Augustine on John

In my short experience as a preacher, I have made it a habit to read Augustine's Tractates and Origen's Commentary whenever I have a text from the Gospel of John. The experience, especially reading Augustine, can be bittersweet. Sweet because this is Augustine at his pastoral best: a man of the people, gentle, engaging and humorous. I would recommend not reading his polemical works until one has had a long exposure to his homilies. The experience has a bitter aftertaste, however, when I contemplate the fact that Augustine could preach on remarkably difficult theological and philosophical problems to his backwater congregation in Hippo, apparently without losing everyone. In the Tractate on this past Sunday's gospel, he spends a good deal of time explaining the significance of Jesus possessing a human soul, rather than the logos substituting for it. I'd love to hear if anyone has ever been present at a homily that dealt with this or a similar Christological issue. By god's grace, I was: it was Christmas morning during college, and it changed the way I thought about the Church. God bless Fr. Alban, O.Praem. of St. Norbert Abbey!