Sublime
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our misery to do for your sake alone what we know you
want us to do, and always to want what pleases you;
so that, cleansed and enlightened within and inflamed
by the fire of the Holy Spirit, we may be able to follow in
the footsteps of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and so
make our way to you, Mos... See more
The Christian gospel, for Augustine, wasn’t just the answer to an intellectual question (though it was that); it was more like a shelter in a storm, a port for a wayward soul, nourishment for a prodigal who was famished, whose own heart had become, he said, “a famished land.”
James K. A. Smith • On the Road with Saint Augustine: A Real-World Spirituality for Restless Hearts
It is the converted, baptized, ordained Augustine who confesses, “Onus mihi, oneri mihi sum”: “I am a burden to myself.”
James K. A. Smith • On the Road with Saint Augustine: A Real-World Spirituality for Restless Hearts
I LOVE YOU ABOVE ALL ELSE Lord, I love you above all other things. You are the one I seek. You are the one I follow. You are the one I am ready to serve. I want to dwell under your rule, for you alone reign. Command me as you will, but heal and open my eyes to see your wonders. And drive all foolishness and pride from me. Give me wisdom to understa
... See moreRobert Elmer • Fount of Heaven: Prayers of the Early Church (Prayers of the Church)
The best purely philosophical work in Saint Augustine’s writings is the eleventh book of the Confessions. Popular editions of the Confessions end with Book X, on the ground that what follows is uninteresting; it is uninteresting because it is good philosophy, not biography. Book XI is concerned with the problem: Creation having occurred as the firs
... See moreBertrand Russell • History of Western Philosophy
for Augustine the journey inward was an open battle with devils and demons. Augustine’s pastoral practice gave us an inner self, but this self, to use Taylor’s language, was porous.