The angels surround and help the priest when he is celebrating Mass.
Saint AugustineRead
Try as they may to savor the taste of eternity, their thoughts still twist and turn upon the ebb and flow of things in past and future time. But if only their minds could be seized and held steady, they would be still for a while and, for that short moment, they would glimse the splendor of eternity, which is forever still.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote explores the struggle to capture the essence of eternity amid the distractions of time.
Saint Augustine reflects on the human tendency to be preoccupied with past regrets and future worries, which prevents us from experiencing the present moment. He suggests that if individuals could quiet their minds and focus on the now, they would have the profound realization of the eternal nature of existence, which exists beyond the constraints of time.
Themes
EternityPresentTimeMindfulnessStillness
In practice
Example use cases
In a meditation workshop, to emphasize the importance of being present.
More from Saint Augustine
All quotes βThere is no health in those who are displeased by an element in Your creation, just as there was none in me when I was displeased by many things You had made. Because my soul didn't dare to say that my God displeased me, it refused to attribute to You whatever was displeasing.
Saint AugustineRead
Bad times, hard times, this is what people keep saying; but let us live well, and times shall be good. We are the times: Such as we are, such are the times.
Saint AugustineRead
Who can map out the various forces at play in one soul? Man is a great depth, O Lord. The hairs of his head are easier by far to count than his feeling, the movements of his heart.
Saint AugustineRead
Whatever skills I have acquired, whatever gifts I have been given, I place them at Your service.
Saint AugustineRead
Everyone who observes himself doubting observes a truth, and about that which he observes he is certain; therefore he is certain about a truth. Everyone therefore who doubts whether truth exists has in himself a truth on which not to doubt.... Hence one who can doubt at all ought not to doubt the existence of truth.
Saint AugustineRead
Similar quotes
I'm not sure I understand how responsibility for our choices makes sense if they are not determined.
Thomas NagelRead
The idea that public safety, the safety of the innocent, is an absolute which trumps every other consideration, is tacitly abandoned in the way we live.
Tom StoppardRead
I lost my sleep, and this is the greatest tragedy that can befall someone. It is much worse than sitting in prison.
Emil CioranRead
We are all potentially such sick men. The sanest and best of us are of one clay with lunatics and prison-inmates. And whenever we feel this, such a sense of the vanity of our voluntary career comes over us, that all our morality appears but as a plaster hiding a sore it can never cure, and all our well-doing as the hollowest substitute for that well-being that our lives ought to be grounded in, but alas! are not.
William JamesRead
What if we never 'get over' certain deaths, or our childhoods? What if the idea that we should have by now, or will, is a great palace lie? What if we're not supposed to? What if it takes a life time...?
Anne LamottRead
She was incomprehensible, for, in her, soul and spirit were one - the beauty of her body was the essence of her soul. She was that unity sought for by philosophers through many centuries. In this outdoor waiting room of winds and stars she had been sitting for a hundred years, at peace in the contemplation of herself.
F. Scott FitzgeraldRead