The Pink Flamingo :: Stick a Fork in 'Em the Dems Are Done!

I can only handle Democrats for so long. It reminds me of something I once asked Fr. Ron. "Is it okay to hate Democrats?" His response was we could hate them corporately, but must love them individually. I am so sick of Barack Obama and his syncopates at FOX I could scream. I started the day with a headache and am ending it the same way.

Memphis Magazine is going to be naming my sister's new The Cafe Eclectic as one of top four new eateries in Memphis!
Have there been some thylacine sightings?
Strange dog photographed
Have you head the one about the giant clam?

THE CHAMBERS BOOK OF DAYS

Died: Emperor Louis I of Germany, 'the Pious,' 876, Frankfort; Sir Francis Vero, distinguished military commander and author, 1608, Portsmouth; Hugo Grotius, eminent jurist, 1645, Rostock; Count Axel Oxenstiern, Swedish chancellor under Gustavus Adolphus, 1654; Charles Boyle, Earl of Orrery, celebrated antagonist of Bentley, 1731; John Hutchinson, mystic theologian, 1737, London; Leigh Hunt, poet, critic, miscellaneous writer, 1859, Putney; William Lyon Mackenzie, leader in the Canadian Rebellion of 1837, 1861, Toronto.
Feast Day: St. Hermes, martyr, about 132. St. Julian, martyr at Brioude. St. Augustine or Austin, bishop of Hippo, confessor, and doctor of the church, 430.

ST. AUGUSTINE

St. Augustine, usually styled 'the greatest of the fathers,' is held in about equal reverence by Catholics and Protestants. Calvinists and Jansenists especially have resorted to his writings for sympathy and authority.

Augustine was an African, being born at Tagaste, a city of Numidia, in 354. His father was a pagan, and his mother, Monica, a Christian of earnest piety, who longed with exceeding desire for her son's conversion. In his boyhood, falling seriously ill, he desired to submit to the rite of baptism, but, the danger being averted, the rite was deferred. As he grew up, his morals became corrupted, and he lapsed into profligate habits. The perusal, in his nineteenth year, of Cicero's Hortensius (a work now lost), made a deep impression on his mind, and stirred within him aspirations after a nobler life. At this juncture he became a convert of the Manichaeans, and for nine years an able advocate of their opinions.

The Manichaeans were a sect founded by one Manes about 261. He confounded the teaching of Christ with that of Zoroaster, and held that the government of the universe was shared by two powers, one good and the other bad: the first, which he called Light, did nothing but good; the second, which he called Darkness, did nothing but evil. Meanwhile, Augustine taught grammar at Tagaste, and then rhetoric at Carthage, but growing disgusted with the vicious character of his pupils, he determined to go to Rome, much against the will of his mother. In Rome he attracted many scholars, but finding them no better than on the other side of the Mediterranean, he removed to Milan, where he was elected professor of rhetoric.

The intrepid Ambrose ruled at that time as arch-bishop in Milan, and by his ministry Augustine was delivered from the Manichaean heresy. The vacation of 386, he spent at the country-seat of his friend Verecundus, in the diligent study of the Scriptures; and, in the Easter of the following year, he, with his son Adeodatus, a youth of singular genius, was baptized by Ambrose. Shortly after, his faithful mother, rejoicing in the fulfilment of her prayers, visited Milan, and persuaded him to return to Africa, but on their way thither she fell sick, and died at Ostia. Augustine, associating himself with eleven pious men, retired to a villa outside the walls of Hippo, and passed three years in monastic seclusion, in fasting, prayer, study, and meditation. He entered the priesthood in 391; and at a church council he spoke with such vigour and learning that he was, with common consent, raised to the bishopric of Hippo in 396.

In defence and illustration of the Christian faith, his tongue and pen during the remainder of his life were incessantly engaged. The composition of his great work, De Civitate Dei, is believed to have occupied him seventeen years. In 430, the Vandals, having overrun Africa, laid siege to Hippo, and Augustine, an old man of seventy-six, prayed for death ere the city was taken. In the third month of the siege, on the 28th of August, a fever cut him off. When the city, some months after his death, was captured and burned, the library was fortunately saved which contained his voluminous writings—two hundred and thirty-two separate books or treatises on theological subjects, besides a complete exposition of the psalter and the gospels, and a copious magazine of epistles and homilies. The best account of Augustine is found in his Confessions, in which, with unflinching and sorrowful courage, he records the excesses of his youth and the progress of his life in Christ.

Dime con quien andas y te digo quien eres.

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