. Is it the same as when we remember eloquence, then? No. For upon hearing this name, some who are not yet eloquent and desire to be so, call it to mind. Through their bodily senses they have observed others to be eloquent, and were delighted by it and wanted to be like them, though actually they would not have been delighted without some inward knowledge of eloquence, nor want to be like them unless they were delighted by it. But in the case of the happy life, we do not experience it in others through any bodily sense.

Do we remember happiness then in the same way we remember joy? Possibly. For I remember my joy even when I am sad, as I remember a happy life even when I am unhappy. Nor did I ever see, hear, smell, taste, or touch my joy with my bodily senses, but I experienced it in my mind when I rejoiced, and the knowledge of it stuck in my memory, so that I can recall it - at times with disgust, at other times with longing, according to the nature of the things which I remember having enjoyed. For I have been immersed in a sort of joy even from foul things which I now abhor and utterly detest when I recall them. At other times I rejoiced in good and honest things which I recall with longing, although they may no longer be present. In that case I recall former joy with sorrow.

Where then, and when, did I experience my happy life that I should remember and love and long for it? Mine is not an isolated case, nor is it that of some few besides me, but all of us desire to be happy. Unless by some certain knowledge we knew what a happy life is, we could not desire it with such certainty. But how is this, that if two men are asked whether they would go to the wars, one might answer that he would and the other that he would not? But if they were asked whether they wanted to be happy, they would instantly, without any hesitation, say they would; and for no other reason would the one choose to go to the wars and the other not, but to be happy. Is it possible that as one looks for his joy in one thing, another in another, all agree in their the desire to be happy? In the same way, if they were asked, they would agree that they wished to have joy, and would they call this joy a happy life? Then, although one obtains joy by one means, another by another, both have the same goal that try to reach - joy. Since joy is a thing which all must say they have experienced, it is therefore found in the memory and recognized whenever the name of a happy life is mentioned.

Far be it, Lord, far be it from the heart of your servant who is confessing here to you, far be it from me to think that I am happy, be the joy what it may be. For there is a joy which is not given to the ungodly, but to those who love you for your own sake, whose joy is you yourself. And this is the happy life: to rejoice in you, of you, for you. This is the true joy and there is no other. They who think there is another seek some other, and not the true joy. Yet their will is not turned except by some semblance of joy. 

Is it, then, not certain that all wish to be happy, inasmuch as they who do not wish to joy in you (which is the only happy life) do not truly desire the happy life? Or do all men desire this, but the flesh strives against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh, so that they cannot do what they wish to do? Do they then settle on that which they can do, and are content with that, because they do not desire strongly enough what they cannot do to make them able to do it? Do they then settle on that they cannot do what they wish to do? Do they then settle on that which they can do, and are content with that, because they do not desire strongly enough what they cannot do to make them able to do it? For if I ask anyone if he would rather rejoice in truth or in falsehood, he will hesitate as little to say "In the truth" as he would to say that he desires to be happy. But a happy life is joy in the truth, for this is rejoicing in you, who are the Truth, O God, my Light, the Health of my countenance and my God. This happy life all desire; all desire this life which is the only happy life, for all desire to rejoice in the truth. I have met with many who would deceive others; none who want to be with many who would deceive others; none who want to be deceived. And when they love a happy life, which is nothing else than rejoicing in the truth, then they also love the truth - which they could love if there were not some knowledge of it in their memory. Why then, do they not rejoice in it? Why are they not happy? Because they are more strongly occupied with other things which have more power to make them miserable that which they so dimly remember has to make them happy. For there is yet a little light in men; let them walk, let them walk, lest the darkness overtake them.

But why does truth generate hatred, and why does your servant, preaching the truth, become their enemy, since a happy life is loved, which is nothing else but rejoicing in the truth? How is this so unless the truth is loved in such a way that those who love something else want what they love to be the truth? And because they do not want to be deceived, they do not want to be convinced that they are. Therefore they hate the truth, for the sake of the thing they love instead of the truth.

They love the truth when it enlightens, they hate it when it reproves. Since they would not be deceived, yet they would deceive, they love it when it reveals itself to them, but hate it when it reveals them to themselves. Thus the truth shall repay them, by exposing those who do not wish to be exposed by it, and yet not revealing itself to them. Thus, thus, yes, thus does the mind of ma - blind, sick, foul and ill-behaved - wish to be hidden, but does not want anything hidden from it. But the very opposite happens. The mind is not hidden from the truth, while the truth remains hidden from it. Happy then will it be, when without any other distraction, it shall rejoice in that sole Truth by which all things are true.

See what a space I have covered in my memory in seeking you, O Lord! And I have not found you outside it, nor have I found anything concerning you but what I retained in my memory ever since I learned of you. Since I learned of you I have not forgotten you. Where I found truth, there I found my God, the Truth itself. And since I learned this I have not forgotten it. Thus since the time I learned of you, you have resided in my memory. There I find you when I call you to remembrance, and delight in you. These are my holy delights which you have given me in your mercy, being mindful of my poverty. 

But where do you abide in my memory, O Lord? Where do you abide there? What kind of dwelling place have you made for yourself there? What kind of sanctuary have you built there for yourself? You have given this honour to my memory, to abide in it; but in what part of it you dwell - that I am pondering. For in thinking about you, I passed beyond such parts of it as the animals have, for I did not find there among corporeal things. And I came to those areas in which I stored the affections of my mind, and did not find you there. Then I entered into the inner-most seat of my mind - which the mind has in my memory, since the mind remembers itself - but you were not there. For as you are not a corporeal image, nor the affection of a living being (as when we rejoice, sympathize with, desire, fear, remember, forget, or the like) so neither are you the mind itself. Because you are the Lord God of the mind, and all these things change, but you remain unchangeable over them all - and yet you have vouchsafed to dwell in my memory ever since I learned of you. So why do I now seek to know the part of my memory in which you dwell, as if there were places in the mind? Assuredly, you dwell in it since I have remembered you ever since I learned of you, and since I find you there when I call you to remembrance.

Where then did I find you that I might learn of you? You were not in my memory before I learned of you, Where did I find you, that I might learn of you, but in yourself, above myself. Place there is none; we go backward and forward, and there is no 'place' [location]. Everywhere, O Truth, you hear those who ask counsel of you, and answer all of them at once, though they ask your counsel on many different things. You answer them clearly, though they do not all hear clearly. All consult you on whatever they wish, though they do not always hear back what they wish. He is your best servant who looks not so much to hear what he desires from you, as to desire that which he hears from you. 

Too late have I loved you, O Beauty, ancient yet ever new. Too late have I loved you! And behold, you were within, but I was outside, searching for you there - plunging, deformed amid those fair forms which you had made. You were with me, but I was not with you. Things held me far from you, which, unless they were in you did not exist at all. You called and shouted, and burst my deafness. You gleamed and shone upon me, and chased away my blindness. You breathed fragrant odours on me, and I held back my breath, but now I pant for you. I tasted, and now I hunger and thirst for you. You touched me, and now I yearn for your peace.

When I come to be united with you with my whole self, I shall have no more sorrow or labour, and my life shall be wholly alive, being wholly full of you! You lift up the one you fill, but I am still a burden to myself, because I am not full of you. Lamentable joys strive with joyous sorrows: and on which side the victory will be I do not know. Woe is me! Lord, have mercy on me. My evil sorrows strive with my good joys; and I do not know on which side the victory may be. Woe is me! Lord, have mercy on me! .............. - Page Four -             

-     WELCOME TO SACRED SCRIPTURE / WORD OF GOD / HOLY BIBLE READER'S COMMUNITY     - 

Wishing you, 'Happy Reading', and may God, the Father, the Son of the living God, Jesus Christ, fills your heart, mind, thoughts, and grants you: The Holy Spirit, that is, Wisdom, Knowledge, Understanding, Counsel, Piety, Fortitude, Fear of the Lord, and also His fruits of the Holy Spirit, that is, Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Trustfulness, Gentleness and Self-Control. Amen! God blessing be upon you!

Why do you call Me, "Lord, Lord" and not do what I say?' "Everyone who comes to Me and listens to My words and acts on them - I will show you what he/she is like. He/She is like a man/woman who when he/she built his/her house dug, deep, and laid the foundations on rock; when the river was in flood it bore down on that house but could not shake it, it was so well built. But the one who listens and does nothing is like the man/woman who built his/her house on soil, with no foundations: as soon as the river bore down on it, it collapsed; and what a ruin that house became!" - Luke 6:46-49 - 

If we live by the truth and in love, we shall grow in all ways into Christ Jesus, who is the head by whom the whole body is fitted and joined together, every joint adding its own strength, for each separate part to work according to it function. So the body grows until it has built itself up, in love." - Ephesians 4:15-16 - 

I still have many things to say to you but they would be too much for you now. But when the spirit of truth comes, he will lead you to the complete truth, since he will not be speaking as from himself, but will say only what he has learnt; and he will tell you of the things to come. He/She will glorify me, since all he/she tells you will be taken from what is mine. Everything the Father has is mine; that is why I said: all he/she tells you will be taken from what is mine." - John 16:12-15 - 

God bestows more consideration on the purity of intention with which our actions are performed than on the actions themselves - Saint Augustine of Hippo - 354-430 -

We must bear in mind that the Christian life is, above all, a life of action. We were born to labour, not to day-dream and idle. (in other words: indolent, slothful work, lackadaisical and inert.) 

God could have given us the Redeemer of the human race and the Founder of the Faiths in another way than through the Virgin, but since Divine Providence has been pleased that we should have the Man-God through Mary, who conceived Him by the Holy Spirit and bore Him in her womb, it remains for us to receive Christ from the hands of Mary. - Saint Pius X - 1835-1914 - 

Mary is the Mediatrix of all grace... Jesus is the only Mediator of justice who can ask in His own name, and in consideration of His own merits and His own rights. Mary herself obtains what she asks only through the merits of the Saviour, and in virtue of prayer made in the name of Jesus Christ. - Saint Bernard - 1090-1153 -

Let us not imagine that we obscure the glory of the Son by the praise we lavish on the Mother; for the more she is honoured, the greater is the glory of her Son. - Saint Bernard - 1090-1153 -

NEVERTHELESS, such is the order freely determined by God, that Mary's mediation always intervenes in the dispensation of grace. This order admirably restores the plan vitiated and destroyed by sin; for as a man and a woman concurred in our loss, a man and a woman ought to labour together to redeem us. - Saint Bernard - 1090-1153 -

IF the Son is a King, the Mother who begot Him is rightly and truly considered a Queen and Sovereign. - Saint Athanasius - 297-373 -

You cannot be half a Saint. You must be a whole Saint or no Saint at all. - Saint Therese of Lisieux - 1873-1897 -

Make up your mind to become a Saint. - Saint Mary Mazzarello - 1837-1881 -

TRUST, the past to the Mercy of God, the present to His Love, and the future to His Providence. - Saint Augustine of Hippo - 354-430 -

 -   THE  EXAMINED  LIFE   - The Confessions changes focus at this point and becomes more philosophical and theological. Here we begin to hear the self-examination of the Bishop of Hippo - Saint Augustine - and his interpretation of the nature of knowledge and of creation itself. - 

- Page Three - But, consider this. It is out of my memory that I say there are four basic emotions of the mind - desire, joy, fear and sorrow. Whatever I may discuss about them, by dividing each into its own particular kind, and by defining what it is, it is from my memory that I find what to say and bring it out from there. Yet I am not disturbed by these emotions when I call them to mind and remember them. Yes, and before I recalled and brought forth by recollection. Perhaps, as meat is brought up out of the stomach by chewing the cud, these things are brought out of the memory by recollection. Why, then, does the man who is thinking of them not taste in his mouth the sweetness of joy or the bitterness of sorrow? Does the comparison fail in this because it is not alike in all respects? For who would ever willingly speak of it, if every time we named grief or fear we should be compelled to feel sad or fearful? And yet we could not speak of them if we did not find in our memory, not only the sounds of their names according to images impressed on it by our bodily senses, but also the notions of the things themselves, which we never received by any avenue of the flesh. But the mind itself recognized them through the experience of its own passions, committed them to the memory; or else the memory itself retained them without having them actually assigned to it [by the conscious mind].

But whether this is done by images or not, who can readily say? Thus, I name a stone, I name the sun, and the things themselves are not present to my senses, but their images are present to my memory. I name a bodily pain, yet it is not present with me when nothing aches. Yet, unless its image was present in my memory, I would not know what to say, of it, nor how to tell pain from pleasure. I name bodily health. When I am sound in body, the thing itself is present with me; yet unless its image were also present in my memory, I could not recall what the sound of this name signified. Nor would the sick, when health was named, recognized what was being spoken of, unless the same image were retained by the power of memory, although the thing itself was absent from the body. I name numbers by which we count; and it is not their images but the numbers themselves that are present in my memory. I name the image of the sun, and that image is present in my memory. For I do not recall the image of its image, but the image itself is present to me when I call it to mind. I name memory, and I recognize what I name. But where do I recognize it but in the memory itself? Is it also present to itself by its image, and not by itself?

When I name forgetfulness and recognize what I name, how could I recognize it if I did not remember it? I do not speak of the sound of the name, but the thing which it signifies. If I had forgotten, I could not recognize what the sound meant. When I remember memory, memory itself is, by means of itself, present with itself; but when I remember forgetfulness, there are present both memory and forgetfulness: memory by which I remember, and forgetfulness which I remember.

But what is forgetfulness, but the absence of memory? How then can that be present, so that I remember it, which, when it is present keeps me from remembering? But if we hold in memory what we remember, we could never recognize forgetfulness when we hear it named unless we remembered it. So then, forgetfulness, is retained by memory. It is present then, so that we do not forget it. This being the case, are we to suppose that forgetfulness, when we remember it, is present to the memory only through its image rather than by itself? Because if it were present by itself, it would not cause us to remember, but to forget. Who can search this out? Who shall understand how it is?

Lord, I truly toil in this; yes, and in myself. I have become a difficult soil, requiring too much sweat of the brow. For I am not now searching out the regions of the heavens, or measuring the distances of the stars, or inquiring about the weight of the earth. It is I myself who remember, I, the mind. It is not so strange if what I am not should be far from me. But what is nearer to me than myself? And lo, I do not understand the power of my own memory, though I cannot even name myself without it. For what shall I say, when it is clear to me that I remember forgetfulness? Shall I say that what I remember is not in my memory? Or shall I say that forgetfulness is in my memory so that I will not forget? Both of these are most absurd. But what third view is there? How can I say that the image of forgetfulness is retained in my memory, can I say that the image of forgetfulness is retained in my memory, not forgetfulness itself, when I remember it? How could I say this either, seeing that when the image of anything itself is imprinted on the memory, the thing itself must first be present from which the image may be imprinted? For this is the way I remember Carthage, and in this way I remember all the places I have been; this is the way it is with men's faces whom I have seen, and things reported by the other senses. Thus it is with health or sickness of the body. For when these things were present, my memory received images from them, which remain present with me, so that I can look on them and bring them back to mind when I remember them in their absence. If then this forgetfulness is retained in the memory through its image, not through itself, then, plainly it was once present itself, so that its image might be taken, But when it was present, how did it write its image in my memory, since forgetfulness by its presence erases even what it finds already recorded? And yet, in whatever way, although it is past conceiving or explaining, I am certain that I remember forgetfulness itself, too, by which is blotted out what we remember.

Great is the power of memory, a fearful thing, O my God, a deep and boundless multiplicity; and this is the mind and this I am myself. What am I then, O my God? What nature am I? A life various and manifold, exceedingly immense. Behold the innumerable plains and caves and caverns of my memory are innumerably full of unnumbered kinds of things - either through images, as in all physical bodies, or by actual presence, as the arts, or by certain notions or impressions, like the emotions of the mind which are retained by the memory even when we no longer feel them, because whatever is in the memory is in the mind. I run over all these, I fly, I dive on this side and on that, as far as I can, and there is no end. The power of memory is as great as the power of life in this mortal life of man.

What shall I do then, O my God, my true life? I will go even beyond this power of mine which is called memory. Yes, I will go beyond it, so that I may approach you, O lovely Light. What do you say to me? See, I am mounting up through my mind toward you who dwell above me. Yes, I know will pass beyond this power of mine which is called memory, desiring to reach you where you may be reached, and to cleave to you where that is possible. For even beasts and birds have memory, otherwise they could not return to their nests and dens, nor do the many other things they do. Nor indeed could they be used in anyway except through their memory. I will pass then beyond memory, too, that I may reach him who has separated me from the four-footed beasts and made me wiser than the fowls of the air. So, I will go on beyond memory, but where shall I find you, O truly Good and certain Sweetness? If I find you without my memory, then I cannot retain you in my memory. And how shall I find you, if I do not remember you?

The woman who lost her drachma and searched for it with a light could never found it unless she had remembered it. And when it was found, how would she know it was the same coin if she did not remember it? I remember having looked for and finding many things, and this I know by it, that when I was searching for any of them, and was asked, "Is this it?" "Is that it?" I said, "No," until the thing I was looking for was offered. But if I had remembered it - whatever it was - though it had been offered to me, I could not have found it because I failed to recognize it. And so it always is when we look for and find any lost thing. Nevertheless, when anything is lost from sight by chance (not from the memory, as any visible body might be) still its image is retained within us, and we look for it until it is restored to sight; and when it is found, we recognize it by its image within. We do not say that we have found what was lost unless we recognize it, and we cannot recognize it unless we remembered it. It was lost to the eye, but it was retained in the memory.

When the memory itself loses anything, as happens when we forget something and try to recall it, where do we look for it, but in the memory itself? And there, if one thing happens to be offered instead of another, we reject it until we find what we are looking for. And when we find it, we say, "This is it!" We could not say that unless we recognized it, nor recognize it unless we remembered it. Certainly then we had forgotten it. Or, had all of it not been forgotten, and did we look for the part that was missing by the part which we still remembered, as if the memory felt that it could not carry on properly until the missing part was restored to it?

For instance, if we see or think of someone known to us, and having forgotten his name, try to recall it, whatever else occurs does not connect itself with his name, because we are not accustomed to think of that in connection with his him. So we go on rejecting these things until something presents itself on which the knowledge we seek rests. And from where does that come, but out of the memory itself? For even when we recognize it as it is brought to mind by someone else, it still comes from memory. For we do not believe it as something new, but upon recollection, agree that what was said was right. But if it had been utterly blotted out of the mind, we would not remember it even when reminded of it. For we have not as yet utterly forgotten what we remember as having forgotten. What we have lost and utterly forgotten, we cannot even search for. 

How do I seek you, then, O Lord? For when I seek you, my God, I seek a happy life. I will seek you that my soul may live. For my body lives by my soul, and my soul lives by you. How then do I seek a happy life, seeing that I do not have it until I can rightly say, "It is enough!" How do I seek it? By remembering, as though I had forgotten it, remembering that I had forgotten it? Or by desiring to learn it as something unknown, either never having known, or having so forgotten as not even to remember that it had been forgotten? Is not a happy life what all seek, and is there anyone who does not desire it? Where have they known it, so that they desire it? Where have they known it, so that they desire it? Where have they seen it, that they love it so much? Somehow we have it, but how I do not know....... Page Three

-     WELCOME TO SACRED SCRIPTURE / WORD OF GOD / HOLY BIBLE READER'S COMMUNITY     - 

Wishing you, 'Happy Reading', and may God, the Father, the Son of the living God, Jesus Christ, fills your heart, mind, thoughts, and grants you: The Holy Spirit, that is, Wisdom, Knowledge, Understanding, Counsel, Piety, Fortitude, Fear of the Lord, and also His fruits of the Holy Spirit, that is, Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Trustfulness, Gentleness and Self-Control. Amen! God blessing be upon you!

Why do you call Me, "Lord, Lord" and not do what I say?' "Everyone who comes to Me and listens to My words and acts on them - I will show you what he/she is like. He/She is like a man/woman who when he/she built his/her house dug, deep, and laid the foundations on rock; when the river was in flood it bore down on that house but could not shake it, it was so well built. But the one who listens and does nothing is like the man/woman who built his/her house on soil, with no foundations: as soon as the river bore down on it, it collapsed; and what a ruin that house became!" - Luke 6:46-49 - 

If we live by the truth and in love, we shall grow in all ways into Christ Jesus, who is the head by whom the whole body is fitted and joined together, every joint adding its own strength, for each separate part to work according to it function. So the body grows until it has built itself up, in love." - Ephesians 4:15-16 - 

I still have many things to say to you but they would be too much for you now. But when the spirit of truth comes, he will lead you to the complete truth, since he will not be speaking as from himself, but will say only what he has learnt; and he will tell you of the things to come. He/She will glorify me, since all he/she tells you will be taken from what is mine. Everything the Father has is mine; that is why I said: all he/she tells you will be taken from what is mine." - John 16:12-15 - 

-   THE  EXAMINED  LIFE   - The Confessions changes focus at this point and becomes more philosophical and theological. Here we begin to hear the self-examination of the Bishop of Hippo - Saint Augustine - and his interpretation of the nature of knowledge and of creation itself. - 

Page Two  - And all these things are preserved distinctly and under general heads, each having entered my memory by its own particular avenue: light and colours and forms of bodies, by the eyes; all sorts of sounds by the ears; all smells by the avenue of the nostrils; all tastes by the mouth; and by the sensation of the whole body, what is hard or soft, hot or cold, smooth or rugged, heavy or light - either external or internal to the body. All these things the great recesses, the hidden and unknown caverns of memory receive and store, to be retrieved and brought forth when needed, each entering by its own gate. Yet the things themselves do not enter, but only the images of the things perceived are there, ready to be recalled in thought. But how these images are formed, who can tell? It is plain, however, which sense brought each one in and stored it up. For even while I dwell in darkness and silence, I can produce colours in my memory if I choose, and I can discern between black and white. Sounds do not break in and alter the image brought in by my eyes which I am reviewing, though they also are there, too, and they immediately appear. And though my voice is still and my throat silent, I can sing as much as I will. Those images of colours do not intrude, even though they are there, when another memory is called for which came in by way of the ears. So it is with other things brought in and stored up by the other senses - I can recall them at my pleasure, Yes, I can tell the fragrance of lilies from violets, though I smell nothing; I prefer honey to sweet wine, smooth surfaces to rough ones - at the time neither tasting nor handling, but only remembering.

These things I do inside myself, in that vast hall of my memory. For present there with me are heaven, earth, sea and whatever I could think on them, in addition to what I have forgotten. There also I meet with myself, and recall myself - what, when and where I did a thing, and what my feelings were when I did it. All that I remember is there, either personal experiences or what I was told by others. Out of the same store I continually combine with the past, fresh images of things experienced, or what I have believed from what I have experienced. From these I can project future actions, events and hopes, and I can reflect on all these again in the present. I say to myself, in that great storehouse of my mind, filled with the images of so many and such great things, "I will do this or that, and this or that will follow." "Oh, would that this or that might be!" "May God prevent this or that!" This is the way I talk to myself, and when I speak, the images of all I speak about are present, out of the same treasury of memory. I could not say anything at all about them if their images were not there.

Great is this power of memory, exceedingly great, O my God: a large and boundless chamber! Who has ever sounded the depths of it? Yet this a power of mine, and belongs to my nature. But I do not myself comprehend all that I am. Therefore the mind is too narrow to contain itself. But where can that part be which it does not itself contain? Is it outside it and not inside? How then does it not comprehend itself? A great wonder arises in me; I am stunned with amazement at this. And men go outside themselves to admire the heights of mountains, the mighty waves of the sea, the broad tides the heights of mountains, the mighty waves of the sea, the broad tides of rivers, the width of the ocean and the circuits of the stars, passing by themselves. They do not wonder at the fact that when I spoke of all these things, I did not see them with my eyes, yet I could not have spoken of them unless I then inwardly saw with my memory the mountains, waves, rivers and stars which I have seen and that ocean which I believe to exist, and with the same vast spaces between them as if I saw them outside myself. Yet I did not actually draw them into myself by seeing them, when I beheld them with my eyes, but only their images. And I know which sense of the body impressed each of them on me.

Yet these are not all the immeasurable capacity of my memory retains. here also is all that I have learned of the liberal sciences and have not yet forgotten - removed as it were to some inner place, which is yet no place. In this case it is not the images which are retained, but rather, the things themselves. For whatever literature, whatever art of debating, however many kinds of questions I know, they exist in my memory as they are - I have not taken in their image and left out the thing itself. It is not as though it had sounded and passed away like a voice retained in the ear, which can be recalled as if it still sounded when it no longer sounded. Nor is it like an odour that evaporates into the air as it passed, affecting the sense of smell, and from it carries an image of itself into the memory which we renew when we recall it. Nor is it like food, which verily has no taste in the belly, but yet is still tasted in some way in the memory; nor as anything which the body feels by touch and which the memory still conceives when removed from us. For those things themselves are not transmitted into the memory, but their images are caught up and stored, with an admirable swiftness, as it were, in wonderful cabinets, and from wonderfully brought forth by the act of remembering.

But now when I hear that there are three kinds of questions - whether a thing is, what it is, of what kind it is - I do indeed hold the images of the sounds which make up these words, and I know that those sounds passed through the air with a noise and then ceased to be, But the questions themselves which are conveyed by these sounds, I never reached with any sense of my body, nor do I ever see them at all except by the mind. Yet I have not laid up their images in my memory, but these very questions themselves. How they entered into me, let them say if they van; for I have gone over all the avenues of my flesh, and cannot find how they entered. For the eyes say, "If those images were coloured, we reported about them." The ears say, "If they made a sound, we gave you knowledge of them." The nostrils say, "If they have any smell, they passed by us." The taste says, "Unless they have a flavour, do not ask me." The touch says, "if it has no size, I did not handle it, and if I did not handle it, I have no account of it."

Whence and how did these things enter my memory? I do not know. For when I learned them, I gave no credit to another man's mind, but recognized them in mine; and approving them as true, I commended them to my mind, laying them up as it were, where I could get at them again whenever I wished. There they were then [in my mind] before I stored them in my memory. Where then, or why, when they were spoken, did I acknowledge them and say, "So it is! It is true," unless they were already in the memory, but so thrown back and buried as it were in deeper recesses, that if the suggestion of another had not drawn them forth, I may have been unable to conceive of them? - Saint Augustine here is very near the Platonic teaching, that learning is remembering. In his Retractions (1,8:2) he gave up this opinion, saying rather that the mind has a natural affinity for the things of the intelligible world. - 

Thus we find that to learn those things whose images do not come to us by way of the senses, but which we know by themselves as they are, without images, is nothing more than taking the things the memory already has - scattered and unarranged. By marking and careful attention we gather them, as it were in that same memory where they lay unknown before scattered and ignored, so that they can readily occur to the mind now familiarized with them. And how many things of this kind does my memory hold which have already been discovered, and as I said, placed as it were handily, which we are said to have learned and come to know? And if I for some short space should cease to call them back to mind, they would again be so buried, and glide back, as it were, into the deeper recesses, that they would have to be drawn out again as if new from the same place. For there is no where else for them to go, but they must be drawn together again that they may be known. That is to say, they must be collected together from their scattering. From this the word to cogitate comes, For cogo [I collect] and agito [I do frequently], facio [I make] and facito [I make frequently]. But the mind has appropriated to itself this word, cogito, so that, not what is collected anywhere, but only what is recollected, that is, brought together in the mind, is properly said to be cogitated or through upon.

The memory also contains innumerable principles and laws of numbers and dimensions, none of which have been impressed upon it by bodily sense, since they have neither colour, sound, taste, smell nor touch. I have heard the sound of the words by which they are signified, but the sounds are other than the things themselves. For the sounds are different in Greek than in Latin, but the things are neither Greek or Latin, nor any other language. I have seen the lines of architects, the very finest, like a spider's thread; but the truths they express are not the images of those lines, which my physical eye saw, The architect knows them without any use whatsoever of a body, by recognizing them within himself. I have perceived, also, with all the senses of my body the numbers of the things which we count, but those numbers themselves by which we count are different. They are not the images of things we count, and therefore they simply are. Let him who does not see these truths laugh at me for saying them, While he derides me, I will pity him.

I hold all these things in my memory, and I remember how I learned them, I remembered, too, having heard many things erroneously offered against the truth of them, and though they are false, yet it is not false to have remembered them. I perceive that it is one thing to distinguish these things and another  to remember that I have often distinguished them when I thought upon them. I remember both that I have often understood these things in the past, and I am storing up in my memory what I now discern and understand about them, so that later on I can recall what I now understand. Therefore I remember that I have remembered, so that if later on I should call to mind that I was once able to remember these things, it will be by the power of memory that I shall recall it.

The same memory contains the feelings of my mind - not in the same way that my mind contains them when it feels them, but in quite a different way, according to a power peculiar to memory. For without rejoicing, I remember that I have rejoiced. Without sorrow, I recollect my past sorrow. And what I once feared, I review without fear; without desire, I call to mind past desire. Sometimes, on the other hand, I remember my past sorrow with joy, and my past joy with sorrow.

This is not to be wondered at as regards the body, for the mind is one thing, the body another. If therefore remember some past pain of the body with joy, it is not so strange. But this very memory itself is mind - foe when we want something remembered, we say "See that you keep this in mind." And when we forget, we say, "It did not come to my mind," or "It slipped my mind," calling the memory itself the mind.

Since this is so, how is it, that when I remember my past sorrow with sorrow with joy, the mind has joy while the memory has sorrow? The mind rejoices over the joyfulness which is in it, while the memory is not sad while retaining the sadness in it, Does the memory perchance not belong to the mind? Who will say so? The memory then is, as it were, the belly of the mind, and joy and sadness are like sweet and bitter food. When these are committed to the memory, they are, as it were, passed into the belly, where they may be stowed but not tasted. It is ridiculous to consider this comparison, but yet they are not totally unalike.

But, consider this. It is out of my memory that I say there are four basic emotions of the mind - Page Two -    

-     WELCOME TO SACRED SCRIPTURE / WORD OF GOD / HOLY BIBLE READER'S COMMUNITY     - 

Wishing you, 'Happy Reading', and may God, the Father, the Son of the living God, Jesus Christ, fills your heart, mind, thoughts, and grants you: The Holy Spirit, that is, Wisdom, Knowledge, Understanding, Counsel, Piety, Fortitude, Fear of the Lord, and also His fruits of the Holy Spirit, that is, Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Trustfulness, Gentleness and Self-Control. Amen! God blessing be upon you!

Why do you call Me, "Lord, Lord" and not do what I say?' "Everyone who comes to Me and listens to My words and acts on them - I will show you what he/she is like. He/She is like a man/woman who when he/she built his/her house dug, deep, and laid the foundations on rock; when the river was in flood it bore down on that house but could not shake it, it was so well built. But the one who listens and does nothing is like the man/woman who built his/her house on soil, with no foundations: as soon as the river bore down on it, it collapsed; and what a ruin that house became!" - Luke 6:46-49 - 

If we live by the truth and in love, we shall grow in all ways into Christ Jesus, who is the head by whom the whole body is fitted and joined together, every joint adding its own strength, for each separate part to work according to it function. So the body grows until it has built itself up, in love." - Ephesians 4:15-16 - 

I still have many things to say to you but they would be too much for you now. But when the spirit of truth comes, he will lead you to the complete truth, since he will not be speaking as from himself, but will say only what he has learnt; and he will tell you of the things to come. He/She will glorify me, since all he/she tells you will be taken from what is mine. Everything the Father has is mine; that is why I said: all he/she tells you will be taken from what is mine." - John 16:12-15 -