7 December: St. Ambrose of Milan

Today is the feast of St. Ambrose of Milan (+4 April 397), a titanic figure of the late 4th century who changed the shape of Church and State relations for a thousand years, who brought much of the wisdom of Greek writings to the West, and who helped to bring St. Augustine of Hippo into the fold.

I have written often about Ambrose. Here are a few links which ought to keep your lips moving for a while (that’s a little patristiblogger joke, that last comment).

Of late nights, library naps, and Ambrose

EXSULTET LISTEN

“Let the feet of our minds be stretched out”: Ambrose on “dew” Jerome on Ambrose: “the black croaking raven” St. Ambrose read without moving his lips!

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
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5 Comments

  1. Pater! Lets just say you can knock the Exsultet outta the park! Awesome stuff. Keep it up!

    If you listen at like 8:35 or so in, you can hear demons screaming because they can’t take it :)

  2. Robert says:

    Doesn’t St. Ambrose look like Ringo Starr in that mosaic portrait?

  3. Fr. Z, I never fail to be moved by your rendering of the Exsultet. Thanks for brightening a bleak day near the end of the semester.

  4. Demerzel says:

    My God, my God why is this now so rare…

  5. A question for you, Father, if you have the time:

    As I listened to you sing the Exsultet, I was following along in the Liber Usualis, and I noticed that there were a few differences between what I heard and what I saw. Intrigued, I looked in the Gregorian Missal and found the one you sang. Why was the text changed (especially near the end)? When and why, for that matter, were other chant texts changed? Ubi caritas et amor comes immediately to mind…it’s now Ubi caritas est vera

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