"Since love grows within you, so beauty grows. For love is the beauty of the soul." - St. Augustine
Our son is taking his first class with Veritas Press Academy (Omnibus II), and in order to keep up with readings, we've found I've had to read with him - but it has turned out to be a wonderful blessing for me! We are reading St. Augustine's Confessions now, and it is an extraordinary book.
Many historians see Augustine as the bridge between antiquity and the middle ages. It is remarkable to see how perceptive Augustine was for his times, but also jarring to think that the world would fall into the Dark Ages after Augustine, and think how much of the history, literature, and philosophy of Western Civilization would have been lost if monasteries hadn't sought to preserve the old texts and documents.
Confessions is Augustine's spiritual autobiography. Much of it is running conversation with God, beginning with his earliest recollections, then traveling in some detail through important life experiences that brought him to his faith. Augustine's upbringing will resonate with many young people today - his father valued a secular education (a classical education), but was not a Christian and therefore did not particularly consider spiritual factors in his upbringing.
It is easy to see the boy (and later man) in Confessions because Augustine writes in such a frank and colorful conversational tone - "Even now I cannot fully understand why the Greek language, which I learned as a child, was so distasteful to me...I suppose that Greek boys think the same about Virgil when they are forced to study him as I was forced to study Homer..." But this frankness turns its attention to reckless, painful, and sinful periods in his life - and his eventual turning to God.
There are many good things in Confessions for young adult readers - the subtle-and-not-so-subtle temptations that arise from friends, misguided teachers and cults, and muddy-headed thinking, and it is a surprisingly easy read - perhaps because of Augustine's skills as a rhetorician.
I find it hard to put into words what I've gained most from reading Confessions, but I think the best way I can think to say it is that it's given me a greater vision of the depth that's possible in my walk with God. Augustine has wonderful prayers and praises, true, but what is even more inspiring is how he was able to surrender more and more of his view of the world and life to God, and how as a result his worldview and life became much greater.
"Go forth on your path, as it exists only through your walking."
Biography of St. Augustine | Christian Classics Ethereal Library
Wikipedia: Augustine
Wikiquote: Augustine
