"God visited His people." The Prayer pleads for God to visit His Church "continually" with Divine Life.
We act as the children of this Church, reborn and restored to the "life of the Spirit" by instructing others in the work in which we have been "instructed" and doing "good to all men" (Epistle); by morning and evening prayers to Him Who is "King above all the earth" (Gradual) throughout our entire day.
The Sacramental Life is our defence against diabolical attack (Secret and Communion).
A life-long war goes on between the death-dealing flesh and the everlasting spirit; hence the Postcommunion counsels us that, not the "impulses of nature," but rather the "graces of the Eucharist" should dominate our life.
The 28th August is the great Feast of St. Augustine E. C. D.
He was born in Thagaste in Africa of a Berber family. He was brought up a Christian but left the Church and embraced the Manichaean heresy, later seeing how nonsensical it was and becoming a Neoplatonist instead. He led a wild and dissolute youth. He took a concubine by whom he had a son, Adeodatus. He had a brilliant legal and academic career. At length, through the prayers of his mother, and the teaching of St Ambrose of Milan, he was converted back to Christanity. He was baptized on Holy Saturday in 387, shortly before his mother’s death. He returned home to Africa and led an ascetic life. He was elected Bishop of Hippo and spent 34 years looking after his flock, teaching them, strengthening them in the faith and protecting them strenuously against the errors of the time. He wrote an enormous number of works. He was declared a Doctor of the Church by Pope Boniface VIII in 1308.
St. Augustine was guided by God’s Grace and was impressed after reading St. Paul’s Epistle: “Wallow not in debauchery and impurity, but clothe yourselves in Our Lord Jesus Christ.” He is one of the four Great Doctors of the Church. There is a proper Mass for Feast of St. Augustine having its own Propers, Sequence, and Preface in the Missale Romanum. St. Hermes M. of Rome is commemorated in the Mass of St. Augustine. Although not commemorate in the 1962 rubrics of the Mass, pray today for St. Augustine’s assistance to ward off the temptations of this age of disorder!