(Book one of fifty.)
I have read about 1/3 of this book so far and it is very challenging. It is an autobiography of St. Augustine, but written from a spiritual standpoint instead of being merely chronological.
He retells his life as a series of lessons, trials, battles, sins, and spiritual growth/understanding starting with infancy and (according to the table of contents) ending with a series of discussions on eternal life.
It's fascinating.
"When you (God) are poured upon us, you are not cast down, but you raise us up; you are not scattered about but you gather us up" (Book 1, Chapter 1).
"For your omnipotence is not far from us, even when we are far from you" (Book 2, Chapter 2).
"For you fashion sorrow into a lesson to us. You smite so that you may heal. You slay us, so that we may not die apart from you" (Book 2, Chapter 2).
"Such mercy is yours, O Lord God, for you love our souls with a purity of love more deep and wide than that we have for ourselves, and you are unalterably merciful, because you suffer no wound from sorrow" (Book 3, Chapter 2).
I'll post more quotes for your perusing pleasure as I read. I hope to finish the book by this time next week."For then I sought for you, my God... But you were more inward that my inmost self, and superior to my highest being" (Book 3, Chapter 6).
This is my first of the fifty books I'm aiming to read in this journey. I have a few others in mind from B&N’s Classics List but I still haven't narrowed down the 199 book list to the 50 I want to read.
I'd love your suggestions!
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"Let proud men, who have not yet for their own good been cast own and broken by you, my God, laugh at me to scorn, but in your praise let me confess to you my shame to you. Permit me, I beseech you, and enable me to follow around in present recollection the windings of my past errors, and to offer them up to you as a sacrifice of jubilation. For without you, what am I to myself but the leader of mu own destruction?" (Book 4, Chapter 1)
ReplyDelete"Lord, these things have now passed away and time has eased my wound. Am I able to hearken to you, who are truth and to turn my heart's ear to your mouth, that you may tell me why weeping is sweet to those in misery?" (Book 4, Chapter 5)
ReplyDelete"Man is a mighty deep, whose very hairs you have numbered, O Lord, and they are not lessened before you. But man's hairs are easier to count than his affections and the movements of his heart" (Book 4, Chapter 14).
ReplyDelete"You did not give to my hearing joy and gladness, nor did my bones rejoice, for they had not yet been humbled" (Book 4, Chapter 15).
ReplyDelete