You Are There in Their Hearts

But they fled that they might not see You seeing them, and blinded might stumble against You; since You forsake nothing that You have made — that the unjust might stumble against You, and justly be hurt, withdrawing themselves from Your gentleness, and stumbling against Your uprightness, and falling upon their own roughness. Forsooth, they know not that You are everywhere whom no place encompasses, and that You alone are near even to those that remove far from You. Let them, then, be converted and seek You; because not as they have forsaken their Creator have You forsaken Your creature. Let them be converted and seek You; and behold, You are there in their hearts, in the hearts of those who confess to You, and cast themselves upon You, and weep on Your bosom after their obdurate ways, even Thou gently wiping away their tears. And they weep the more, and rejoice in weeping, since Thou, O Lord, not man, flesh and blood, but Thou, Lord, who made, remakest and comfortest them. - Confessions, Book V, Chapter 2

To end this series on Augustine, the authors wrote a prayer for students. I hope you enjoyed this series.

An Augustinian Prayer for a Student

God of Truth and Beauty,
You give each one of us the desire to seek the Truth.
Fire me with a thirst for knowledge and Truth.
Let me use that knowledge to build a community of justice and love.

God of Splendour and Glory,
You show us your splendour in the heavens, the earth and the mystery of each person.
May I see your presence and warming love in the gifts of this earth.
May I reverence this presence.

God, companion on the journey,
You touched the restless heart of Augustine as he searched for you.
Help me to support my friends and students in their quests
and seek their help in mine.
Remind me that you are within me and them as teacher and friend.
Be present to us in the struggles of life as we journey together.

God of Unity, God of Peace,
You inspired Augustine to gather friends around him in community.
May we always live together in harmony and be of one mind and one heart.

Amen.

Part XII - Being a Student: Open to the Transcendent

Lord, that I may know myself as you know me. (Confessions, 10, 1, 1).

The search for God is the search for happiness. The encounter with God is happiness itself. (The Customs of the Catholic Church, 11, 18).

We search God out by loving Him; we reach Him, not by becoming entirely what He is, but in nearness to Him, and in wonderful and immaterial contact with Him, and in being inwardly illuminated and occupied by His truth and holiness. He is light itself; we get enlightenment from Him. The greatest commandment, therefore, which leads to happy life, and the first, is this: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and soul, and mind.” For to those who love the Lord all things work unto good. Hence Paul adds shortly after, “I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor virtue, nor things present, nor things future, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (The Customs of the Catholic Church, 11, 18).

God who made you, doesn’t want anything of you but yourself. (Sermon 34, 7).

Part XI - Being a Student: Friendly and Community Oriented

We need the gifts of others to make up for what is lacking in ourselves. (Commentary on the Psalms, 125, 13).

There were other joys to be found in my friends’ company which still more powerfully captivated my mind - the charms of talking and laughing together and kindly giving way to each other’s wishes, reading well written books together, sharing jokes and delighting to honour one another, disagreeing occasionally but without rancour, as a person might disagree with himself, and lending piquancy by that rare disagreement to our much more frequent accord. We would teach and learn from each other, sadly missing any who were absent and blithely welcoming them when they returned. Such signs of friendship sprang from the hearts of friends who loved and knew their love returned, signs to be read in smiles, words, glances and a thousand gracious gestures. So were sparks kindled and our minds were fused inseparably, out of many becoming one. (Confessions, 4, 8, 13).

You are all to live together, therefore, one in mind and one in heart and honour God in each other because each of you has become His temple. (Rule, 1, 8).

Where there is no envy or fear, differences, far from creating divisions, foster harmony. (Holy Virginity, 29).

A community is a group of individuals bound together by the harmony and communion as to the things they look for and they love. In order to discover the character of a community we have only to observe what they love. (The City of God, 19, 24).

In an orchestra there are many different instruments. But all are tuned so carefully and played in harmony that the audience only hears one melody. This must be our ideal: to be an orchestra for the Lord (Commentary on the Psalms, 150, 8).

Being a Student - Part X: Committed and Studious

Our life is a pilgrimage and as such, it is full of difficulties. But our maturity is forged by these difficulties. We are not known to ourselves, unless we are tested; neither can we be crowned, if we don’t conquer; nor conquer, if we don’t fight; nor fight, if we lack enemies. (Commentary on the Psalms, 61, 2).

Don’t be sleepy when listening to the truth so as not to be woken up with a start when it comes to settling the bill. (Commentary on the Psalms, 32, 2, 2).

It is of no use “to know” the truth, if, at the same time, you do not embrace it with your life. It is necessary to build on a sure foundation, that is “to hear” and “to do”. The one that hears, and does not do it, builds on sand. The one that neither hears nor does it, builds nothing. The one that hears and does, builds on stone. (Commentary on the Psalms, 58, 17).

Being a Student - Part IX: Attentive and Willing

As well as a human being doesn’t eat wheat without first grinding it in order to make bread, the devil doesn’t eat anybody without first grinding him down with tribulation. In order to eat you he first needs to grind you up. Therefore, even if you are amidst affliction but remain whole, don’t worry. No harm will come to you. Does the wheat grain fear the threshing that separates it from the straw? No, as the straw is blown away, the grain is set free of all it does not need. (Commentary on the Psalms, 100, 12).

Usually human beings do not truly know themselves. They do not know of what they are able and what not. Often they presume that they can do certain things when they cannot while at the same time presume they cannot do others of which they are perfectly capable. Only when trials come to test them do they discover their own possibilities, possibilities hidden from them but known to their Creator. (Commentary on the Psalms, 55, 2).

A curious lot people are, curious to pry into the lives of others, but slow when it comes to correcting their own. (Confessions 10, 3, 3).

Being a Student - Part VIII: Sincere and Open About One's Self

There are some of you for whom the desire for human respect keeps you apart from your own conscience. If you are amongst these, take note that God sees within and that it is not possible to deceive God as witness, nor to escape from God as judge. (Letter 144, 3).

Look to that which is merely human and deprived in the man, and you will find lies and confusion. Don’t depend on yourself alone. Expose yourself to the light that comes from on high. If you stay closed in on yourself, you are seeking falsehood. The brow that bears the mark of insolent pride is undone and the brow marked with humility, like the cross of Christ, is victorious. (Sermon 32, 10).

Being a Student - Part VII: A Seeker of Harmony and Balance

Don’t be ambitious for more than is needed. Be satisfied with that. Wanting what is superfluous is a disguised form of greed. Being satisfied with what we truly need is the only true form of wealth. (Sermon 177, 10).

Being a Student - Part VI: Human and Understanding

For the more you are an enemy to your friend’s crimes, the more truly you are a friend to that person. (Letter 151, 12).

Let us love human beings, but not in the way a glutton says, “I love thrushes [birds].” Do you know why he loves them? To kill them and to eat them. He doesn’t love the thrushes, but rather he loves them for his own gain and their loss. (Treatise on the First Letter of St John, 8).

Love your fellow human beings, but fight their errors. Teach them the truth, but without pride. Love fights with them for the truth, but without resentments. (Reply to the Letters of Petilian, 1, 29, 31).

Being a Student - Part V: Able to Put Things in the Right Perspective

The human soul is like a dove. When it is enslaved by earthly loves, its plumage becomes heavy because of the mud and it cannot fly. But when the mud of earthly affections is removed from its feathers, it recovers its freedom. Using the love of God as one wing and the love of neighbour at the other it begins to fly. It ascends because it loves. (Commentary on the Psalms, 121, 1).

Not everybody who is indulgent with us is our friend, nor is everybody who punishes us our enemy. It is better to love with severity that to deceive gently. (Letter 93, 2, 4).

Do you want to know what class of person you are? Take the test of love. Do you love the things of the earth? You are earth. Do you owe your love to God? Be not afraid in saying it: you are God. (Treatise on the First Letter of John, 2, 2, 14).

Tell me who your friends are, and I will tell you who you are. Like sticks to like, unlike shuns unlike. (Sermon 15, 2, 2)

Moral failure is not the possession of evil things, but rather an act of the will that is evil; that is to say an action is evil not because the things sought are themselves evil, but rather the act itself is evil if it is contrary to the right order of things, or an abandonment of that which is good for something which is less good. For example, avarice is not a fault inherent in gold, but in the one who inordinately loves gold to the detriment of justice, which ought to be held in incomparably higher regard than gold. Neither is luxury the fault of lovely and charming objects, but of the heart that inordinately loves sensual pleasures, to the neglect of temperance . . . Nor yet is boasting the fault of human praise, but of the one who is inordinately fond of the applause of others, and that makes light of the voice of conscience. Pride, too, is not the fault of the one who delegates power, nor of power itself, but of the soul that is inordinately enamoured of its own power, and despises the more just dominion of a higher authority. Consequently he who inordinately loves the good which everything possesses, even though he obtain it, himself becomes evil in the good, and wretched and unhappy because he is deprived of a greater good. (The City of God, 12, 8).

Being a Student - Part IV: Seeks to Act Freely and Responsibly

While we are on this earth, we cannot avoid falling. But what is important, anyway, is not to ignore these falls or to minimize them as being so small they are not worthy of our notice. Of what are made the rivers that overflow to flood the fields, but small drops of water? A small leak, not repaired in time, in the long run causes the ship to sink. (Sermon 58, 9, 10).

Being faithful in minor things is a major undertaking. (Christian Teaching, 4, 18).

Being a Student - Part III: Open to Others, Rejecting Arrogance

The first step in the search for truth is humility. The second, humility. The third, humility. And the last one, humility. Naturally, that doesn’t mean that humility is the only virtue necessary for the discovery and enjoyment of truth. But if the other virtues aren’t preceded, accompanied and followed by humility, pride will find an opening and infiltrate them and, sooner or later, finish up destroying good intentions. All other vices are recognised when we are doing wrong; but pride is to be feared even when we do right. Test those things which are done in a praiseworthy manner lest they be spoiled by the desire for praise itself. (Letter 118, 3, 22).

“Learn from me, I am gentle and humble of heart”: what then does it do us good to learn? He is suggesting we have the most genuine sort of love for one’s fellows, love without mixed motives, without conceit, without arrogance, without deceit. That’s what is being suggested, by the one who says, “Learn from me, because I am gentle and humble of heart.” (Sermon 142, 12)

No one says to you, “Be less than you are,” but rather, “Recognise what you are.” Recognise yourself as weak, as a human being, as a sinner. When you accept and admit your shortcomings, you are on the way to healing. (Sermon 137, 4, 4).

Walk the path of humility, if you want to arrive at eternity. Christ, as human, is the path we are following. Christ, as God, is the destination towards which we are travelling. It’s to him we are going. It’s by him we are going. (Sermon 123, 3, 3).

Being a Student - Part II: Reflective, Able to Look Within

Curiously, the less human beings pay attention to their own shortcomings, the more they seem concerned with the shortcomings of others. They are looking to tear the other person to bits, not to put that person to rights. Unable to excuse themselves, they are only ready to accuse others. (Sermon 19, 2).

In fact anyone who in the depths of his heart is tormented by a bad conscience is like a person who has to flee his house because it is leaking or filled with smoke and thus not able to be lived in. This is why such people want to live outside themselves seeking happiness in external things that distract. They seek peace in frivolities and distractions such as shows and other amusements and by following every whim. Why do they seek happiness in this way? Because they cannot find all well within; they are not at peace with their conscience. (Commentary on the Psalms, 100, 4).

A disoriented heart is a place where false gods are manufactured. (Commentary on the Psalms, 80, 14).

Being a Student - Part I: Restless, Striving, Searching

"You have made us, Lord, for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you." (Confessions, 1, 1, 1).

"We are pilgrims, people on the road, not residents. We should therefore feel unsatisfied with what we are, if we want to arrive at that to which we aspire. If we are totally happy with what we are, we will stop going forward. If we think we have gone far enough we will not take another step. Let us continue, therefore, going forward, walking towards the goal. Let us not stop half way along the route, or look backwards or stray from the path. Someone who stops, does not make progress. Someone who strays, loses hope of arriving." (Sermon 169, 18).

Augustine's Reflections on Being a Student

As mentioned in yesterday's post, I want to use the next few entries to share with you St. Augustine's thoughts on education, and more specifically, on being a student. Pedro Bardon and Michael Morahan collaborated to bring these quotes to light in their paper, Education: An Augustinian Approach.

The Being a Student section of the paper is divided into 12 parts with each offering a number of quotations reflecting Augustine's thought. My plan is to provide one post for every part, choosing one or more quotations that I would like to share with you.

To start, the authors offer an excellent overview of Augustine's perspective on "being a student":

For Augustine, being a student is a lifelong task for all, not a role restricted to those who attend classes or are enrolled in courses. The fundamental task of the student is to learn about themselves and what they are intended to become. Ultimately, being a student is about discovering those things about oneself, one’s world and the transcendent that are necessary for happiness in both this world and the next. Consequently, if we are looking for what Augustine thinks about being a student, we are also asking what Augustine thinks about being a human person. For him the two are closely allied. He sees the whole world and its peoples as a kind of classroom where we are all fellow students. God, the Truth present within each of us, is the Teacher. What follows are but some of Augustine’s reflections about being a student and thus really about being human.

Tomorrow, we'll begin with Augustine's thoughts on "Restless, Striving, Searching."

Augustine's Reflections on Education

I have been doing some research on St. Augustine and came upon this paper that offers insights into his views on education. For those who are not familiar with Augustine, also called Saint Augustine of Hippo (born November 13, 354—died August 28, 430), he served as bishop of Hippo from 396 to 430, was one of the Latin Fathers of the Church and perhaps the most significant Christian thinker after St. Paul. Augustine’s adaptation of classical thought to Christian teaching created a theological system of great power and lasting influence. His numerous written works, the most important of which are Confessions (c. 400) and The City of God (c. 413–426), shaped the practice of biblical exegesis and helped lay the foundation for much of medieval and modern Christian thought. In Roman Catholicism he is formally recognized as a doctor of the church. (Encyclopedia Britannica)

The paper offers general insights into Augustine's thoughts on education, but I would like to focus on what he thought of being a student. The authors of the paper offer an excellent introduction. I'll start with that in the next post.

I thought I would take the next several posts to share with you the thoughts of this great man of faith, especially for those who are students and could use the encouragement and inspiration.