Augustine of Hippo, Doctors of the Church, New Evangelization, Saints

“Confessions” -St Augustine

January 18, 2016 techdecisions

Sinner, never despair. Saint, never despair of the sinner. His mercy is AWESOME!!!! Is 55:8. Just ask Augustine.

I am in my third course towards my Masters in Unitive (Spiritual) Theology through the Avila Institute. Beyond the general phylum of Theology, the discipline bifurcates into Speculative and Unitive. Speculative covers the WWJD? type of questions, the “what-ifs” of theology. Unitive covers the more intimate, mystical aspects of theology of the soul aspiring and coming into union with the Divine. Unitive has the reputation of being, by far, the more interesting of the couple, if you’re into that kind of thing. I am. Studying the great souls of the Catholic tradition and their writings, the written word abides, rocks. Nobody ever said it would be easy, though.

“Confessions” written by St Augustine in the very late 4th century (397-400 AD) is a classic of Catholic spiritual writing. It is a slog, though. Depending on the translation you choose, Thees and Thous abound! My most tedious and time consuming reading assignment, so far. Augustine was a professional in and teacher of rhetoric, a big deal in the ancient world. So, to say he was long-winded would be kind. His complex sentence structure and detailed recounting tax the reader, they do. Not all truth is contained in easy reads. The majority of texts from the ancient world still in existence remain untranslated. Deo gratias for audio books, particularly in one’s “mature” years, when the powers of concentration, thought, comprehension and eyesight wane, especially for amateur catechists and hagiographers, like me. 🙂

Augustine recounts his life and the progression of thinking and grace therein. I won’t boor you with the narrative. There are plenty of resources for that. However, his maturation in sexual matters is especially poignant and terribly, terribly, tragically relevant, I believe, for younger people, burning in the freshness and vitality of life with desire, AND camera phones, the work of the devil, if there ever was any!!! I thank God every day there was no such thing in the eighties, and for photo processing, and photo technicians who would/do call the cops, sure deterrents. Not so today. Not so. Mara, listen to daddy!!!! Dear God, please!!!! Custodia occulorum!!!!

“Oh! how many are lost by indulging their sight! – St. Alphonsus de Liguori

Mk 9:47-48, Lk 11:34-36

Also a student of JPII’s theology of the body, which is beautiful, I have struggled in how to translate this non-sound bite wisdom into 21st century sound bites. Here is my best attempt. It makes sense. It is logical, and beautiful, if we would have ears to hear, hearts to listen. The poison of sin fights violently against us and this thinking. On the internet, everything is forever, eternal virtual life or living hell, depending on content of our choosing.

We did not create ourselves.
We were created.
We owe our Creator the debt of our being.
Part of the debt of our being is proper use of creation, including our bodies.
The proper use of our bodies is love for one other who truly loves us in return. A union which is faithful, fruitful, and free, i.e. marriage.
The Natural Law in philosophy indicates that by nature, by inspection, by reason, our love must be devoted to our complement, i.e. male & female.
To ignore the Natural Law is to ignore God and Him communicating through His creation. It is sin, and an offense against God Who created us, to Whom we owe our debt of gratitude. To Whom we must account for our use of His gift of life, and will.
The lover always wills the good of the beloved. This can never be manifested in the abuse of self or use/abuse of others. This is the definition of love. Use is the exact opposite, the negative, of love. We use things. We love people. We must never turn people into things, even with their ignorant, willful permission. We are all children of God; everyone, everyone. Especially when that is most difficult to see in each of us.

Rapidly we prepare this year for Ash Wednesday, and to be told once more, “Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return. Repent, and believe in the Gospel!”

“Christian, remember your dignity, and the price which was paid to purchase your salvation!” -cf Pope St Leo the Great, Sermo 22 in nat. Dom., 3:PL 54,192C.

“Christian, recognize your dignity and, now that you share in God’s own nature, do not return to your former base condition by sinning. Remember Who is your head and of Whose body you are a member. Never forget that you have been rescued from the power of darkness and brought into the light of the Kingdom of God.” -CCC 1691, St. Leo the Great, Sermo 22 in nat. Dom., 3:PL 54,192C.

Some of my favorites, though…

“…but I was intent on material things, but there found I no resting-place, nor did they so receive me, that I could say, “It is enough,” “it is well”:…”1

“…through my own swelling was I separated from Thee; yea, my pride-swollen face closed up mine eyes…by inward goads didst Thou rouse me, that I should be ill at ease, until Thou wert manifested to my inward sight. Thus, by the secret hand of Thy medicining was my swelling abated, and the troubled and bedimmed eyesight of my mind, by the smarting annointings of healthful sorrows, was from day to day healed.”2

“…as if I heard this Thy voice from on high: “I am the food of grown men and women…”,3

“I call upon you, my God, my mercy, Who made me, and did not forget me, although I forgot you. I call you into my soul, which you prepare to accept You by the longing that You breathe into it. Do not desert me now when I call upon You, for before I called upon You, You went ahead and helped me, and repeatedly You urged me on by many different words, so that from afar I would hear You, and be converted, and call upon You as you called to me.”
—St. Augustine, Confessions

“You judge me, O Lord, for, although no one ‘knows the things of a man but the spirit of man which is in him,’ there is something further in man which not even that spirit of man which is in him knows. But you, Lord, who made him, know all things that are in him. Although I despise myself before your sight, and account myself but dust and ashes, yet I know something of you which I do not know about myself. In truth, ‘we see now through a glass in a dark manner,’ and not yet ‘face to face.’ … Let me confess, then, what I know about myself. Let me confess also what I do not know about myself, since that too which I know about myself I know because you enlighten me. As to that which I am ignorant of concerning myself, I remain ignorant of it until my ‘darkness shall be made as the noonday in your sight.’”
—St. Augustine

Love, His joy and mercy,
Matthew

1 Augustine, Saint (2014-09-20). Confessions (Illustrated) (Kindle Locations 1732-1733). . Kindle Edition.

2 Augustine, Saint (2014-09-20). Confessions (Illustrated) (Kindle Locations 1739, 1742-1744). . Kindle Edition.

3 Augustine, Saint (2014-09-20). Confessions (Illustrated) (Kindle Location 1788). . Kindle Edition.

Summa Catechetica, "Neque enim quaero intelligere ut credam, sed credo ut intelligam." – St Anselm, "“Si comprehendus, non est Deus.” -St Augustine, "Let your religion be less of a theory, and more of a love affair." -G.K. Chesterton, “When we pray we speak to God; but when we read, God speaks to us.” -St Jerome, "As the reading of bad books fills the mind with worldly and poisonous sentiments; so, on the other hand, the reading of pious works fills the soul with holy thoughts and good desires." -St. Alphonsus Liguori, "And above all, be on your guard not to want to get anything done by force, because God has given free will to everyone and wants to force no one, but only proposes, invites and counsels." –St. Angela Merici, “Yet such are the pity and compassion of this Lord of ours, so desirous is He that we should seek Him and enjoy His company, that in one way or another He never ceases calling us to Him . . . God here speaks to souls through words uttered by pious people, by sermons or good books, and in many other such ways.” —St. Teresa of Avila, "I want a laity, not arrogant, not rash in speech, not disputatious, but men and women who know their religion, who enter into it, who know just where they stand, who know what they hold and what they do not, and who know their creed so well that they can give an account of it, who know so much of history that they can defend it. I want an intelligent, well-instructed laity… I wish you to enlarge your knowledge, to cultivate your reason, to get an insight into the relation of truth to truth, to learn to view things as they are, to understand how faith and reason stand to each other, what are the bases and principles of Catholicism, and where lie the main inconsistences and absurdities of the Protestant theory.” (St. John Henry Newman, “Duties of Catholics Towards the Protestant View,” Lectures on the Present Position of Catholics in England), "We cannot always have access to a spiritual Father for counsel in our actions and in our doubts, but reading will abundantly supply his place by giving us directions to escape the illusions of the devil and of our own self-love, and at the same time to submit to the divine will.” —St. Alphonsus Ligouri, "The harm that comes to souls from the lack of reading holy books makes me shudder . . . What power spiritual reading has to lead to a change of course, and to make even worldly people enter into the way of perfection." –St. Padre Pio, "Screens may grab our attention, but books change our lives!" – Word on Fire, "Reading has made many saints!" -St Josemaría Escrivá, "Do you pray? You speak to the Bridegroom. Do you read? He speaks to you." —St. Jerome, from his Letter 22 to Eustochium, "Encounter, not confrontation; attraction, not promotion; dialogue, not debate." -cf Pope Francis, "God here speaks to souls through…good books“ – St Teresa of Avila, Interior Castle, "You will not see anyone who is really striving after his advancement who is not given to spiritual reading. And as to him who neglects it, the fact will soon be observed by his progress.” -St Athanasius, "To convert someone, go and take them by the hand and guide them." -St Thomas Aquinas, OP. 1 saint ruins ALL the cynicism in Hell & on Earth. “When we pray we talk to God; when we read God talks to us…All spiritual growth comes from reading and reflection.” -St Isidore of Seville, “Also in some meditations today I earnestly asked our Lord to watch over my compositions that they might do me no harm through the enmity or imprudence of any man or my own; that He would have them as His own and employ or not employ them as He should see fit. And this I believe is heard.” -GM Hopkins, SJ, "Only God knows the good that can come about by reading one good Catholic book." — St. John Bosco, "Why don't you try explaining it to them?" – cf St Peter Canisius, SJ, Doctor of the Church, Doctor of the Catechism, "Already I was coming to appreciate that often apologetics consists of offering theological eye glasses of varying prescriptions to an inquirer. Only one prescription will give him clear sight; all the others will give him at best indistinct sight. What you want him to see—some particular truth of the Faith—will remain fuzzy to him until you come across theological eye glasses that precisely compensate for his particular defect of vision." -Karl Keating, "The more perfectly we know God, the more perfectly we love Him." -St Thomas Aquinas, OP, ST, I-II,67,6 ad 3, “But always when I was without a book, my soul would at once become disturbed, and my thoughts wandered." —St. Teresa of Avila, "Let those who think I have said too little and those who think I have said too much, forgive me; and let those who think I have said just enough thank God with me." –St. Augustine, "Without good books and spiritual reading, it will be morally impossible to save our souls." —St. Alphonsus Liguori "Never read books you aren't sure about. . . even supposing that these bad books are very well written from a literary point of view. Let me ask you this: Would you drink something you knew was poisoned just because it was offered to you in a golden cup?" -St. John Bosco " To teach in order to lead others to faith is the task of every preacher and of each believer." —St. Thomas Aquinas, OP. "Prayer purifies us, reading instructs us. Both are good when both are possible. Otherwise, prayer is better than reading." –St. Isidore of Seville “The aid of spiritual books is for you a necessity.… You, who are in the midst of battle, must protect yourself with the buckler of holy thoughts drawn from good books.” -St. John Chrysostom