Today’s homily: St Augustine of Hippo (2026)

Saint Augustine’s feast reveals the triumph of divine grace over the restless and divided human heart. From intellectual pride, false religion, sensual disorder and ambition, Augustine was conquered not by argument alone but by grace, which healed his will, reordered his loves and made him one of the Church’s greatest Doctors. The Tridentine propers present him as the mouth opened by God in the midst of the Church, a faithful preacher of sound doctrine in an age unwilling to endure it, and a steward dispensing the wheat of truth. His teaching remains urgently relevant: freedom is not obedience to desire, but liberation from sin so that we may choose the good; doctrine cannot be reshaped to flatter “itching ears”; and no earthly civilisation is permanent. As Augustine died during the Vandal siege of Hippo, the earthly city was collapsing around him while he prepared to enter the City of God. With St Hermes the martyr, he teaches the same final lesson: love God above all things, keep the Faith, and belong to the City that cannot fall. https://nuntiatoria.org/2026/08/28/todays-homily-st-augustine-of-hippo/