Ambrose

Somehow I managed to get my Tuesday and Thursday mixed up this week, and so it turns out that I missed the Feast of St Ambrose on Tuesday, thinking it was today.  You can read all about St Ambrose at my blog-buddy Padre Mickey's Dance Party here.  Many of us know him best as the man who influenced Augustine of Hippo and as a writer of some wonderful ancient office hymns.  Given Augustine's considerable intellect, he must have been an awfully (awe-fully) persuasive rhetorician to have influenced him to turn his back on his Manichean philosophy and become, finally, a Christian.

Here is a snippet of Ambrose's fourth century sermonizing:

The large rooms of which you are so proud are in fact your shame.  They are big enough to hold crowds - and also big enough to shut out the voice of the poor.... There is your sister or brother, naked, crying!  And you stand confused over the choice of an attractive floor covering.

Things have not really changed in 1650 years.  Let us add this to our Advent pondering.