St. Augustine
A life filled with unhappiness to happiness, love and lust, and everything in between, St. Augustine lived a life that was nothing far from you and I. Infancy to boyhood, boyhood to adolescence, and adolescence to adulthood, in his “Confessions he talks directly to God, in humility, yet conscious that God is concerned for him personally” (Mack et al. 616). St. Augustine is a saint not because he was perfect, but instead because he was aware of his sins and forever continued learning from his mistakes. All throughout his life he came to bumps in the road and not always dealt with them the best way, but with each one he came closer to the Lord. Augustine recognizes his desire for love through the wrong paths; he admires happiness and searches to find true happiness, and teaches respect for one’s peers, and most importantly, how to be a good friend.
St. Augustine’s definition of love can be found near the end of the first book in which he states: "What is not loved in its own right is not loved." This statement describes the cleanliness of love for itself, not in its selfishness, but charitable in its unselfishness. He acknowledges it was the love God implanted in his parents that he received “not from them but only through them” (Mack et al. 618). Although love was difficult for St. Augustine to grasp at the beginning of his life, it was later on in adulthood when he opened his eyes and gave himself up to feel the everlasting love from his heavenly Father. It is these emotions that come from the soul, which Augustine is able to explain that love can only be measured in relationship to an object. The example he provides is that of a shameful love in which the soul pursues material things that are inferior to itself: "the root of all evils”. Augustine says: “…I confess to You, my God, the desire of my soul, and find soul’s rest in blaming my evil ways that I may love your Holy ways” (Mack et al. 621). He is caught up in the idea of loving and...