#Saint Ambrose

[saint-augustines-pears]

Love it when my confirmation saint shows up in litanies. That’s my guy!!!!!!! You go!!!!!! Pray for us!!!!

[my-sacred-art]

Jessica Chastain (born 1977, USA)

Saint Ambrose, circa 1655. Gaspar de Crayer (Flemish, 1584-1669).

[moe-the-orthotoad]

[orthodoxadventure]

"Of all those born of women, there is not a single one who is perfectly holy, apart from the Lord Jesus Christ, who in a special new way of immaculate birthgiving, did not experience earthly taint." - Saint Ambrose, Commentary on Luke, Chapter 2.

[irmmri]

the person who cuts himself off from this fallen nature of ours and frees himself from its chains is imitating death

[une-enfant-du-siecle]

Basilica of Santi Ambrogio e Carlo al Corso, Rome.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Non de tuo largiris pauperi sed de suo reddis. Quod enim commune est in omnium usum datum, tu solus usurpas. Omnium est terra, non divitum

You are not making a gift of what is yours to the poor man, but you are giving him back what is his. You have been appropriating things that are meant to be for the common use of everyone. The earth belongs to everyone, not to the rich.

—St Ambrose of Milan (Aurelius Ambrosius), De Nabuthæ, cap. xii, n. 53 (389 CE)

[Robert Scott Horton]

[blackswaneuroparedux]

But if these beings guard you, they do so because they have been summoned by your prayers.

- Saint Ambrose (340 – 397 AD)

Army Air Corps pilots were more than the British soldier’s eyes and ears - we were also our British soldier’s guardian angels. We watched over them and fought alongside them. When the going gets tough, the tough rely on close air support. Nothing but respect to our British boys on the battlefield. I doff my AAC ‘smurf hat’ to them. The best soldiers in the world.

[cruger2984]

THE DESCRIPTION OF SAINT AMBROSE OF MILAN Feast Day: December 7

"It is preferable to have a virgin mind than a virgin body. Each is good if each be possible; if it be not possible, let me be chaste, not to man but to God."

Like Augustine himself, the older Ambrose, born around 340, was a highly educated man who sought to harmonize Greek and Roman intellectual culture with the Catholic faith. Trained in literature, law, and rhetoric, he eventually became the governor of Liguria and Emilia, with headquarters at Milan. He manifested his intellectual gifts in defense of Christian doctrine even before his baptism.

While Ambrose was serving as governor, a bishop named Auxentius was leading the diocese. Although he was an excellent public speaker with a forceful personality, Auxentius also followed the heresy of Arius, which denied the divinity of Christ. Although the Council of Nicaea had reasserted the traditional teaching on Jesus' deity, many educated members of the Church – including, at one time, a majority of the world's bishops – looked to Arianism as a more sophisticated and cosmopolitan version of Christianity. Bishop Auxentius became notorious for forcing clergy throughout the region to accept Arian creeds.

At the time of Auxentius' death, Ambrose had not yet even been baptized. But his deep understanding and love of the traditional faith were already clear to the faithful of Milan. They considered him the most logical choice to succeed Auxentius, even though he was still just a catechumen. With the help of Emperor Valentinan II, who ruled the Western Roman Empire at the time, a mob of Milanese Catholics virtually forced Ambrose to become their bishop against his own will. Eight days after his baptism, Ambrose received episcopal consecration on Dec. 7, 374. The date would eventually become his liturgical feast.

Bishop Ambrose did not disappoint those who had clamored for his appointment and consecration. He began his ministry by giving everything he owned to the poor and to the Church. He looked to the writings of Greek theologians like St. Basil for help in explaining the Church's traditional teachings to the people during times of doctrinal confusion. Like the fathers of the Eastern Church, Ambrose drew from the intellectual reserves of pre-Christian philosophy and literature to make the faith more comprehensible to his hearers. This harmony of faith with other sources of knowledge served to attract, among others, the young professor Aurelius Augustinus – a man Ambrose taught and baptized, whom history knows as St. Augustine of Hippo.

Ambrose himself lived simply, wrote prolifically, and celebrated Mass each day. He found time to counsel an amazing range of public officials, pagan inquirers, confused Catholics and penitent sinners. His popularity, in fact, served to keep at bay those who would have preferred to force him from the diocese, including the Western Empress Justina and a group of her advisers, who sought to rid the West of adherence to the Nicene Creed, pushing instead for strict Arianism. Ambrose heroically refused her attempts to impose heretical bishops in Italy, along with her efforts to seize churches in the name of Arianism. Ambrose also displayed remarkable courage when he publicly denied communion to the Emperor Theodosius, who had ordered the massacre of 7,000 citizens in Thessalonica leading to his excommunication by Ambrose. The chastened emperor took Ambrose's rebuke to heart, publicly repenting of the massacre and doing penance for the murders. "Nor was there afterwards a day on which he did not grieve for his mistake," Ambrose himself noted when he spoke at the emperor's funeral.

The rebuke spurred a profound change in Emperor Theodosius. He reconciled himself with the Church and the bishop, who attended to the emperor on his deathbed. St. Ambrose died in 397. His 23 years of diligent service had turned a deeply troubled diocese into an exemplary outpost for the faith. His writings remained an important point of reference for the Church, well into the medieval era and beyond. St. Ambrose has been named one of the 'holy fathers' of the Church, whose teaching all bishops should 'in every way follow.'

Ambrose joins Augustine, Jerome, and Gregory the Great as one of the Latin Doctors of the Church.

[sanctity-in-sexuality]

“I do not then discourage marriage, but recapitulate the advantages of holy virginity. This is the gift of few only, that is of all. And virginity itself cannot exist, unless it have some mode of coming into existence. I am comparing good things with good things, that it may be clear which is the more excellent. Nor do I allege any opinion of my own, but I repeat that which the Holy Spirit spoke by the prophet: Blessed is the barren that is undefiled.”

St. Ambrose of Milan, Concerning Virgins

[justana0kguy]

2023 AUGUST 14 Monday

"Individual propitiation or redemption, therefore, is not to seek, because the price of all is the blood of Christ, by which the Lord Jesus redeemed us, who alone reconciled the Father. He labored to the end, since he took upon himself our labors, as he says: “Come to me, all you who labor, and I will refresh you” (Mt 11,28)... We give nothing in return for our salvation because we have been washed, once for all, through the blood of Christ. But that does not mean we are dispensed from working hard to keep the precepts of life or can throw aside the Lord's commands. So long as we live we are striving and persevering so as to live eternally lest we die of death although already redeemed from death."

~ Saint Ambrose, Commentary on Psalm 48[49], 14-15 ; CSEL 64, 368 

[saint-augustines-pears]

Happy feast of Saint Jerome to all y’all Saint Ambrose haters 😔😔😔

[saint-ambrosef]

Happy Feast of Saint Ambrose!

COME, Redeemer of the earth, and manifest thy virgin-birth. Let every age in wonder fall: such birth befits the God of all. Begotten of no human will but of the Spirit, Thou art still the Word of God in flesh arrayed, the promised fruit to man displayed. The Virgin’s womb that burden gained, its virgin honor still unstained. The banners there of virtue glow; God in his temple dwells below. Proceeding from His chamber free that royal home of purity a giant in twofold substance one, rejoicing now His course to run. O equal to the Father, Thou! gird on Thy fleshly mantle now; the weakness of our mortal state with deathless might invigorate. Thy cradle here shall glitter bright, and darkness breathe a newer light where endless faith shall shine serene and twilight never intervene. All praise, eternal Son, to Thee, whose advent sets Thy people free, whom, with the Father, we adore, and Holy Ghost, for evermore. Amen.

-- St. Ambrose's Advent hymn on the Incarnation, as recorded by his student, St. Augustine.

[daily-praise]

Today’s Reflection

Love is a fickle thing and it often produces extraordinary events such as a shepherd leaving ninety-nine sheep unprotected just to find one lost sheep. But is that not what God did, for God is in charge and he will do extraordinary things to bring one lost sheep back into the fold of ninety-nine sheep. In other words, God did the unexpected when he lowered himself to take on our flesh and as a result, he allowed himself to die upon a cross just to save us, his lost sheep. Thus, this ought to give us hope that when we return to God; that is repent, we know out of Love, God will rejoice, for out of love he does the unexpected, for us, his sheep.

Today’s Spiritual Links for December 07, 2022

Join the National Eucharistic Revival Today’s Mass Readings Today’s Reflection The Holy Rosary Liturgy of the Hours New American Bible Non-Scriptural Reading Prime Matters

[irmmri]

life is life after death, a life that is a blessing. this blessing of life comes after victory, when the contest is over, when the law of our fallen nature no longer rebels against the law of our reason, when we no longer need to struggle against the body that leads to death, for the body already shares in victory

[catholicsaintquotes33ad]

" It is not from your own goods that you give to the beggar; it is a portion of his own that you are restoring to him. The Earth belongs to all. So you are paying back a debt and think you are making a gift to which you are not bound."

Saint Ambrose