Christ was a Doctor

“…Did we become Christians then, my brothers, in order to avoid failure or to achieve success? Is that why we have enrolled with Christ, and presented our foreheads to receive this great sign? You are a Christian. You carry the cross of Christ on your forehead. This mark teaches you what it is that you confess. While he was hanging on the cross—the cross you carry on your forehead; it doesn’t inspire you as a symbol of the wood, but as a symbol of him hanging on it—to repeat, while he was hanging on the cross, he looked at the violent people around him, he put up with their insults, he prayed for his enemies. He was a doctor—even while he was being put to death, he was healing the sick with his own blood, by saying, ‘Father forgive them, for they know not what they do’ (Lk 23.34) . . . So learn from this sign, my brothers, learn from the mark that the Christian receives even when he becomes a catechumen—learn from this why we are Christians. It is not for the sake of temporary or short-lived things, whether good or bad. It is in order to avoid evils that will never pass away, and to acquire goods that will never come to an end…”

—Augustine, “Sermon 302: On the Feast of St. Lawrence”