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Most of us are familiar with the basic details of the life of St. Augustine of Hippo, the “bad boy” who became a saint. In case you are not, let me give you a brief sketch of his early life.

Somewhere around the year 1400, a custom was introduced into the papal coronation ceremony. As the new Pope was being vested in the robes of his office, flax was set on fire in a small bowl and its smoke wafted under his nose. A simple priest or monk stood next to him and whispered in his ear in Latin, Sic transit gloria mundi, meaning, “thus the glory of the world passes away.” It was a reminder to the new pope that all the pomp and pageantry of the papal court was nothing, the political power of his office temporary, and that he must seek for himself, and the Church he was called to lead, those things which eternally endure.