NAME: JULIANA .E. ONYEOKE
NUMBER: 11011T
TITLE OF BOOK:
THE CONFESSIONS OF ST. AUGUSTINE
A SHORT BIBLIOGRAPHY OF ST. AUGUSTINE
 |
| A very personal and timeless experience! |
St. Augustine of
Hippo, the great Doctor of the Latin Church, was born in a pagan family of
Patricius and Monica in Thagaste in North Africa, in 354 A.D. He lived an
unsettled life as an adult both in his studies and moral life. However, he was
converted (387) and received baptism in Milan from his most admired bishop,
Ambrose. After Augustine’s conversion, he returned to Africa and formed his own
community; there in 391 he was ordained priest and by public acclamation a
Bishop. He is a great Intellectual, Rhetorician, Doctor and Defender of the
Church.
MY MOTIVATION
My motivation in
reading and making a summary of the Confession of St. Augustine lies in the
fact that, Augustine’s confession is sincerely personal in experience and
timeless. This is to say that, the confession seems to touch what is deepest
and most universal in men and women throughout the centuries and across many
cultures. This conviction of mine can be seen in his famous quoted prayer:
“….For you have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they
rest in you” (Conf. 1, 1). With this, I am convinced that
Augustine’s confession shows the burning desire and inner longing of humanity
for his creator.
“To whom
but yourself can I cry, cleanse me of my hidden sins, O Lord, and for those
incurred through others, and pardon
your servant”.
Forgiveness
only takes place when there is a turning point in one’s life. This is a
situation, where one is in touch and aware of what is happening in one’s life
in relation to sins committed by self and to others. Through this knowledge of living in sin, if
one is ready for a positive change, acceptance of oneself takes place and then
ready for God’s saving grace; that is when one asks for forgiveness from God
for oneself and also asks for pardon for the unpleasant moments with others. cf.
Ps. 32(31):5; Mt.6:12. ( RSV).
Augustine
was fully aware that he was too small at his age to associate himself with
great sins, I see God carrying him in a gentle way believing in future change.
Sins in our life are supposed to be for a period of time, and thereafter,
forgiveness takes place, and this gives hope for the future. Let us accept who
we are and ready for a better future with God in view.
Reflections (21st October)
LET
US LOVE ONE ANOTHER AND PRAY
Prayer is the powerful weapon of a believer, through
which we lift our hearts in thanks and praise to the Lord. In prayer, we lift
up the words of our mouth and the meditation of our hearts to the Lord. We need
prayer as a lifelong habit because it is our natural way of keeping our
friendship with the Lord alive and active. Jesus taught us perseverance in
prayer as Augustine’s mother, Monica did:
“Persevered in
praying for me; she was far away, but you are present everywhere, so you heard
her in that land where she was and took pity on me where
I was”. (The Confessions, Book V,16)
Jesus, as you promised that our sorrow would be
turned to joy, we come to you the living fountain; we listen to the waters
flow, like prayer, which is the great source from where the graces of God flow
into our soul.
****
COME
AS YOU ARE
“Let us go to
the church: I want to become a Christian” (The Confessions, Book VIII, 4).
Sorrow today is for joy tomorrow, Death today is
resurrection tomorrow. Christ created the world to bring forth life and through
his resurrection, we celebrate life. Meeting Jesus in our openness, emptiness,
and humility, keeps us in the right place where alone we can be happy. No one
experience God and still remain the same, but with God and in God, we come out
fresh and new in the Spirit. Augustine, a man once so unworthy, threw off the
shamefacedness provoked by vanity and became modest in face of truth as he
said:
“You too, merciful Father, yes, even you are
more joyful over one repentant sinner than over ninety-nine righteous people
who need no repentance” (cf. Lk 15:4-7).
****
MOTHER
IS SUPREME
The beauty of having a dear mother is what everyone
long for. It is a thing of joy in one’s life to experience the care, love, joy,
patience, perseverance, humility and so many good virtue of a mother. A dear
and loving Mother is always available in our needs, such as;
In sickness and pain, she is
present,
In joy and sorrow, her presence is
everywhere
In moment of trials and
difficulties, she gives her words of encouragement,
In despair, she gives hope,
In frustration, she gives her
advice.
Who on earth can
replace one’s mother?
Augustine
felt the warmth of a dear mother, who was on her kneel day and night praying
for his conversion, and God answered her cry. He prayed to God to grant her
forgiveness of her sins and her last request:
“One
thing only do I ask of you, that you remember me at the altar of the Lord
wherever you may be” (The Confessions: Book IX, 27).
MAY SHE REST IN PEACE. AMEN.
****
BE
A LIGHT TO THE WORLD
“No
one after lighting a lamp covers it with a vessel, or put it under a bed, but
put it on a stand, that those who enter may see the light”
(Lk 8:16).
We have been given the light of faith, so that it
can easily be seen by others who may not have being so favoured. Let our
Christian life and love attract others to see the influence of our faith in our
lives. Let us all emulate the life of Augustine, a man that experienced God’s
saving grace in his life and see the light of Christ. Today, he is a great
Doctor of the Church as well as a great Saint in the Church.
We
pray that, may we be a living Gospel that can be seen by all. Amen.
****
SUMMARY OF THE CONFESSIONS
– St. Augustine
(JULIANA .E. ONYEOKE, 11011T)
Augustine started with
opening prayer, by praising and appreciating God’s greatness and he also
meditated on the goodness, mercy and kindness of God. As an infant, he
struggled with words of his mouth; he schooled at Thagaste, where he received
some religious instruction and appreciated Latin then Greek. Due to his grave
illness, his baptism was deferred and for so small a boy, he was a great
sinner. At the age of sixteen, he went with his flood-tide of his nature,
intense sexual desire and abandoned God, but did not escaped from God’s
chastisements. His studies were interrupted, he spent a year at home in his
parent’s company’ later, he started behaving in life like a prodigal son that
has no bearing.
Back at Carthage, knowing fully well that his father was
late and the mother is responsible for his upkeep, he abandoned himself to a
life of pleasure, he was so blind that he feels great in his blindness and also
got involved in more destructive activities. He was inspired with the love of
philosophy by Cicero’s Hortensius; his interest was not aroused by the book,
but only in what it had to say. Later on, he joined the Manichees as an
aspirant. His mother, Monica deeply grieved, wept more bitterly for his ruin
and regarded him as being dead, but she found consolation in a vision.
Being a teacher of rhetoric at Thagaste, he had a
mistress that was not bound to him in lawful wedlock. Later, he became
interested in astrology. He grieved at the death of a close friend, and this
led him to look for consolation in the companionship of other friends at
Carthage. He wrote a book on “Beauty and Proportion”. Faustus, a bishop of
Manichees went to Carthage; Augustine was disappointed on finding that Faustus
was unable to settle the discrepancies between the doctrines of the Manichees.
Seeing himself in the student’s misconduct, and couldn’t stand it any longer,
he decided to go to a place where such things will not happen. So he left for
Rome against the wishes of his mother, there, he still associated with the
Manichees but no longer had any firm believe in their doctrines, instead, he
was only attracted by the teaching of Neo-Platonist. Back to Milan, he obtained
an appointment as Professor of rhetoric. He listened to the sermons of Saint Ambrose;
he was impressed but not convinced. He later left the Manichees and lived as a
catechumen in the Catholic Church, which was the wish of his parents.
Monica kept the Spirit of the sailors and rejoined Augustine
at Milan. Listening regularly to the sermons of Saint Ambrose, Augustine
realised that his previous conceptions of Christian doctrine were mistaken; he
learned that scripture is not always to be understood in the literal sense. His
ambitions in the world and difficulties over chastity still prevented him from
accepting the faith; he later planned to get married and dismissed his
mistress. Still having difficulty in thinking of God as a spiritual Being and
in finding an explanation of the problem of evil, he was helped by the
Platonist books. He realized that evil is a perversion of the will, not a
substance as the Manichees pretend; he began to read the Epistles of Saint
Paul.
Augustine was told of the conversion of Victorinus, the
translator of Plotinus, and he was eager to follow his example, but worldly
ambition and difficulties over chastity held him back. After he had heard how
two officers of the Emperor’s court were converted by reading the story of
Antony, the Egyptian monk, he went into the garden of his house, where he heard
a child’s voice chanting words which he takes to be a divine message to
himself, he got converted and his mother was so happy. Augustine renounced his
career and travelled with his friends, son and mother to a country house at
Cassiciacum. During Easter the following year, he returned to Milan, where he
was baptised. With his mother and friends, he sets out to return to Africa,
while waiting for the ship at Ostia, Augustine and Monica conversed on the life
of the Saints in heaven. Monica gave an account of her life before she finally
died in peace. Augustine sang praises of his mother, and asked his readers to
thank God for his conversion and to pray for him. He consider the power of
memory, since all men long for happiness, that they must know in some way what
it is, but the only true happiness is in God. He examined his ability to master
the various temptations of the body, but due to our human weakness, it is God’s
saving grace that can deliver us from temptation and only through Christ, the
true Mediator, can we hoped to be reconciled with God.
There was a conflicting interpretation of the opening
verses of Genesis 1:1; In the Beginning God made heaven and earth, led to a
question on what God was doing before creation, and this led to a discussion on
the problem of time. Augustine prayed for understanding of the scriptures and
further explained the first verse of Genesis based on the creation story and
other interpretations of the verse. He appreciated the wisdom of God that
shined through his moment of darkness, and teared apart the cloud that
enveloped him.
Finally, Augustine’s seeing is one with God’s seeing, his
joy in the beauty of creation is one with God’s joy, and as he confessed, his
voice, along with the chorus of creation, is one with God. So, the Confessions,
is seen as Augustine’s personal engagement in the creative process.
PERSONAL REFLECTION
I thank God for His
presence, protection, care and unending love in the life of Augustine, who
lived a wayward life as an infant, still struggled to recognised God’s presence
as he said: “O God, everything indeed for health and salvation flows from my
God”[1].
Due to our human weakness, sometimes the challenges of life overpower the
little strength in us. I believed this must have being part of Augustine’s
struggles.
Back at home with both
parents, he had the whole time to learn, but he misused his adolescent stage.
Even when we go astray, God is never tired of being there for us, not minding
the darkest moment of our life, where we feel great. I also believed that the
prayers of other people guide us when going astray. In a special way, I really
thank God for the gift of Monica, a dear mother, who never got tired in her
persistent prayers for her loving son, Augustine, but relied on God’s assurance
that there will be a change of heart, as God instructed her: “To take good heed
and see that where she stood, there also I stood. This was to reassure her; she
stood heed and saw me standing close beside her on the same rule”[2].
Augustine never recognised the gift of God in her mother, but Monica, who was
full of compassion and love, trusted in God’s mercy as she continued to
persevere in her prayers.
Sometimes, one lives as if
one is in control of situations, Augustine never believed that anything can
weigh him down, until the death of his dear friend, whose absence created a big
vacuum in his life and through this experience, he recognised God’s presence as
he said: “Lord, and my hurt has been assuaged with time, let me listen now to
you who are truth”[3].
This experience made a turning point in the life of Augustine, through which he
recognised the presence of God and others around him. Struggling with mysteries
of life is an experience everyone find difficult to forget, and searching is
also a big task that one need assistance in others to see the light of Christ.
The young man find it difficult to accept seeing his past as a wayward boy,
being lived out by his student, he decided to move to another country, but God
made him to understand His presence through the faith of his mother: “She
remained behind, praying and weeping that you could not allow me to sail away”[4].
I really appreciate Monica as a mother who wanted the son to live a good life.
There was great joy when
Monica reunited with Augustine. The struggles of life continued with the son,
who did not accept the faith of the Church and marriage. Things can be so
difficult when one continues to wonder without solution, but having revealed
the right path to Augustine, he said: “I saw them, for it was made clear to me,
that you have made all good things, and that there are absolutely no substances
that you have not made”[5].
Sometimes, our struggles
of life prevents us from seeing the plan of God ahead of us, but if finally
discovered, there is everlasting joy in one’s life as it happened in the life
of Augustine: “No sooner had I reached the end of the verse than the light of
certainty flooded my heart and all dark shades of doubt fled away”[6].
It is a great joy to know the Lord and experience his love.
I see Book IX as one of
the most beautiful writings of Augustine, both in an atmosphere of peace which
seems like a preliminary realization of the eternal peace for which he had long
from the cry of the restless heart. Monica experienced peace as well as
Augustine, when she said: “To see you a Catholic Christian before I die. And
this my God has granted to me more lavishly than I could have hoped, letting me
see you even spurning earthly happiness to be his servant”[7].
Looking back in life, we
thank and praise God for the wonder of our being; we also appreciate Him in
different ways His word has made a change in our lives as Augustine said: “You
pierced my heart with your word, and I fell in love with you”[8].
Narrating the mystery of Christ in the salvation and creation story, there was
a light that sprang into being as God’s first day, Augustine sees it as the
light that transformed the believers in baptism which is seen as salvation
experienced in the Church. I really praise God for the great glories of
creation and salvation, for the unnumbered mercies of God’s providence, healing
and forgiveness, and also for what Augustine is through God’s gift, after he
had confessed who he was and still could be, of himself.
Having gone through the
Confessions of St Augustine, I believe it is good to stand in God’s truth and
become a Co-creator with God, in this creation in oneself and one’s own history
in God’s light.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Rotelle, J.E., ed; The
Confessions, New York: New City Press, 1997.
[1] . J.E. Rotelle, The Confessions, Book II, 7.
[2] . J.E. Rotelle, The Confessions, Book III, 19.
[3] . J.E. Rotelle, The Confessions, Book IV, 10.
[4] . J.E. Rotelle, The Confessions, Book V, 15.
[5] . J.E. Rotelle, The Confessions, Book VII, 18.
[6] . J.E. Rotelle, The Confessions, Book VIII, 29.
[7] . J.E. Rotelle, The Confessions, Book 1X, 26.
[8] . J.E. Rotelle, The Confessions, Book X, 8.
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