#st. ambrose of milan

[religious-extremist]

"But nothing causes such exceeding grief as when anyone, lying under the captivity of sin, calls to mind from where he has fallen, because he turned aside to carnal and earthly things, instead of directing his mind in the beautiful ways of the knowledge of God. So you find Adam concealing himself, when he knew that God was present and wishing to be hidden when called by God with that voice which wounded the soul of him yourself? Why are you concealed? Why do you avoid Him Whom you once longed to see? A guilty conscience is so burdensome that it punishes itself without a judge, and wishes for covering, and yet is bare before God."

+ St. Ambrose of Milan

[dramoor]

"As in Paradise, God walks in the Scripture, seeking man." ~St. Ambrose of Milan

(Photo via istockphoto)

[stjohncapistrano67]

The body of St. Ambrose of Milan.

[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.

[lionofchaeronea]

St. Ambrose, Francisco de Zurbarán, 1626-27 

[frc-ambaradan]

Today's St. Ambrose, patron of Milan, and as per tradition is also the day on which La Scala's season opens.

Double Duck - Prima della Prima (2008)

Originally called "Nuovo Regio Ducal Teatro Alla Scala" (New Royal Ducal Alla Scala Theatre), it was inaugurated on 3rd August 1778 after the old Ducal Theatre was completely destroyed by a fire. To make space for the new building, the church of Santa Maria alla Scala was demolished and the new theatre built in its place (hence the name).

Alla Scala Theatre is the main italian opera theatre and one of the most illustrious in the world.

Topolino #2767 cover

For many years now, the season opening of La Scala is broadcasted live on national tv main channel (yes, we get 3 hours non stop opera on the state tv channel 1... so what?), this year's gonna be "Boris Godunov"... and I've gotta go 'cause it's starting!!! :D

[thepastisalreadywritten]

SAINT OF THE DAY (August 27)

On August 27, one day before the feast of her son St. Augustine, the Catholic Church honors St. Monica, whose holy example and fervent intercession led to one of the most dramatic conversions in Church history.

Monica was born into a Catholic family in 332, in the North African city of Tagaste located in present-day Algeria.

She was raised by a maidservant who taught her the virtues of obedience and temperance.

While still relatively young, she married Patricius, a Roman civil servant with a bad temper and a disdain for his wife's religion.

Patricius' wife dealt patiently with his distressing behavior, which included infidelity to their marriage vows.

But she experienced a greater grief when he would not allow their three children – Augustine, Nagivius, and Perpetua – to receive Baptism.

When Augustine, the oldest, became sick and was in danger of death, Patricius gave consent for his Baptis but withdrew it when he recovered.

Monica's long-suffering patience and prayers eventually helped Patricius to see the error of his ways, and he was baptized into the Church one year before his death in 371.

Her oldest son, however, soon embraced a way of life that brought her further grief, as he fathered a child out of wedlock in 372.

One year later, he began to practice the occult religion of Manichaeism.

In her distress and grief, Monica initially shunned her oldest son.

However, she experienced a mysterious dream that strengthened her hope for Augustine's soul in which a messenger assured her: “Your son is with you.”

After this experience, which took place around 377, she allowed him back into her home and continued to beg God for his conversion.

But this would not take place for another nine years.

In the meantime, Monica sought the advice of local clergy, wondering what they might do to persuade her son away from the Manichean heresy.

One bishop, who had once belonged to that sect himself, assured Monica that it was “impossible that the son of such tears should perish.”

These tears and prayers intensified when Augustine, at age 29, abandoned Monica without warning as she passed the night praying in a chapel.

Without saying goodbye to his mother, Augustine boarded a ship bound for Rome.

Yet even this painful event would serve God's greater purpose, as Augustine left to become a teacher in the place where he was destined to become a Catholic.

Under the influence of the bishop St. Ambrose of Milan, Augustine renounced the teaching of the Manichees around 384.

Monica followed her son to Milan and drew encouragement from her son's growing interest in the saintly bishop's preaching.

After three years of struggle against his own desires and perplexities, Augustine succumbed to God's grace and was baptized in 387.

Shortly before her death, Monica shared a profound mystical experience of God with Augustine, who chronicled the event in his “Confessions.”

Finally, she told him:

“Son, for myself, I have no longer any pleasure in anything in this life. Now that my hopes in this world are satisfied, I do not know what more I want here or why I am here.”

“The only thing I ask of you both,” she told Augustine and his brother Nagivius, “is that you make remembrance of me at the altar of the Lord wherever you are.”

Monica died at the age 56 in the year 387.

In modern times, she has become the inspiration for the St. Monica Sodality, which encourages prayer and penance among Catholics whose children have left the faith.

[baroque-art-history]

Emperor Theodosius Forbidden by St Ambrose To Enter Milan Cathedral by Anthony van Dyck (1599 - 1641)

[portraitsofsaints]

Saint Augustine of Hippo

Doctor of the Church

354 - 430 

Feast Day: August 28

Patronage: brewers, printers, theologians

St.  Augustine, Bishop of Hippo and Doctor of the Church, was the son of Saint Monica. He was raised a Christian, but lost his faith in youth and led a wild life. He lived with a woman from the age of 15 through 30 and fathered a son. After investigating and experimenting with several philosophies, he became a Manichaean but was converted by the prayers of his mother and the help of Saint Ambrose of Milan, who baptized him. He then spent the remainder of his life doing great things. His later thinking can be summed up in a line from his writings: "Our hearts were made for You, O Lord, and they are restless until they rest in You."

Prints, plaques & holy cards available for purchase here: (website)

[orthodoxadventure]

do you know of prayers to decrease suicide ideation? And can you please pray my stomach churns i am in so much distress. (I love your blog, god bless you) <33333

May God bless you and comfort you, and thank you for the kind words! I will definitely keep you in my prayers.

One thing I would recommend is reading the Psalms, and finding one that really resonates with you and including that into your prayer routine. Or if you don't have a prayer routine already, then praying this Psalm morning and night (and whenever else you need it through the day). It doesn't explicitly have to be about depression, a lot of the Psalms talk about placing their hope in the Lord even through the distress and suffering they're experiencing - and something like this might really resonate with you and comfort you.

You can find a collection of four prayers that are related to depression, anxiety, and suffering here, which should be of some help to you: https://www.sthermansoca.org/resources/prayers-against-fear/

Then there is also:

Prayer against Depression: Prayer to the Mother of God

Prayer to the Theotokos for Healing

Prayer to the Mother of God in a Time of Distress

Akathist to St. Xenia of St. Petersburg

Prayer of Someone in Trouble

Prayer of Saint John Chrysostom

Prayer to St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco

Healing Prayer of Saint Ambrose of Milan

Guardian Angel Prayers for Protection

Prayer of St. Dimitri of Rostov

Prayer for the Self

Prayers don't have to explicitly be about depression or liberation from despair in order to be helpful. Find prayers that really resonate with you, and ones that you are willing and able to pray. Try to read even one Psalm a day as well as a prayer that you find helpful.

Speak often to God about your difficulties and struggles also. Sometimes the best prayers are the ones that we come up with, because they most accurately reflect our situation, our wants, our needs, and so on. We don't need to know the perfect things to say. But the act of praying about our issues, of articulating them and putting them into words and placing them before God can be of immense help and comfort to us. And the act of articulating problems out loud can go a long way to untangling them in our head which can help us feel even a little less overwhelmed.

God bless you!

[religious-extremist]

What are the reasons you think everyone should become Orthodox Christian? I grew up an atheist bc it was popular and morally correct during my teenage years to be an atheist, liberal, sex positive, scientific, etc, so that was my identity. I no longer feel connected to most of the views I used have and I personally like to live celibate and sober. I have never practiced religion and have no personal concept of "god," though I have been drawn to learning about others religious beliefs lately. I have followed different kinds of religious/spiritual blogs and like reading about what faith adds to their life.

In your short ask, you have mentioned how the reason (or part of the reason) you became an atheist was because of how unfashionable it was to believe in God while you were growing up. It was popular and politically correct to be a liberal, sex positive, “scientific” atheist.

Your reason for becoming an atheist was your desire to please your peers; your longing to have friends who accepted you, not for who you are, but for the sacrifice you made when you set your morals aside to follow the same ideologies that they follow.

I did the same thing. I was the lost sheep, the prodigal son, I strayed from the faith because I sought the companionship of other people. Why did we do that? I did that because I was wounded in my heart, I had felt abandoned by God. I was hurt and I sought consolation from the world. I found distractions from the pain but I did not find healing.

When I returned to God, when my friends left me, when youth had departed from me, when the drugs wore off, when the money ran out, when all the distractions left me destitute of emotions and the will to live, I saw how false the world’s promises are. I realized that it was not God who left me but I left God to follow my own will, like a petulant child.

The only medicine for our souls is love, not temporal emotional love but permanent longsuffering love that only comes from God. There is no short way to describe what love is, but if you want to know, I encourage you to read the Bible, to pray, to go to Church, and you will find what you are looking for; or rather, He will find you.

St. Ambrose of Milan said, “Just as in Paradise, God walks in the Holy Scriptures seeking man.”

It’s true. He is waiting for you.

You are also welcome to message me. You are not alone in your search for the meaning of life.

May the mercies of God be with you, my dear friend.

[dramoor]

(Via Gebre Menfes Kidus)

[stjohncapistrano67]

[anastpaul]

One Minute Reflection – 4 September – “The Month of The Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary and The Holy Cross”– St Rose of Viterbo (c1233 – 1251) Virgin – Ferial Day – Galatians 5:16-24, Luke 7:11-16 – Scripture search here: https://www.drbo.org/ “… When the Lord … being moved with mercy towards her, He said to her: Weep not.” – Luke 7:13 REFLECTION – “God’s mercy quickly allows itself to be moved by this mother’s tears. She is a widow; the suffering or death of her only son have crushed her… It seems to me that this widow, surrounded by a crowd of people, is more than just a simple woman, deserving of her young and only son’s resurrection through her tears. She is the image itself of Holy Church, who, by her tears, in the midst of the funeral procession and on the brink of the grave, gains a restoration to life of the youthful people of the world … For, at God’s Word, the dead are raised (Jn 5:28), they regain their speech and the mother recovers her son. He is called back from the tomb, snatched from the sepulchre. What is this tomb of yours, if not your evil behaviour? Your tomb is your lack of faith … Christ sets you free from this sepulchre. If you listen to God’s Word, you will come out of the tomb. And if your sin is too serious for the tears of your repentance to cleanse it, may the tears of your mother, the Church, intercede on your behalf. She is, indeed, full of compassion and feels a wholly maternal, spiritual sorrow when she sees her children dragged off to death by sin!” – St Ambrose (340-397) Bishop of Milan, Father and Doctor of the Church (Commentary on Saint Luke’s Gospel V, 89).

(via One Minute Reflection – 4 September – ‘ … What is this tomb? …’ – AnaStpaul)

[hymnsofheresy]

"Nature has poured forth all things for the common use of all men. And God has ordained that all things should be produced that there might be food in common for all. Nature created common rights, but usurpation has transformed them into private rights."

St. Ambrose of Milan | On the Duties of the Clergy, Book I.132.

[cruger2984]

THE DESCRIPTION OF SAINT MONICA A Holy Woman and the Mother of Saint Augustine of Hippo Feast Day: August 27

St. Monica, the mother of St. Augustine, was born in Thagaste, Numidia Cirtensis, Western Roman Empire (present day Souk Ahras, Algeria) in 331 AD. With extreme patience, she obtained the conversion of her husband Patricius, a Roman pagan who is violent and dissolute, who was baptized one year before his death in 371 AD. Her son, Augustine, remained her greatest problem.

Even though he was enrolled as a catechumen in his early youth, Augustine never thought seriously about baptism. His love for pleasure and idleness was made worse when he joined the Manichean sect. While studying in Carthage at the age of 19, Augustine became engaged to a girl and fathered a son named Adeodatus.

For many years, Monica stormed heaven by prayers, fasting, and tears. A wise bishop, whom she invited to talk to her son, told her: 'God's time will come. It is not possible that the son of so many tears should perish.'

When she knew that Augustine had left secretly for Italy, she tracked him down as far as Milan. There, she was overjoyed to learn that her son had been converted by St. Ambrose of Milan. Soon afterwards, they set out to return to Africa.

While waiting for the ship at the harbor at Ostia, Monica fell seriously sick.

In their last conversation, she said to Augustine: 'Son, as far as I am concerned, nothing in this life now gives me any pleasure. All I wished to live for was that I might see you a Catholic Christian and a child of heaven. Bury my body wherever you want. One thing only I ask of you, that you remember me at the altar of the Lord.'

Monica died at the age of 55 in 387 AD, and was declared Patroness of Christian Mothers. She is also the patron saint of abuse victims and those who invoked against alcoholism.

Augustine wrote in his autobiographical work Confessions: 'I think it was not wrong to weep an hour, for a mother who for many years, had wept for me.'