Midweek Devotion 27 August 2025

Reading

Psalm 87: 1,2

On the holy mountain stands the city he has founded;

the Lord loves the gates of Zion

more than all the dwellings of Jacob.

Glorious things are spoken of you,

O city of our God. 

Devotion

Tomorrow is the Feast of St. Augustine of Hippo, so this week's artwork features an illuminated manuscript from the French school of Orosius Master of one of Augustine's most famous books.  Created about 1408 this illustrated page of Augustine's famous work The City of God, may be viewed in the Philadelphia Museum of Art.  The page is vellum with various inks of gold and other colors.

Augustine wrote The City of God in the year 426 following the sack of Rome by barbarian invaders in 410.  The Western world was in chaos.   It reminds me of writings of the prophets during various times when Israel was in chaos because of Powers.  It reminds me of modern times in which uncertainty, volatility, ambiguity, complexity and the resulting anxiety seem to abound.  Augustine wrote the book as a contrast between two ways of life, one centered on the world and one centered on God.

An illustrated manuscript is more than a book with pictures.  The pictures, the ink, the way the letters are formed, the decorations are all meant to stimulate the imagination in a particular way, to experience the writing with a certain awareness of the Divine.  If you were to ponder the narrative of your life, dear Reader, where have you been most aware of God at work in your life?  Or experienced a profound joy or peace that passes understanding?  Perhaps take a moment to write about it and then illuminate the page.  May it be that you see more than is revealed by the senses!

Prayer

Lord God, the light of the minds that know you, the life of the souls that love you, and the strength of the hearts that serve you: Help us, following the example of your servant, Augustine of Hippo, so to know you that we may truly love you, and so to love you that we may fully serve you, whose service is perfect freedom; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (Lesser Feasts and Fasts)