Signs of the Times  

   "Understanding is the reward given by faith.  Do not try to understand in order to believe, but believe in order to understand."
                                                                                               St. Augustine

  "Therefore, once and for all this short command is given to you:  'Love and do what you will.'
   If you keep silent, keep silent by love; if you speak, speak by love; if you correct, correct by love; if you pardon, pardon by love; let love be rooted in you, and from the root nothing but good can grow."
                                                                                            St. Augustine

    "If they, why not I?--If these men and women could become saints, why cannot I with the help of Him who is all-powerful?"
                                                                                            St. Augustine

       Augustine was born in the small town of Tagaste in Numidia in Roman North Africa where he was brought up in the Christian faith by his mother, Monica.  As a youth, Augustine was keenly intelligent, but also passionate and wilful.  His behavior bordered on the pagan, yet the Christian message was imprinted in his mind.  Later he reminisced about the sins of his youth.  One small crim stuck in his mind--the theft of some pears from a neighbor's tree close to his father's vineyard.  It was minor enough but the adult Augustine was ashamed of the theft and the wantoness of it; he and his friends had fed the pears to some pigs....