#augustine of hippo

[ohholydyke]

When Saint Augustine said “evil and sin doesn’t exist, it’s just an absence of good” and when Saint Julian of Norwich said “sin doesn’t exist, everything is love and charity, we just struggle to perceive and embody that love and thus suffer pain and despair” and when Jesus Christ said to be perfect as god is perfect means to love everyone and when Saint Hildegard said all are sick and feeble and rotting and inherently worthy of love and care and do you see the connections love is everything love is all there is, sin is what happens when we suffer because we do not love and do not allow ourselves to be loved and it’s fixed by restoration of the sinner to the love which never leaves them it just lingers there until they are ready to accept it. The great commandment is love. We are loved and we ought to love. Care community charity affection support interdependence THESE are holy and these are what constitute everything and our oneness in god who is love. The attributes of God aren’t separate. God’s justice is love, his holiness is love, his righteousness is love, his power is love, his knowledge is love. He loved us so much he became us so that we could become one with him in a way creation never could otherwise. That’s why sin entered the world. That’s why the cross happened. So that creator and creation could become one in love through the remedying unification of the passion, like when you have to cut a section out of a tree and cut a branch in order to graft it on so that they become one and begin producing fruit.

The body of Christ is like Van Aken’s tree, which grows forty different types of fruit after a process of careful grafting, tending and growth. Look at it—it’s beautiful. That is our relationship to God through Christ.

[hayleylovesjessica]

Tumblrinas like to talk about what's canon and what's not, but what about the actual literary canon? Which of the following works of Western literature have you read?

[reformedfaith]

If physical objects give you pleasure, praise God for them and return love to their Maker lest, in the things that please you, you displease him… For all that comes from him is unjustly loved if he has been abandoned.

Augustine of Hippo

[koredzas]

Sandro Botticelli - Saint Augustine. 1480

[classic-art-favourites]

The Devil Shows Saint Augustine the Book of Vices by Michael Pacher, 1480.

[lionofchaeronea]

For there is still in human beings a measure of light: let them walk, let them walk, lest the darkness seize them. adhuc enim modicum lumen est in hominibus; ambulent, ambulent, ne tenebrae conprehendant. --Augustine of Hippo, Confessions X.xxiii.33

[emberfrostlovesloki]

Spencer + Poetry

All photo credits at the end

Criminal Minds Characters + Virtues - Spencer and Chastity

"Hope has two beautiful daughters; their names are Anger and Courage. Anger at the way things are, and Courage to make sure they do not stay as they are" (Augustine of Hippo)

I know chastity isn't a word we throw around a lot these days, and even if Spencer is living up to his love life (which I think he is), there are still qualities to this virtue that Spencer portrays. He shows great care and restraint for those around him. He does his best, and when he's given hard situations, like diluted, he tries to work through it without the help of anyone around him. I think he waits to get into relationships, he waits for clues to come together so he can see the bigger picture. I think Spencer embodies chasteness more than anyone on the team. (but come on CM, give him a nice girlfriend/boyfriend please!)

Other Virtue Mood Boards: Aaron + Poetry, Rossi + Poetry, Emily + Poetry, Derek + Poetry, JJ + Poetry

Text Break Banner by @cafekitsune

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Photo Credits

Top: Left (@solivaqant) Center (@saintsuga) Right (@witchthewriter)

Middle: Left (@vivihrts) Center (@spencer-reid-coffee-lover) Right (@personunavailable)

Bottom: Left (@happyheidi) Center (@yuzchaes) Right (@vampire-jack)

[spacieacademic]

When Lord Byron said though pleasure stirs the maddening soul, the heart – the heart – is lonely still and when Oscar Wilde said desire, at the end, was a malady, or a madness, or both and when St. Augustine said in my unlovely state I plunged into those lovely created things

[soulmaking]

Angie Estes, from "True Confessions"

[x-heesy]

Doubt is the origin of wisdoom.

-𝙰𝚞𝚐𝚞𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝙷𝚒𝚙𝚙𝚘

Gimme a Second by Saliva Grey

[beatrack92]

Saint Augustine writing "The City of God" in the early 5th century

[reformedfaith]

In order to discover the character of people we have only to observe what they love.

Augustine of Hippo

[beyond-crusading]

Instead of saying "I'm sorry", try saying conputrui coram oculis tuis, placens mihi et placere cupiens oculis hominum, meaning "I became corrupted in front of your eyes, because it pleased me and because I desired to be pleasant in the eyes of men". It won't help with the guilt but it will make you look cooler.

[classic-art-favourites]

Saint Augustine by Philippe de Champaigne, 1645-1650.

[churchblogmatics-blog]

Books for spiritual formation

Books that have left an indelible mark on my understanding of God or the Christian faith in some way. My spiritual development is unfinished, so this list is unfinished - I'm always open to suggestions

Soren Kierkegaard

The Sickness Unto Death - Explained how sin works psychologically, illustrates how it can be its own punishment

Works of Love - What it means to love, what it costs, what it gives us

Fear and Trembling - What faith means, its miraculous nature

Karl Barth

Evangelical Theology - What theology actually means, how the gospel is good news

The Epistle to the Romans - Shows the need for continual reformation of thought within the church, introduced (to me) the idea of God's freedom in communication to man

Church Dogmatics II.2 - Election is good news! It is God willing to choose humanity despite sin - universal reconciliation can and should be hoped for

The Journal of John Woolman

What undying commitment to justice means, what it looks like

Martin Luther King Jr

Letter from a Birmingham Jail - Made me understand how Romans 13:1 can be integrated into radical politics

A Gift of Love - Brought to life 1 John 4:20

A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving

A narrative illustration of unwavering faith

The Imitation of Christ, Thomas Kempis

What we're saved to, salvation has a telos

Flannery O'Connor

Wise Blood - Life without Christ, the perils of sola scriptura

A Good Man is Hard to Find - Shows grace as an intrusive lived experience

Marilynne Robinson

Gilead novels (Gilead, Home, Lila) - Rich illustration of Imago Dei

When I Was a Child I Read Books - Bolstered my understanding of the 8th commandment (reading with charitable intent, in interactions with others in life and on the page)

What Are We Doing Here? - Illustrates what the glory of God means in daily experience

Garry Wills

What Paul Meant - Paul and Jesus were of a unified mind, stop reading Paul as a bible thumper, start reading him as a man who loved dearly and wrote with urgency on live issues

Religio Medici, Thomas Browne

Ecumenism is a beautiful thing and should be strived for in all Christian communities

The Seven Storey Mountain, Thomas Merton

The gospel brings peace of mind and soul, searching for peace is a valid epistemology

Eichmann in Jerusalem, Hannah Arendt

Wickedness is not inevitable, it arises from moral and intellectual sluggardliness

The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Learn to love the church, it is the arms of Christ; great exegesis of the Sermon on the Mount; great companion to the book of James

White Evangelical Racism, Anthea Butler

Evangelicalism did not emerge from theological first principles, it is a diseased expression of the faith informed by racism at the root

Jesus and John Wayne, Kristin Kobes du Mez

Evangelicalism did not emerge from theological first principles, it is a diseased expression of the faith informed by misogyny at the root

C.S. Lewis

The Great Divorce - Eternity begins now, sin is its own punishment and grace is its own reward

Till We Have Faces - God has compassion and patience for those who wrestle with him, to summon the boldness to contend with God can be a blessed thing

The Courage to Be, Paul Tillich

The dynamics of Christian faith explained in the abstract

As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner

The thinness of intellectual assent, the richness of faith

The Denial of Death, Ernest Becker

Explanation of the existential need faith meets in the language of continental philosophy

Confessions, St. Augustine

The most theologically and philosophically rich testimony besides that of St. Paul

An Unpublished Essay on the Trinity, Jonathan Edwards

What is the trinity, why is it important

John Milton

Areopagitica - Enforced virtue means nothing

Paradise Lost - Human beings are worth saving even if they aren't deserving of God's favor

Civilization and its Discontents, Sigmund Freud

Illustrates the necessity of grace by exploring a world through the assumption of its absence (excellent foil to A Gift of Love)

[writethestory365]

To fall in love with God is the greatest romance; to seek him the greatest adventure; to find him, the greatest human achievement.

St. Augustine