The History of Philosophy on St. Augustine's Confessions

Below is an apt summary of St. Augustine's story in the Confessions provided by Peter Adamson in the website, The History of Philosophy without any Gaps.

http://www.historyofphilosophy.net/augustine-confessions

Excerpts from St. Augustine’s Propositions on St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans Part 1

I have not posted on this blog in a very long time and I do not want to leave this blog when I know it spurred me on to lots of interesting quotes from my patron saint, so I’ll try and post a bit now. Albeit you, dear reader, will have to bear smaller posts, since school, career, and health forbid me from writing more than just some tidbits here and there.

Below I’d like to post a few interesting tidbits from St. Augustine’s Propositions on St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans which was written sometime during 394 AD and so about two or three years before the writing of “Miscellany of Questions in Response to St. Simplicianus”. In this manner, these propositions are a series of notes and writings from his conversations with the other members of the clergy in his vicinity. At this time St. Augustine was a priest for three years, and in the coming year he would succeed Valerius, the bishop in Hippo-Regius, as the bishop of Hippo. This is one of the earliest writings we have in which St. Augustine directly addresses some of the questions in Romans. St. Augustine does address the Law and grace in his earlier anti-Manichean works, but here we see his maturing theology of grace. (I'll write more at another time)

Apologies on Late Blog posts

Hello fellow bloggers and internet folks,

I apologize for my lack of blogging in the past month. I have been struggling with many things in my life this past month. I am having some social relationship problems and am struggling with my workload at the time. I ask you for your prayers and your due patience. My apologies to those who have wanted more blogging about St. Augustine in the coming days. I hope I can get at least one post out this month. Blogging will have to be greatly reduced. Please keep me in your prayers, my name is Steven.

May God bless each and every one of you.

Meister Eckhart, Counsel 11 from Counsels on Discernment, what to do when God is far away from us

Image of Master Eckhart

Hello there everybody,

I would like to post a post from Counsel 11 of Eckhart von Hochheim's (Miester [Master] Eckhart) Counsels on Discernment. Eckhart was a Dominican theologian of the 14th century who was brought up on heretical charges by the Franciscan-led Inquisition of the period. Some of his doctrines were regarded as heretical but according to the Catholic Church's decisions in 2010 he was not condemned in name and so may be read as an orthodox theologian, albeit I add, we ought to be cautious.

Shout out to blog followers

Hi blog followers!

According to my records I've got 3 blog followers and I'd like to make a shout out to you all. Thank you all for supporting my blog and coming to read it from time to time.

I'd just like to write something nice about y'all and perhaps get you all networked too just in case anybody wanted to talk.

St. Augustine brief quotes on Mary's Dormition and Assumption

Hi there, I'd like to put up two quotes on the Our Lady's Dormition from St. Augustine. I found this from a certain Deacon on Facebook. I'm not sure if he was Catholic or Eastern Orthodox, or otherwise. But here they are!

A sketch of a theological view of the Ave Maria (Hail Mary) prayer

14th century Byzantine Annunciation
 ( Evangelismos) icon

This small exposition of mine was drawn up to help me to better reflect on how to teach the Hail Mary prayer, but it got a bit out of hand and there is certainly more content here than just a 4th grade level reflection, which I intended at the outset. All in all, much of my reflection echoes, I think, St. Thomas of Aquinas' reflection on the Hail Mary prayer which did not have the last part of the prayer we know today (Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death). You can find his reflection here.

The prayer Hail Mary is a centuries-old and traditional Catholic prayer that in some of its oldest forms is written without the clause, Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. In light of this, we should understand that the prayer itself comes from both the Holy Scriptures and from the light of Catholic Tradition. The full length of the prayer reads:

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.