Ossum, Dude!

Benedict visits Augustine. A massive post on Augustine and how we came to have his bones in Northern Italy here. It begins with an excerpt from one of Augustine's sermons, apt for the occasion, and for the Easter season:

“So,” [God says] “O man, did I make you for this, before you even existed, so you would not believe me [about the resurrection of the body]? That you could not return to be what you were before, who were able to be that which once you were not?”

“But look, God”, man says, “at what I see in the tomb. There’s ash, and dust, and these bones. And that is going to receive again life, skin, muscles, flesh and rise again? These ashes and bones I see in the tomb?”

“So you see ashes and bones in a tomb. In your mother’s womb, there was nothing! … Before you even were, there weren’t any ashes, there weren’t any bones there at all. In spite of that, you were in fact made even though you were completely lacking in being before. And do you now not believe that these bones… will receive the form they had, since you received what you did not have? O believe! For if you will have believed this, then your soul will be raised to new life!”