Pilgrim progress- a disciple on a journey!

For a thousand years, until the publication of the Imitation of Christ, the Confessions of Saint Augustine was the most common manual on the spiritual life.  It has had more readers than any of St. Augustine’s other works.  He wrote his Confessions ten years after converting, and after being a priest for eight years.  In it, St. Augustine confesses to God, narrating the writing addressed to Him.   St. Augustine admits to God:  “Late have I loved Thee, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new.  Late have I loved Thee” (Confessions, Chapter 10). The text continues: “Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you!  You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you.  In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created.  You were with me, but I was not with you.  Created things kept me from you; yet if they had not been in you they would not have been at all.  You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafne

Marking the snowfall and the future site of the Basilica (Masolino da Panicale, 1423) No, not quite snow though the weather has changed from the heatwave we had two weeks ago! On August the 5th we celebrate the liturgical memorial (optional in many countries) of the Dedication of the Basilica of St. Mary Major. The feastday is also known as the feast of our Lady of the Snow or Santa Maria ad Nives, or 'at the snow', from a popular tradition that the Mother of God chose this place for a church under her invocation by a miraculous snow that fell upon this spot in summer. A wealthy Roman couple pledged their fortune to the Mother of God. In affirmation, she produced a miraculous summer snowfall and told them to build a church on the site. The Basilica of St. Mary Major is a basilica that I know very well. During novitiate I had my apostolic experience in our community there which serves among other things the Liturgical Apostolate Centre which used to be on Via Liberiana, r