Writer's Wednesday -- St. Augustine of Hippo
Why then do I bother to let men hear my confessions? It is not as though men are likely to heal all my infirmities? Men are a race very inquisitive about other people's lives, very lazy in improving their own. Why should they want to hear from me what I am, when they do not want to hear from you what they are?
...
For to hear from you something about themselves is simply to know themselves...
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Yet still, my inmost Physician, I beg you to make clear to me what advantage I get from doing this. You have forgiven and covered up my past sins, blessing me in you and changing my soul by faith and by your sacrament; yet when the confessions of these past sins are read and hear, they rouse up the heart and prevent it from sinking into the sleep of despair and saying, "I cannot." Instead they encourage it to be wakeful in the love of your mercy and the sweetness of your grace, through which the weak is made strong when, thanks to this grace of yours, he becomes conscious of his own weakness. Also good men are pleased when they hear of sins done in the past by people who are now free of them; they are pleased not with the sins themselves, but because what were sins have now ceased to exist.
...
But as to what I now am, at the very moment of writing these confessions, there are many people who want to know about this--both those who know me personally and those who do not, but have heard something about me or from me; but their ear is not laid against my heart, where I am whatever I am. And so they want, as I make my confession, to hear what I am inside myself, beyond the possible reach of their eyes and ears and minds. And in wanting to hear, they are ready to believe; but will they know? For that charity, by which they are good, tells them that I am not lying about myself in my confessions, and it is the charity in them that believes me.
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But what advantage do they wish to gain from this? Do they desire to rejoice with me when they hear how close I have come to you by your grace? And to pray for me, when they hear how I am kept back by my own weight? It is to people like this that I shall show myself. For it is no small advantage, my Lord God, that many people should give thanks to you for me and that many people should pray to you for me. I would wish that their brotherly minds should love in me what you teach them is to be loved, and should lament in me what you teach them is to be lamented. It is a brotherly mind that I would wish for, not the mind of strangers... but that brotherly mind which is glad for me when it sees good in me and sorry for me when it sees bad in me, because, whether good or bad, it loves me. It is to people like this that I shall show myself, hoping that in my good deeds they will be glad and in my evil deeds they will be sad. My good deeds are your work and your gift, my evil deeds are my faults and your punishments. So I would wish there to be gladness for the one, sadness for the other, and that hymns and lamentations should rise up into your sight from those censers which are the hearts of my brethren. And I pray that you, Lord, pleased with the sweet incense of your holy temple, may have mercy upon me according to Thy great mercy for Thine own name's sake, and in no way forsaking what you have begun, perfect my imperfections.
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So I will confess what I know of myself, and I will will also confess what I do not know of myself; because what I know of myself I know by means of your light shining upon me and what I do not know remains unknown to me until my darkness be made as the noonday in your countenance.
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There is no doubt in my mind, Lord, that I love you. You struck my heart with your word, and I loved you.
----St. Augustine, Confessions, excerpts from Book X.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Okay, from the sublime to the ridiculous... no, not ridiculous, just a little something lighter after that heavy quote from Gus...
...
For to hear from you something about themselves is simply to know themselves...
...
Yet still, my inmost Physician, I beg you to make clear to me what advantage I get from doing this. You have forgiven and covered up my past sins, blessing me in you and changing my soul by faith and by your sacrament; yet when the confessions of these past sins are read and hear, they rouse up the heart and prevent it from sinking into the sleep of despair and saying, "I cannot." Instead they encourage it to be wakeful in the love of your mercy and the sweetness of your grace, through which the weak is made strong when, thanks to this grace of yours, he becomes conscious of his own weakness. Also good men are pleased when they hear of sins done in the past by people who are now free of them; they are pleased not with the sins themselves, but because what were sins have now ceased to exist.
...
But as to what I now am, at the very moment of writing these confessions, there are many people who want to know about this--both those who know me personally and those who do not, but have heard something about me or from me; but their ear is not laid against my heart, where I am whatever I am. And so they want, as I make my confession, to hear what I am inside myself, beyond the possible reach of their eyes and ears and minds. And in wanting to hear, they are ready to believe; but will they know? For that charity, by which they are good, tells them that I am not lying about myself in my confessions, and it is the charity in them that believes me.
...
But what advantage do they wish to gain from this? Do they desire to rejoice with me when they hear how close I have come to you by your grace? And to pray for me, when they hear how I am kept back by my own weight? It is to people like this that I shall show myself. For it is no small advantage, my Lord God, that many people should give thanks to you for me and that many people should pray to you for me. I would wish that their brotherly minds should love in me what you teach them is to be loved, and should lament in me what you teach them is to be lamented. It is a brotherly mind that I would wish for, not the mind of strangers... but that brotherly mind which is glad for me when it sees good in me and sorry for me when it sees bad in me, because, whether good or bad, it loves me. It is to people like this that I shall show myself, hoping that in my good deeds they will be glad and in my evil deeds they will be sad. My good deeds are your work and your gift, my evil deeds are my faults and your punishments. So I would wish there to be gladness for the one, sadness for the other, and that hymns and lamentations should rise up into your sight from those censers which are the hearts of my brethren. And I pray that you, Lord, pleased with the sweet incense of your holy temple, may have mercy upon me according to Thy great mercy for Thine own name's sake, and in no way forsaking what you have begun, perfect my imperfections.
...
So I will confess what I know of myself, and I will will also confess what I do not know of myself; because what I know of myself I know by means of your light shining upon me and what I do not know remains unknown to me until my darkness be made as the noonday in your countenance.
...
There is no doubt in my mind, Lord, that I love you. You struck my heart with your word, and I loved you.
----St. Augustine, Confessions, excerpts from Book X.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Okay, from the sublime to the ridiculous... no, not ridiculous, just a little something lighter after that heavy quote from Gus...
Couldn't resist adding this latest video on "Charity and Mercy" from "That Catholic Show" just for it's smile value!
posted by Pat Gohn at
6/06/2007
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