{"id":113,"date":"2011-10-13T11:06:00","date_gmt":"2011-10-13T15:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/bread_on_the_trail\/?p=113"},"modified":"2011-10-13T11:06:00","modified_gmt":"2011-10-13T15:06:00","slug":"a-sermon-by-st-augustine-on-st-johns-gospel-behold-i-shall-save-my-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bread_on_the_trail\/2011\/10\/a-sermon-by-st-augustine-on-st-johns-gospel-behold-i-shall-save-my-people.html","title":{"rendered":"A Sermon by St Augustine on St John’s Gospel: Behold, I shall save my people."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\u2018No-one can come to me unless the Father draws him.\u2019 You must not imagine that you are being drawn against your will, for the mind can also be drawn by love. Nor should we be afraid of being taken to task by those who take words too literally and are quite unable to understand divine truths, and who might object to these words of scripture, saying: How can I believe of my own free will. if I am drawn? In reply I say this: It is not enough to be drawn of your own free will, because you can be drawn by delight as well.
\n\u00a0
\nWhat does it mean, to be drawn by delight? \u2018Take delight in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.\u2019 There is a certain desire of the heart to which the bread of heaven appeals. Moreover, if the poet can say: \u2018Everyone is drawn by his delight\u2019, not by necessity but by delight, not by compulsion but by sheer pleasure, then how much more must we say that a man is drawn by Christ, when he delights in truth, in blessedness, in holiness and in eternal life, all of which mean Christ?
\n\u00a0
\nOr must we assume that the bodily senses have their delights, while the mind is not allowed to have any? But if the soul has no delights, how can scripture say: \u2018The children of men will take refuge in the shadow of your wings. They will feast on the abundance of your house, and you will give them drink from the river of your delights. For with you is the fountain of life: in your light we shall see light\u2019?
\n\u00a0
\nShow me a lover and he will understand what I am saying. Show me someone who wants something, someone hungry, someone wandering in this wilderness, thirsting and longing for the fountains of his eternal home, show me such a one and he will know what I mean. But if I am talking to someone without any feeling, he will not know what I am talking about.
\n\u00a0
\nOffer a handful of grass to a sheep and you draw it after you. Show a boy nuts and he is enticed. He is drawn by the things he is running to take, drawn because he desires, drawn without any physical pressures, drawn simply by the pull on his appetite. If, then, the things that lovers see as the delights and pleasures of earth can draw them, because it is true that \u2018everyone is drawn by his delight\u2019, then does not Christ draw when he is revealed to us by the Father? What does the mind desire more eagerly than truth? For what does it have an insatiable appetite, why is it anxious that its taste for judging the truth should be as healthy as possible, unless it is that it may eat and drink wisdom, righteousness, truth and eternal life?
\n\u00a0
\nChrist says: \u2018Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness\u2019, but here and now! \u2018for they shall be satisfied\u2019, but in the future! I give him the thing he loves. I give him what he hopes for. He will see what he believes in but does not yet see. He will eat what he hungers for and be filled with what he thirsts for. When? At the resurrection of the dead, because I will raise him up at the last day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018No-one can come to me unless the Father draws him.\u2019 You must not imagine that you are being drawn against your will, for the mind can also be drawn by love. Nor should we be afraid of being taken to task by those who take words too literally and are quite unable to understand divine…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,58,63,64,42,77,74,75,26,27,67,95,62,14,43],"tags":[15,7,80,81,90,18,100,93,8,10],"class_list":["post-113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adoration","category-apostles","category-bible-reflections","category-bishops","category-charismatic","category-christian-meditation","category-contemplation","category-contemplative-prayer","category-early-fathers","category-holy-spirit","category-meditation","category-prayer","category-psalms","category-saints","category-st-augustine-2","tag-augustine","tag-deacon-keith-fournier","tag-devotion","tag-holiness","tag-holy-spirit","tag-love","tag-meditation","tag-saints","tag-st-augustine","tag-tradition"],"yoast_head":"\nA Sermon by St Augustine on St John's Gospel: Behold, I shall save my people. - Bread on the Trail<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bread_on_the_trail\/2011\/10\/a-sermon-by-st-augustine-on-st-johns-gospel-behold-i-shall-save-my-people.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Sermon by St Augustine on St John's Gospel: Behold, I shall save my people. - Bread on the Trail\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u2018No-one can come to me unless the Father draws him.\u2019 You must not imagine that you are being drawn against your will, for the mind can also be drawn by love. 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He is a widely recognized voice in the Catholic and broader Christian community. He is a member of the Clergy of the Diocese of Richmond, Virginia. In his fifteenth year of service as an ordained Catholic Deacon, he is currently assigned to St Stephen Martyr Parish in Chesapeake, Virginia. He is also authorized to serve the Liturgy of the Greek Byzantine Melkite Catholic Church. Deacon Fournier and his wife Laurine have been married for 34 years and have five grown children and six grandchildren. Deacon Fournier holds his Bachelors degree in theology and philosophy from the Franciscan University of Steubenville (BA), his Masters Degree in Marriage and Family Theology from the John Paul II Institute of the Lateran University (MTS), his Juris Doctor Law Degree Law (JD) from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law and is a PhD candidate in Moral Theology at the Catholic University of America where he is currently writing his Doctoral Dissertation. Deacon Fournier also holds two honorary Doctorates, a Doctor of Laws (L.L.D. 1994,Honoris Causa) from St. Thomas University - Given for pro-life legal contributions, and a Doctor of Divinity Degree (D.D. 2005, Honoris Causa ) from the National Clergy Council and the Methodist Episcopal Church for his contributions to authentic ecumenical efforts toward Christian unity. Attorney Fournier is a constitutional lawyer who appeared as co-counsel in cases before the United States Supreme Court on Pro-Life, Religious Freedom and Pro-family issues. He served as the first Executive Director of the American Center for Law and Justice for seven years. He then served as a public policy activist for the causes of life, marriage and family issues for a number of years. He has extensive experience in nonprofit and for profit leadership. He has taught at the College level and served in Academic administration. He was a Dean of Students and the Dean of Evangelization at the Franciscan University of Steubenville in Steubenville, Ohio. Deacon Fournier is, above all, a communicator. His faith informs his passion to share the fullness of life which he has found in the heart of the Catholic Church. He has written eight books on matters of faith, family and the Christian life and is widely published in the broader Christian community on matters of life, faith, family, and cultural and social issues. He hosted two daily national radio programs, Purpose for Living, and Millennial Moment. He hosted several television series on Christian family and contemporary faith issues on EWTN (Eternal Word Television Network). He is actively involved in preaching and teaching in the Catholic Church and the broader Christian community. In addition to serving as the Editor in Chief of Catholic Online, Deacon Fournier is the John Paul II Fellow and special counsel for the National Pro-Life Center in Washington, D.C. and is the president of Third Millennium, LLC, a communications and consulting company. He views his role on Beliefnet as an opportunity to share his Catholic Christian faith in what he calls a new areopagus. The areopagus is referred to in the 17th Chapter of the Acts of the Apostles in the Christian New Testament. Also called Mars Hill it was there where the Apostle Paul shared the Christian faith with the early Greeks in their temple.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bread_on_the_trail\/author\/deaconfournier"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bread_on_the_trail\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bread_on_the_trail\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bread_on_the_trail\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bread_on_the_trail\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/91"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bread_on_the_trail\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bread_on_the_trail\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":115,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bread_on_the_trail\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113\/revisions\/115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bread_on_the_trail\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bread_on_the_trail\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bread_on_the_trail\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}