Episode 21

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Shannon: This is episode 23, and today we have something a little different. I'm starting a thirteen week series of conversations with my friend Sean on the seminal work of Saint Augustine, Confessions. We do this on the x social media platform, Wednesdays at 6PM eastern. Sean is the host. It's his discussion, but I've been blessed that he's invited me for that.
So I'm gonna be sharing these conversations here on the Catholic Frequency Podcast, and here's episode one in this series.
Sean: Alright. Alright. Well, good evening again, everyone. I am thrilled to have you all here as always. And tonight especially marks the beginning of quite a special talk.
So tonight, I'm going to be joined with my good friend Shannon from Catholic Frequency. And together, we're about to embark on a wonderful journey through Augustine's landmark theological masterpiece, The Confessions. Now, I'd love to clarify up front that this is not just the beginning of a mere talk on Augustine, but quite frankly a whole series. Shannon and I, we agreed that Confessions is far too rich and far too nuanced to simply gloss over or really do justice in one singular talk. So for the next thirteen or so weeks, we'll be meeting weekly on Wednesdays at this time to do a chapter by chapter read through or or deep dive rather, not read or read through, excuse me, a chapter by chapter deep dive on this wonderful masterpiece.
And quite frankly, I could not be more thrilled nor excited to get on this journey with Shannon and all the beautiful people in attendance as Augustine is a genius in his own right, and I truly and thoroughly believe that his work confessions it. The more you read it, the more it has the power to transform and change your life for the better. But with that said, I'd say it's appropriate tonight to get started with a quick mic check. So, Shannon, how are you doing, my friend?
Shannon: Doing great, Sean. I'm I'm honored that you invited me to be on this journey with you and, looking forward to it. We've we've done a couple of spaces together in the past. Spaces together in the past on, the sexual revolution and Kate Millet and some of that stuff, and I'm looking forward to, doing a lot more with you. At least 13 more.
Right?
Sean: Most definitely. Most definitely. Yeah. We've had, about two or three conversations in the in the past. And, I mean, every time, I I felt the chemistry was great.
I love the audience, and they were just some of the most, for me, at least personally, edifying talks, that I could count myself having in my year or so on Twitter. So that really just has me that much more excited and optimistic for what we can uncover for the next, 13 or so, discussions and sessions here. With that said, I do believe this is the first time we're doing a space together where I'm hosting you. At this point, I'm sure most people in the audience are familiar with you, but for anyone who may not, know you and your work, is there a would you like to start with just a quick little introduction, bio, background of what got you on Twitter in the first place?
Shannon: Sure. Sure. Let me say it does feel different being on this side of the table. Being being somewhat of a control freak, a little a little different on this side of the table. But, yeah, I started the, this account, Catholic frequency, actually six years ago, and I kinda didn't really do much with it the first maybe three years, three or four years.
I think I had, like, a hundred followers in '20 early twenty twenty three. But about a year and a half ago, I got serious about posting the true, the good, the beautiful, all of those things, of course, contained in the Catholic faith. But but even beyond that, we we post things about great architecture and and, you know, we we go outside the the boundaries of the faith sometimes and where where it aligns. And so just in the last year, I think I hosted 500 spaces last year. So, a lot of those were like rosaries and stuff, but, a lot of discussions, a lot of of conversations like we had before, met a lot of people.
X is such an amazing platform where we meet people. You know, Sean, you and I would never have met, you know, if it weren't for X. Right? And so we get to meet people and we get to meet our people we admire and learn from. And I always like doing spaces with people who are a lot smarter than me.
And that's that's not hard to find because because I learn I learn a lot. And a lot of the spaces I do are not things I'm expert an expert on. It's more of like, you know, it's a learning journey for me because I'm interested in that.
Sean: Yeah. Most definitely. Most definitely. I would say that really is a a small miracle when you think about the nature of these spaces. I mean, I've done spaces with Evan, see Athenian and and Dominique in the crowd as well.
It's it's funny how, yeah, you cross paths with people you'd never meet, people in Italy or Australia, our good friend, Imperator. It really is a miracle that you, you know, through social media that you can find people of a similar like minded interest where you can come together and have these beautiful conversations that, quite frankly, I can never have in in the real life just because you don't meet these people in day to day. Like, the fact we get to now do a thirteen week deep dive on Augustine, like, this is a dream come true. Let's be real here. So, yeah, I consider
Shannon: I always laugh because our friend Imperator, what an incredible person he is. I met him and I think we're doing like an I was in like an eighties music space. That's how I met him. That's how that whole series of of conversations I've had with him started, and he's the one who invited me into that that save the west group we're in, which is kinda how I met you. So it's really amazing.
You never know when you go into one space to be on the craziest topic where that thread weaves in the tapestry and leads you.
Sean: Yeah. 100%. Providence is, it's it's quite a funny and miraculous thing. Yeah. With that said, I think it's, good to maybe start, transitioning into a little bit about, Augustine himself.
Before we go into the the actual book one of the confessions, I thought it might be appropriate to give a little primer on just the significance of Augustine, as context. So for maybe a very brief bio, Augustine, he was, born fourth century in North Africa. I think, specifically it's the year March, around thereabouts. But, you know, he's, most celebrated in Catholic tradition as a doctor of the church, meaning one of the the prominent teachers who was not just significant and relevant for his time but was found to be, well, wise and astute enough that his he's cosigned by the church and his teach teaching is seen as timeless. I'd say what he was really most notable for was his, synthesis of Greek philosophy, especially Plato with Christian theology.
And so you you see in this intellectual giant the beginning of this, galactic marriage of faith and reason that really proceeds a lot of interesting, intellectual, philosophical, and theological growth, for the next five hundred or so years, throughout the medieval period. And if you want to just get a sense of Augustine's influence, if you're to listen to the words of Doctor. Peter Kreeft, he says, outside of Augustine, there's been no one man who would have had a greater influence on the medieval period of scholasticism or philosophical and theological understanding as Saint Augustine with perhaps the exception of Socrates. So all of this is to say this man is a brilliant intellectual powerhouse, and, I mean, he he's been found to be timeless and relevant for throughout the ages. So, before we jump into the the story specifically, is there anything you'd like to add to that, Shannon?
Any sort of parting words or comments on, Augustine the man?
Shannon: Yeah. Yeah. You know, we talk about faith and reason. Of course, We we hear a lot about that from Aquinas, and we hear we we that great encyclical from pope John Paul the second, faith and reason. I won't try to say it in Latin.
Pope Benedict talked a lot about this. I just wanted to share a quote, if I could, off the top here about what pope Benedict said about Saint Augustine. Pope Benedict, of course, is elected supreme pontiff in 02/2005. This was about three years later. He said, when I read Saint Augustine's writings, I do not get the impression that he is a man who died more or less sixteen hundred years ago.
I feel like he is a man of today, a friend, a contemporary who speaks to me, who speaks to us with his fresh and timely faith. So it just it's just amazing that, you know, sixteen hundred years later, he still has this impact on people.
Sean: I mean, that's a beautiful quote and very fortuitous because I think it segues perfectly into what I wanted to say next is, well, so what is so special about Confessions? You know, what is it, and why should you read it? And, I mean, ultimately, Confessions, even though I was just, you know, we we were just hyping up Augustine as this, intellectual powerhouse, which he is, Confessions is it's an autobiography. So it it doesn't necessarily read as a strict, philosophical work like you might expect with the rigors of, say, Thomas Aquinas. This is far more like a work of poetry and an autobiography and, like, a story of one man confessing, you should say, his sins and his sort of, fortuitous path to to God.
So, I mean, what I love about Augustine is, I mean, on the surface, this is the story of a wicked sinner who became a saint, a man who, by his own confessions, committed just about every sin in the book. And, really, his entire life, he was plagued with the sense of a burning heart, right, this restless passion and longing for God or truth or a solace, the the truth that can set him free. And he searched everywhere highs and lows and pleasure, honor, wealth, fame. Pleasure again, he certainly loved his lust. And he's he he looked high and low, philosophy too, and he just he he couldn't find it until he found God.
So, yes, on the one sense, this is a very deeply rich and personal and poetic story of a wicked sinner who became a saint. But at the same time, as you brought out through that, that that quote there is that Augustine's story, it it really is our story. That in a sense, there's also this wonderful sense of universality to Augustine. The more you read him, the more you can't help but see yourself in his shoes. You you can get the sense of this constant yearning, this desire for, like, where is this this joy that can that I I yearn for.
It's out there. This sort of CS Lewis idea. I'm surprised by a joy that I a longing for something that I don't know what it is. I've never seen it, but it's out there. So if there's a desire, there must be a place for it to go.
What is the search for happiness in my life? What is the meaning to life? And I I think the point here is when you put yourself in Augustine's shoes, it's not necessarily to say, oh, like, I'm a sinner like him. I'm fallen like him. It's well, I mean, it's yes.
There's certainly nice to feel a bit of, like, I'm not alone in my struggles, but there's also this wonderful sense of, I'd say, hope and optimism of, well, if Augustine's story is my story, then perhaps I perhaps I too am getting called to the same level of greatness. Perhaps I too am being called to a saint. Perhaps there's a a call to adventure in my life and perhaps I can learn something from Augustine and maybe my life can dawn some sort of miraculous narrative like his does. And I think once you really begin to to see the connection of yourself in his shoes, that's when the story, this this really heart wrenching autobiography begins to take a life of its own.
Shannon: I love it in in book one, as we'll get, I guess we'll talk about, this is where this famous quote is, and it's pretty early, right? The our heart is restless until it rests in d. Might be one of his. Would you would you say, Sean, that that's might be his one of his most famous quotes?
Sean: Yeah. I would, I would most certainly argue it's probably one of the most famous quotes in his entire corpus. In fact, I I think it might be familiar. I have it up in front of me, that we might just go ahead and read the first, two paragraphs because it's yes. It's some of his most famous writing, but also as you we've been pointing out, there's a there's a sense of poetry too that it's it's not just pontificating.
You you like you need to feel the sense of a passion. Right? This this sense of a yearning for God. Maybe that gives some quick context into book one. Well, what is this detailing in Augustine's autobiography?
It's, it's detailing his first fifteen years. So it it's it's kind of, two main sections as first fifteen years. It begins with this prayer to God that we'll we'll read out here and and talk about. A prayer to God and meditating upon him. And then he really begins to reflect on his infancy up to, say, pre adolescent boyhood and discussing, well, the nature of what started this sort of burning heart and this restless passion inside of himself.
So unless there's, oh, yeah. Yeah. Please go ahead, Kathy or Shannon.
Shannon: I wanted to before we sort of really dig into book one, I just wanted to ask you a question, and that is what made you you've told me a little bit about your story before in getting getting to love literature, but what made you want to embark on this thirteen week journey of sort of digging through this?
Sean: Well, you know, I suppose that's a very good question. The the the very simple borderline answer, I I have a general philosophy that the the great books are not meant to be read, but they're meant to be reread and reread and reread. And with Augustine, I especially have had the sense lingering on me for months more than ever. I've read it, I've read it once, through and through. And I find myself constantly within especially the past year, always going back to it, always going back to it, always going back to it.
And I just I really found a sense of I really want to do another read through and I really want to take my time and like really chew on each and every single word for a period of months because this is a book that has specifically been calling to me, ceaselessly, really since I've been on Twitter, honestly. So I think that's probably the big why. And of course, needing to find a great co host who'd be willing to go on such a journey with me. Okay. So, yeah.
With that said, I'll be happy to, jump into the story itself. And I guess that most of this will actually just be a discussion, not a straight read through, but I will go ahead and read the first two paragraph of confessions just because it does have some of Augustine's most famous writing and it really gives you a great sense of his poetry, his prose, the beauty in which he writes. So from the beginning, this is how confession starts and it begins as Augustine's offering up a prayer to God. He says, great art thou, oh, Lord, and greatly to be praised. Great is thy power, and of thy wisdom, there is no number.
And man desires to praise thee. He is but a tiny part of all that thou hast created. He bears about him his mortality, the evidence of his sinfulness, and the evidence that thou dost resist the proud. Yet this tiny part of all that thou hast created desires to praise thee. Thou dost so excite him that to praise thee is his joy.
For thou hast made us for thyself, and our hearts are restless till they rest in thee. Grant me, oh, lord, to know which is the soul's first movement toward thee, to implore thy aid or to utter its praise of thee, and whether it must know thee before it can implore. For it would seem clear that no one can call upon thee without knowing thee. For if he did, he might invoke another than thee, knowing thee not. Yet may it be that a man must implore thee before he can know thee?
But how shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? Or how shall they believe without a preacher? And they shall praise the lord that seek him. And for those that seek, they shall find. And finding him, they will praise him.
Let me seek the lord. Let me seek thee by praying thy aid, and let me utter my prayer believing in thee. For thou hast been preached to us. My faith, lord, cries to thee. The faith that thou hast given me, that thou has and breathed in me through the humanity of thy son and by the ministry of thy preacher.
So it's of my opinion that of these first two paragraphs, we could probably this alone go for an hour or two. I mean, as you had already brought up Shannon, and and these two paragraphs alone, we see some of his most famous writing. And, the big phrase to harp on that you had said here is that, I'll repeat it for emphasis, for thou hast made us for thyself, and our hearts are restless till they rest in thee. So in a sense, this is almost like what the spoiler would be, in the sense that this autobiography is about thirty or so years of Augustine burning and burning and searching and, tortured with the soul who's looking for truth and looking for a sense of peace. And, the great realization is what he presents the right up front here.
Our hearts are restless till they rest in thee. Though our hearts are inflamed and they're longing for the truth, it's not until you can settle and and fully surrender to him that you can finally find the sense of peace, solace, and joy that you're already looking for.
Shannon: It's such a beautiful quote. I I think I read a different translation than you. My my version said, our heart is restless until it repose in thee. But we're restless because we were made with this void in our heart for God, and it made me sort of think like, what do we try to fill that up with? As as Augustine was filling it with with, as you said, he was a pretty severe sinner.
But, you know, one of the first things, of course, that comes to mind is money. Right? The pursuit of money. Right? Money is not wrong, but the love of money, the root of all evil, as it says in scripture.
Sensual pleasures, that's everything. Right? That's too much food, too much drink, sexual gratification outside your state in life, power and control. Some people try to fill that void by controlling other people in some way, whether that's just manipulating people in their personal life or they wanna become whatever president of their country or whatever. People pursue fame and recognition.
It's not wrong to want to be liked or validated, but again, like everything, it's about temperance. That cardinal virtue of temperance can go too far. You know, the West and certainly in America, we had this big notion of self reliance and again we can try to fill that void. We try to convince ourselves, I think, sometimes that we don't need anybody else. Right?
And there's just all kind of other ones. Right? You can you can try to fill it with with with romance, with with finding a person you build your world around that's, you know, you're you're putting them before God. It's all kind of stuff like that. But I don't know if any of that, intellectual pride is another one.
You know, people with a resume with all their all their degrees and stuff, and they they put their they try to fill it that way. But you have anything about that, Sean, this sort of, sparks a thought?
Sean: Many, many, many, many thoughts. Now the first thing I would notice is that what you're really articulating is yes, that if Augustine's conclusion is our hearts are restless till they rest in thee, as we'll find out, he only comes to that conclusion as he finds out that God is the the very last thing that he settles on. This is a man who spends his entire lifetime looking for happiness in, you know, all the wrong places. It I think it really starts with a he sort of blames his sinful nature itself to some extent and also his education. We'll get into this a bit more later in the talk, but he he certainly feels that he's been taught to love the the pride and the vanities of being a remarkable businessman, of being someone who learns classical education, not for the sake of wisdom, but to put on a show, to show how evocative you can be to cry at the death of Dido and, the Aeneid and so on and so forth.
So, there it's a very interesting, attack you'll have on classical education, later on in book one, but I think I'm getting a little ahead of myself. I think one less thing to harp on home here. This is probably a theme that we'll be coming back to again and again because this seems to be the core of what led to Augustine's realization of our hearts are restless till they rest in thee. It's a Latin phrase. I'm gonna I'm not great with Latin, so pardon my pronunciation, but it's, Credo Ut Intelligence, if I said that right.
This was actually written by Saint Anselm of Canterbury, but it was inspired by Saint Augustine's writing. And and what that translates to is I believe in order to understand. And a very large part of what leads to Augustine's hang ups with not being able to accept the faith throughout his life is not for a lack of, like, intellectual understanding of Christianity. In fact, there comes a a place later in his twenties where he is for a couple of years, he says, you know what, like, intellectually, this makes sense. Like, this Christian faith, it certainly seems better than all the other philosophies of the day I've learned, the Manichaeism and so on and so forth.
But for I I just I can't make the leap. I don't know why. And what's really significant, I believe in order to understand. The very first time I heard this, I'm like, how does that make sense? Isn't that nonsensical?
Doesn't understanding precede belief? What, like, what is so how does this work? Like, isn't this what we call blind faith? And it it's not exactly. So the point that Augustine is making here is that your the the your, like, foundational philosophical axioms and beliefs with which which you use as a lens to see the world and perceive reality will dictate your your your sense of truly being able to understand.
To put it in layman's terms, if you assume a atheist materialist framework, you're going to make presuppositions and, you know, quite literally see reality through sheer materialism. And therefore, you can hear arguments that might make all the logical sense in the world, but it's not going to go here to you if you're there's ever appeals to faith or spiritual or anything metaphysical beyond yourself because you're grounded in these limitations. So you can see here where there's a bit of an intellectual rigor behind Augustine. But his point is in in many ways, you have to make a leap of faith first before you can fully and truly come to understand God and how he rests in you. I mean, this is even a sort of known in more secular conventions.
I have a friend who went through AA and the the 12 steps of AA. I think it's step one is admit I'm powerless. Step two is admit that there's a God above me, a higher power beyond me. And step three is to surrender yourself to him if I remember that right. And that's the same thing.
I'm like, well, that's weird. If you're trying to be sober, why do you need to talk about God? And why do you need to surrender to him and acknowledge your powerlessness? And why does this have to precede your sense of inventory and your sense of genuine understanding and spiritual clarity? It's like, it's counterintuitive at first, but really the first leap you have to make to have a true and rich and living sense of faith is the courage to take that leap of faith and say, I believe first.
And if you make that leap, this alters your framework that you can begin to understand. You begin to open yourself up to God. Again, I'm getting a little ahead of myself. These are almost the spoilers, but this is what Augusto will be spending his entire life working towards as he's searching.
Shannon: You're the host. You you can't actually get ahead of yourself. We talk about whatever you wanna talk about, whenever you wanna talk about it. The benefits of being nice. Fair
Sean: enough. Fair enough. Yeah. The power is gonna go to my head soon enough. Don't worry.
Yeah. So happy to kind of carry on through the autobiography unless there are any other comments you had to to make to that.
Shannon: I I just wanna comment a little bit on the, like, the very first opening line. You know, my the translation I read, great art thou, oh lord, and greatly to be praised. I believe that is very similar to one of the Psalms. I think it's Psalm one forty five. It's in chapter one forty five.
But it's just so beautifully poetic. And like you said, this longing that he was on for decades. The the the when he finds it, he's just overwhelmed.
Sean: 100%. And this I again, this ties on something that is so crucial and so, important to Augustine. Right? So we already just said he learns I have to believe in order to understand I must open myself up. And yeah, when you are reading through confessions, you realize that this writing, it is completely completely laced with the Psalms.
Like there's footnotes at the bottom of the, the translated editions. And you can't go with a page without seeing two or three or four either direct references to Psalms like verbatim word for word written down or, or just references to the Psalms. And this is it's quite remarkable. There there's another important distinction to learn about Augustine as a person here that Augustine had a sort of reverse training where he basically had spent his life studying classical education first and then philosophy. And then it was like he he he learned the theology less as a priest.
If I remember correctly, when he became a priest, the very first thing he did was he requested a leave of absence so that he could go and do a singular deep dive study on scriptures, particularly the Psalms. And throughout all of his writings, while we're he's known for confessions in City of God, which is about 700 pages. His longest work that he spent, I think, twenty six years writing was just exegetical analysis analysis on on, the Psalms, which is kind of miraculous. It's like, well, what's going on here? Why is this man since the beginning of his ordination?
Why does he have an obsession with the Psalms? Why does he devote twenty six years of analysis to them? Why is this the most of his writing? And why is it that when he's writing confessions, it feels like this like these psalms are just ingrained into his mind? Why is he like a walking bible in the sense that he's living and breathing the the word of God of scripture?
This is something I'm still really wrestling with and unpacking myself, but I think part of it has to do with the the general idea of the Psalms when you sing them is it's it's supposed to really hamper on your your relationship with God that they they're expressed in the lamentation and then they're also expressed in times of praise and everything in between. So I think the idea is though God is always extending his grace. It's on us to meet him that, you know, our hearts are restless till they rest in thee while we learn to rest in thee through the Psalms. Like, this is the scripturally sanctioned means in which you can communicate with God and build this personal, intimate, one on one relationship. And it's it's through the Psalms, through songs of Lamentation and praise and everything in between that you learn to seek God in all things and really find God and find providence in all things.
And you get the sense that this is the, the sort of mindset of Augustine by the time he's writing this is he has such a burning passion and such a longing for God and such a close intimate relationship with them that he quite literally sees him in all the waking minutiae and small moments of his life. That this is this faith has fundamentally transformed him, that his reality has changed before his eyes because he can see providence in the hand of the creator in each and every single work that he does.
Shannon: I don't know if you read that book by Cardinal Sara. It's called, silence against the dictatorship of noise, but I sort of think about like Augustine. Of course, he lives in this totally different era. Right? There's no there's no radio.
There's no no listen to all this stuff. We live in this era where, you know, the phone's going off, the iPad's going off. It's just it's like a cacophony of noise constantly. So sensory overload a lot of times. And Cardinal Sower writes in this book how, you know, without silence, without that interior reflection, you know, you can't really find God.
He talks about how, you know, Jesus would go off and pray, go to the desert. He talks about the, you know, the, the desert fathers, the monks who would who who who wanted to get away from the noise of the city. And I think about that. I wonder, like, if Augustine had lived, you know, and had an iPhone and an Apple Watch and, a PlayStation and Netflix, would he would he have, you know, would he would he have made it through and and found his way? But we were and we'll get into it later, I guess, in later chapters.
But, of course, he's got this wonderful mother that's praying for him, and we we remember that, I think some of the saints talk about this. There's people that we should that have no one to pray for them, and so they don't make it to heaven. So we should always include that in our prayers that those people that have no one praying for them because because she, of course, a saint herself, you know, prayed him away from this whatever thirty, forty, whatever it was, decades decades long, you know, journey through sin and to be not just a saint, not just a priest, not just, you know, a good guy for his time, but I'm sure he could not have fathomed that sixteen hundred years later, there'd be people sitting around talking about him like we are today.
Sean: I really love that you bring up his mother because, I mean, for one, by all accounts, she seems like such an extraordinary woman. And to my understanding that it's, I could be going off the the riff here, but it it seems that it could be possible that especially in the realm of prayer, women's and mothers prayers for their children have this perhaps a particularly special gravity to them. This is, like, particularly wonderful form of charity. And though, Augustine's mother is not a, like, direct character in, this, this confessions, his autobiography, you really get the sense of feeling her presence guiding him through his life, the entire time. Because he writes about how, like, she never stops praying for me and that though I was going into this world of waywardness and getting caught up in each and every single lust and had no one guiding me.
There was only one woman in my darkest hours who was constantly praying for me and constantly in mind, body, and soul always trying to push me to virtue, always trying to get me back on the straight and narrow. I've heard some people say that, I think it was a little flippantly, but they're like, if, Guston's a a saint, then his mother has to be one too because, without his mother, we certainly have no Saint Augustine. But I think that's really important because, you know, as we find out as Augustine is writing in book one, he's really detailing his his early years. And though his mother is a very positive influence on him, he otherwise has a not so great start to his his childhood, at least from the measure of virtue versus vice. He says almost from the beginning, he he kind of comments on what he believes to be a sort of sinful nature.
He has this line that it's kind of makes me laugh out loud every time. It's, I I have it right here. I'll just read it. He goes, the innocence of children is in the helplessness of their bodies rather than any quality of their minds. I have myself seen a small baby jealous.
It was too young to speak, but it was livid with anger as it watched another infant at the breast. And I laugh because he's kind of, talking about himself in the self deprecating sense of from the beginning, I was, born into iniquity as this world has fallen into iniquity. So he he's basically is already making a claim from that from the very beginning, we have this sense of, violence and, a fallen nature that needs to be tempered and needs to be constrained. And that much of the meaning of our life is not necessarily of building grand castles in the sky in the literal sense or seeking principalities of power. Rather much of our life is simply a slow and steady refinement of character of I mean, what's the classic, stoic saying?
Like, if you really want to be a master, learn to or if you wanna be a conqueror, learn to conquer yourself. That's really what Augustine is getting at here is, you know, from the beginning, like we're not born innocent, but the meaning of life is found particularly in the internal battles you have inside of yourself. If you have struggles or fears or insecurities inside of you, well, here's where the meaning is. Here's where you can go to war spiritually, if not literally. And it's here where you're voluntarily confronting these fears that you have this all almost spiritually refining process of orienting yourself closer to that, which is true and good and beautiful and ultimately God himself.
Shannon: That's beautiful what you were saying about his mother and that, that influence. You know, we all of us, like like you say, there's nothing more special than than a mother or a mother's prayers, but all of us have a sphere of influence, you know, in our lie in the course of our lives. Let's just say we live seventy five or eighty years. We're gonna probably have a deep influence, you know, unless we're really famous on maybe a hundred people, maybe you know what I mean? As people different people in our lives over time.
And you never know how you affect people. And that's why being rich in virtue, being temperate, being prudent, being courageous when you need to be, just in those little things. Like like like they there was a, I think it was in the nineteen sixties or seventies, but there was there was someone who in San Francisco went I'm getting way off topic here, but but he he and it's not funny. He he killed himself. He went to the Golden Gate Bridge and jumped off.
But he left a note at his house, and he said, if someone smiles at me between here and the bridge, I won't jump. But nobody did. So even the very smallest random acts of kindness, matter. And it's the reverse is true. Right?
Your boss is mean to you at work, and you feel like he's unfair, that that old thing, and then you come home and kick your dog or whatever. Like, when people are unkind to you and uncharitable to you, it bleeds out of you sometimes and into other people, infects your relationship with other people. So we have that greatest sort of influence on us, our mothers, but I think sometimes we forget how much we can affect people that we don't even know around us. And again, we're so distracted. The world's so noisy.
We're just this super fast paced. Gotta do this, gotta do this, gotta do this, that we sometimes aren't present in the moment. We don't see the person that they're upset. You know, we're just, hey, how you doing? We don't really we don't really wanna know.
We're just saying that. Right? And so it just reminds me that, we have to well, I'll speak for myself. I have to work on being a better person in in that way. But, I mean, the examples of of the great saints, of course, are an inspiration.
Sean: Most definitely. I I think you're really tying to another point here, which is what I love about Confessions so much is, again, Confessions for the masterpiece that it is is, I mean, a work of humility. Again, if we're we're considering that this is probably the masterpiece of one of the most influential, theologians and philosophers in the history of mankind. When you, load it up like that, it can almost be a little underwhelming at first when you're like, wait. It's just a 150 or 200 page autobiography of someone talking to God.
Like, if you're, like, laying that up in comparison to say, Aquinas' Summa Theologica, like, some 3,000 words, like, of a giant skyscraper that's most, like, intricately crafted and, like, really analyzes everything to a t and leaves nothing out. You're almost like, well, what's what's going on here? Like, why why is this personal story so so moving? Like, what what is the genius of it? And I think it's particularly what you're getting at here that, Augustine realizes that the personal is really where everything changes.
I mean, for your life and also how you change reality. The we all know that the the common temptation, particularly in the more realm of the political for those who are maybe of the revolutionary type, who really want to change the world, they almost have a reverse hierarchical hierarchical, excuse me, order and understanding of how to change the world where they're concerned with these macro ideas of globalism and world peace, and how are we going to fix the climate and fix the reality. Right? It's always just like outward and then refracting back to you, personally. And so it's with Augustine, it's it's funny because it's almost a paradox, but it really is.
If you want to change reality, you start with changing yourself. It's something that when you first hear that, you really are just going to scoff and you're like, oh, okay. Yeah. Like, that sure. That's going to make a a big difference, but this is how I mean, of of course, you actually start to refine your own soul to be virtuous.
And as you said, this is what really, elucidates your your own being with truth, beauty, and goodness such that you become this more vehicle of grace that you let the the light and the goodness shine through you when people will notice that. Everyone here, I'm sure, knows that that to the extent that you've looked up at the the greatest good you can conceptualize or at god himself and have tried to aspire to be a good person and the more you've aligned that, I'm sure everyone has seen that others have either started to open up to them a bit more or say like, wow. Like, something's great about you or someone might go, I don't know you, but can I just confide something in you? It happens. That's like that's where the, the miracles of life are.
And, real quick, I have been getting a few requests to speak. I would love to have some guest speakers come up for questions and comments, at the end, but there's a few, points that, Shannon and I first want to make through first in the time frame. So I see your requests. We'll try to get you, around 07:15, seven twenty ish. But back to you, Shannon.
Shannon: Yeah. I love I loved what you're saying about how some people see it in reverse, like, in the real macro level to change things. It reminds me of people in the church to complain about things, and the church has all these problems in the church, and, you know, they blame the bishops and, you know, listen, some bishops, you know, they have their share of responsibility. But it's really us. If we wanna fix the church, it's one person at a time.
Like, all of our collective sins affects and hurt the church, and we can't I I just really this sort of grab me, like, all these, like, revolutionaries. Yeah. We have to remember that it starts with us. If we're not happy with the world or the church or our job, grow in virtue, pray more, focus, you know, inward, try to have silence. And that's really the way you influence things around you and and change.
It's not, like you said, let's start a revolution.
Sean: Absolutely. It it and Augustine's story on that personal level, it really reeks of the the the CS Lewis line of, right, no, no man knows how bad he is until he has tried very hard to be good. Because, I mean, this is essentially what Augustine is doing his entire life is maybe not his entire life, but at least through his twenties. He's taking this, like, very stark moral inventory of what is true and how can I improve? And it's like the more that you actually try to be good, the more you realize, all of the, you know, the the faults and the flaws and the the darkness that kinda starts to crawl up out of you.
It's like, oh, you you wanna change the world? Well, how about first can you be can can you follow purity? For Augustine, it was for a long time a very hard no. And it's like, oh, how are you gonna fix everything if you can't be in control of yourself? But, again, I I really hate to to harp on this point.
I do in so many spaces, but I don't think any of us, myself included, can meditate upon it enough of I think all of us truly do underestimate how much we change the world just by changing ourselves, like getting our acts together. It's, it's on the one hand, the most basic advice, but you really don't, you cannot under you cannot possibly like conceive how miraculous it is. Like, I know there are, sometimes where I I look back at me now versus my, waywardness in my twenties. And I look like I I I think, like, wow. Like, this is clearly a miracle because only by the grace of God and providence and something guiding me could I have gotten here from the the very big wretched mess that I was.
And you begin to just, like, genuinely fall in love with life just by seeing, like, wait, what was guiding me through all that? Because there's no way I can do this. I mean, the fact that there's, what, twenty, thirty of you in here right now listening to this talk. I don't know what you guys are all gonna do in here, but, like, I did not plan any of this big. It's just, like, let's just throw something together and, wow.
Like, people wanna hear this. So it's it really is if you get a proper aim and you trust that and you just kind of trust that process day to day, even though you don't necessarily see the changes happening in the moment, it's like on the macro, it really multiplies serendipitously. And soon, it's just like the fruit of this is you really discover who the heck you are all along. Right? This is you find the the the answer to your restless heart in this, like, burning passion in your chest.
And you also just, like, get a sense of, like, peace. Like, you can look in the mirror and say, God is good. And, and through that, you can look at yourself and you can just have a, an easier conscience of like, okay, like through this love, through this sacrifice, through this offering up, through this seeking, I've found myself a bit more or I found myself through him. It's really, again, it's interesting humility, this loss of self that leads to finding self and everything you need.
Shannon: I think it's also like when you reach this point, like you're talking about, and you look back, you can appreciate the suffering or not not like it, but you see you see the purpose. Right? Because this happened, and I went through this pain. It caused me to take the fork in the road this way instead of that way, and then you see all the benefits of that. And you sort of see how God is steering and letting not necessarily sending you pain, but allowing it to come knowing where it will take you.
Sean: That's a great point. And that also, I mean, Augustine himself writes on that in book one. Right? He he discusses how in his infancy, his early years, he is sick with this sort of stomach illness and it's bad enough that the doctors are expecting the worst. Like he might die within a few days.
And so what was expected to happen at this point was that he was going to get baptized because of course, like his mother wants to save his soul. But then what happens is he he makes this sort of miraculous recovery out of nowhere. But because he recovered so fast and comes back to good health, he doesn't get baptized. And you might wonder, well, why? The practice at the time, if I remember correctly, is that, you you didn't wanna get baptized too early because people were afraid.
Well, if you get baptized too early and you start sinning again, you might lose your grace. So the the custom and the practice was you you delay baptism until closer to the end of your life. And Augustine, when he's writing confessions now in book one and reflecting back on this, he has this interesting response in which he says, like, man, this was a this was a grave mistake. Like, why why didn't I just get baptized? I really wish my mother would have baptized me or, you know, my father.
I wish someone would have. It would have spared me so much pain and so much trouble. I would have been able to have opened myself up to your grace that much sooner, god, and have found you. And he starts to reflect on his years, his thirty or so years of misery and sufferings. But he he he comes to this nice sort of takeaway if he says, well, though I don't understand your your reasoning, God, I don't know why you you let this happen such that I I suffered so much, but I can see and I can trust that it was for the greater glory because through making every mistake in the book and making all of these errors and misgivings.
You know, through that, I have grown in wisdom and seeing the error of my ways, and it's only helps me grow my love for you. So it it touches on the theological idea that wicked sins that are repented for now become virtues that help you greatly. And I think this ties to the idea of Augustine, and in general that great saints and great sinners are much closer alike than we might otherwise expect. That great sinners tend to be also motivated by a remarkable passion like Augustine was. Right?
Like, a remarkable passion of, like, I want happiness, or I think this will make me happy, or I think this is good. And the sinners are usually just aiming at the wrong thing by just a little bit, a few hairs, where if you just orient all of your passions properly, as Augustine finally learns in his conversion, this is what now synergizes all of your wicked vices to become wonderful virtues. It's like the Plato chariot. Like, the the horses that are drawing you around, your your passions and your appetites, now that they're guided by the chariots here, now you can go to the the greatest good. And now you can transform yourself.
And as we see in Augustine, his his self transformation leads to a world transformation that, I mean, here we are seventeen hundred years later still discussing this book.
Shannon: I was thinking about when you're talking when when you're saying that, you know, why didn't I get baptized earlier? Again, if we could look into some, you know I watched too too many sci fi movies, but if we could look into some alternate timeline where he did get baptized early, right, he probably doesn't become who he becomes. And oftentimes, again, it's our pain that sort of defines us and and sends us where we need to go, like the apostles. There had to be persecution in Jerusalem to sort of propel them out of Jerusalem to spread the gospel, because, you know, otherwise, they just probably hung out in Jerusalem. You know?
They might have gone out a few times, but, that persecution was required to spread it far and wide.
Sean: Most definitely. I mean, I I think that really is a a great point. Like, Augustine is not Augustine without his burning heart. Like, that's what we we know him for above all else is his confessions and specifically his struggles with sin. So, I mean, I I think that's really one of the great acts of hope that all of us can take is if we look at our baggage in the closet, either from the past or something that we're struggling with now, it's like that, of course, like this is something to to wrestle with and it's it's no simple matter, but these great burdens that you carry are the what was properly handled, this becomes a wonderful invitation to true grace and true, true transformation.
This is what the ties to the theological idea of there's glory and suffering it's. And I I love this as it's the crux of spiritual warfare that desolation is if you have a proper aim, desolation is not a bad thing. In fact, if anything, desolation and suffering is a sign that you're on the exact right path and therefore the the very things you are wrestling with right in front of you, like, in in the the case of a gust and lust and careerism and pride, it's like, well, if you wrestle these, this will change your character. This will transform your being, and this transforms your world. So again, it's funny how we we kind of keep naturally getting to.
You look inside. You you you address your burning heart. You fight the greatest demons in front of you right now. This turns you into a sort of I mean, in mythical terms, this is the hero's journey. Right?
Now you're the hero of the story, and because you have, properly conformed yourself or at least to a greater extent to the logos to God, to the true, good, and beautiful, you now ripple this outward and now you are your body has become a temple as scripture says. Right? Now you are affecting change for the good far greater than you can conceive on your own with your own limited intellect. But because you are attached to the source of all goodness, now you are beginning to walk and discern and truly understand what it means when you say life is good. It's a very rich and theological and ontological claim you can make about reality itself when you you carry your cross essentially.
Shannon: I'm a convert, a Catholic convert. So before I was Catholic, I wasn't I didn't understand or certainly didn't like this this what I perceived at the time is this sort of this Catholic fascination with suffering, sort of accepting it. You know, I was going to some churches that were like, you know, you can just pray it all away, and God wants you to whatever. Have a Cadillac and be perfectly happy, and, you know, you'll have no problems or whatever. So, yeah, after becoming Catholic and, you know, taking that journey, you you do appreciate, you know, and and it sounds weird to say, but you you see the value in it.
It might might be a better way to say it.
Sean: Absolutely. Again, this really ties into that that that saying of it. It's creative woods intelligem. I I believe so that I can understand. In many ways, if you're on the outside looking in, this this can sound like insanity.
Like, what? Carry your cross, die for me, or or suffer her? Like, you know, deny yourself and, and go through pain and torments just like I have, and this is good for you. And it's like, yeah, right. Okay.
Why would anyone buy that? Except people did buy that, and people died and died and died for that as the early martyrs of the faith for three hundred years. And people to this day are still abiding by this mission that I must carry my cross. So it really like, that's where I think curiosity is what's important above all else, that it's not necessarily I I must theologically understand everything. It with my return to Catholicism, there were plenty of things I didn't understand, but I I sort of had this faith of, well, okay.
Well, kind of as I've figuratively learned to carry my cross, things are getting better. So I don't understand it now, but I guess I'll try to do these things. It's like action precedes understanding. Faith precedes understanding. But as you act and as you embody, then you have the the the change of a framework and the lens in which you can understand.
This is that idea of opening yourself up to grace, which, Augustine is trying to, that faith comes with first, I mean, God reaches out, but you have to have your own accord and voluntarily open up. Man, I can't wait till we get to this is probably eight weeks down the line, but his actual, conversion. That's such a beautiful story. I I think at this point, it might be good to unless you had a few more comments on on this particular section, it might be interesting to segue a bit more into Augustine's life growing up as far as his his education, his quote unquote beginning into sin and his critiques on classical education. But before we get ahead, is there any, any other comments you wanted to make on what we've been discussing here?
Shannon: No. No. Let's let's go ahead. Cool.
Sean: So, again, as a little recap for anyone who joined late, we're discussing particularly book one of Augustine's confessions, which is an autobiography of his path from wicked center to wonderful saint. And book one deals with about the first fifteen years of his life. And so we've we've been discussing how Augustine, he he writes prayers to God, in the present about how he can see God in everything, but it was not this way. He was essentially born. He wasn't baptized, and he didn't have any strong attachments to the faith.
His mother was super pious and devout. But as he reveals growing up, he doesn't really take to the Christian lifestyle at all. And he he blames two things, and and one of them is a little surprising. But so one, he blames his own fallen nature. He he talks about how he has this sense of freedom and rebelliousness.
And and so in some sense, he sort of hates rules. And and this, you can almost sort of, like, you can understand and appreciate. Right? Right? Like, some kids, especially some young boys are particularly they love their freedom.
And if you can speak to them in their own terms, like, they can, like, absolutely love maybe learning something about learning or knowledge or wisdom, but it can't be done in the more strict sense of school and education and follow these rules. And it seems that this was a bit of Guston's early rebelliousness as he really loved his personal sense of freedom and autonomy and having fun and doing whatever it is that he wants to do. And, so he blames his own nature, but he also does blame a little bit of the education system and the lack of guidance from his his teachers and his his father. And he says, I really wish the people who were supposed to be the ones who were training me in virtue and were training me to love the true, good, and beautiful, and to love god, they really let me down. He has this joke of, as children, we get punished and beaten and whipped for playing instead of studying.
But the only reason why is because we're told we have to study so that we can, properly grow up into civilized adults and met of business where we spend our entire lives playing. His point being that you're by the time you reach adulthood, you're you don't actually learn the the true meaning of life or what it means to be virtuous. You just learn how to be socially acceptable like a nice aristocrat or how to be fine in the eyes of society. You've got the good job, the position, the honor, but you're you're empty inside. And it's here where, it's it's, it hurt my heart the first time I read it.
Like, he goes and he starts, tearing into classical education. He he talks about oh, man. He had let me pull this up real quick. He has, like, this incredible quote about the Aeneid. And by the way, as a spoiler, I love the Aeneid.
So it's not with joy that I hear Augustine tearing into classical education, but we'll get more into that in a second. But he he talks about how he's unhappy because this classical education is he he sees it as far more performative than it is anything that is edifying to mind, body, or soul. He said, I was learning these translations. I was learning Latin, and I was learning the great stories of, Greece and Rome. But it wasn't so that I could learn what it was to be a great man in any sense or even a good man.
It was I it was all performative. Like, I was getting applauded when I could recite a very nice soliloquy or if I could go on stage in in theater and, you know, shed tears if I was enacting, finding out that Queen Dido kills herself out of a broken heart. And so the more that I put on the stage in theatrics, the more I got applause and praise from my teachers and from my students. And I always got the loudest loudest praise on stage. And so what I learned growing up in my education was to love education so that I can win the appraise the praise and the acclaim of others that this is what it means to be a good man, a man of business, a man of society.
And he says that this teacher he was essentially and effectively trained through education even though it has the the the dawns on the surface of learned virtue. It's above all else. Be powerful, be mighty, be socially acceptable, get approval from others. I'd say it's the the equivalent of, like, aspiring as ironic as this is of aspiring to become famous for the sake of being famous or becoming an influencer for the sake of being an influencer with no substance to you. And, yes, I, recognize that it's close to home with me.
Maybe not without a bit of self awareness. But this is a really, Augustine has this critique here on classical education. And I'll offer some sort of rebuttals in a bit or maybe some nuance, but he it it is interesting how the the things that he blames are the very things that he thought should have been teaching him to love the good are the things that he said were trained him to love empty praise and empty vanity above all else.
Shannon: It's funny when I when I hear that phrase classical education, of course, it means something different to us in in this era. You know, our friend Jeremy Wayne Tate, CLT and stuff. You know, the modern educational system, certainly in The United States, is not teaching the true, the good, and the beautiful is not teaching virtue. This whole idea we have in the West that freedom is the ultimate thing to pursue, and our culture defines that as freedom to pursue every carnal desire you have, get whatever you want. And from our vantage point in history, looking back, you know, into previous centuries, classical education is that teaching virtue.
Right? The freedom is a freedom to do the right thing and to wants to do the right thing, to put others before before yourself. So but, yeah, some of that stuff where he's complaining about it. I hated school when I was, like, in elementary and middle school, so I sorta it's certainly related to that part when he's talking about that.
Sean: Definitely. I'll read another quick passage here because I think this this is actually the the gem of his, critique and his attack on education before we perhaps add some nuance because I can't see my beloved Anead, get slain like this or slandered. Slandered, I tell you. But, you know, he does bring up a good point here. He writes, in the course of my studies, I was forced to memorize the wanderings of Aeneas, whoever he was, while forgetting my own wanderings.
And to weep for the death of Dido who killed herself for love while bearing dry eye to my own pitiful state. And that among these studies, I was becoming dead to you, oh god, my life. And he follows it it up with, I think, this genius line right here. He's he goes, nothing could be more pitiful than a pitiable creature who does not see fit to pity himself. And I think that's genius because I I really think this line right here is I think this is Augustine reflecting on the entire state of his fallen nature for, again, the thirty some odd years of his his misery and his abject pain that he I I don't think he part it's it's fair to say he particularly hates these stories.
But, again, he hates that he's being taught to memorize and play act for the sake of empty hollow praise that has no connection to himself that, you know, true true education is so that you can find yourself within the universals of these particular stories. And he says, I was essentially effectively taught to be ignorant to the state of my own soul. And so I was growing pitiful and miserable and filled with sin and learning to love vanity and lust and vice and the acclaim of others, which is like putting a tight rope around my sack and my mind and my bod my my neck, my mind, body, and soul. Excuse me. And it touches on, like, a very deep, I think, theological claim that goodness can recognize evil, but evil cannot recognize goodness.
And his education was failing to train him in the good, and so he was becoming miserable while being unable to see that he was miserable at first and being unable to take pity in his abject, misery. Like, this is part of his burning heart that really takes shape in his twenties is he becomes so deeply entrenched in lust and so deeply attached to this vanity of needing to be powerful in the world that, I mean, maybe a good example is that if you can if if any of us here were were sitting around and we can think of someone that we know in life who is remarkably going through it, like their life is a wreck in every sense of the word. And perhaps it's a bit self destructive specifically. Not that they were victims of tragic fate, but that maybe you know someone who really did a lot of wrong choices or is consistently getting in their own way. And, like, you're just almost, like, almost rolling your eyes, like, how can you not see that it's it's all these problems are you're not the victim, but it's you.
Like, you need to that's what he's he's sort of getting at here is, my education made me ignorance to the very own sanctities of my soul and virtue and vice in and of itself. And this ignorance became very dangerous because ignorance and idleness is a playground of the devil, right? And so because I had no proper, no proper education that could help me truly discern the meaning of life or what is good and what is evil. There's no love of this, and I'm I'm just merely, you know, I I just can't be bothered with good and evil. This is what leads to, at the very least, suffering, if not great evil.
And I think you can almost see that as a an indictment on us today that we're a society that has very much also scoffed at notions of morality and good and evil and meaning to life and the obligation to develop a great soul and and do great things. And so in light of this, I'd say that many of us today indeed, and I'm saying us societally speaking, right? I'm sure everyone in here is, wonderfully beautiful souls as many of you. But society, you can see people are just remarkably filled with suffering and at the same time just completely unaware of like the abject pain that they're going through. It's like, oh, man.
There's so much I wish I could say if someone ever wanted to confess and confide in me, and they do. But, well, now I'm rambling a bit. But again, I I there's something beautiful about that line. Nothing is more pitiful than a pitiable creature who does not see to pity himself. And with that, I toss it back to you, Shannon.
Shannon: Well, there's that that Christian notion, of course, that sin darkens the mind. Right? You you have a lot less self awareness. You know, everybody thinks they're doing the right thing when their moral compass is is darkened. I can't remember who what the saint is or somebody who talked about this, but it's the the notion that you're in a completely dark room and you're holding like a pane of glass.
And as you, let's say, move towards God, you you move towards the light, then you begin to see the glass, and you can see that it's covered in dirt. But you can't tell that when you're just holding it, even touching it in the darkness. But as you go towards the light, then you begin to see more and more, you know, your own sin. It reminds me of this. I was horrified when I heard this quote.
I think it was Michael Bloomberg, who was the mayor of New York, said something like this is maybe ten, fifteen years ago. He said something like, well, you know, when I get to I'm going straight in to heaven. I've done so many good things. And it's like, pride comes before the fall. Right?
The the closer you are to God, the more you know I am unworthy, and you wouldn't be saying, you know, they're gonna roll up the red car. I don't remember exactly how he said it, but that's the gist of what he said. You know, Saint Peter's gonna just roll out the red carpet and hand me a cigar. That's, you know, dangerous when you're prideful like that.
Sean: No. That's I mean, that's 100% spot on. And I I had something I wanted to say right to that directly, and now it's angering me because it it just slipped off of my mind. But let me quickly, review. I just I just wrote it down.
Give me one second here. Oh, thank you. Yes. It it was, the, idea that, well, I remember I I had wrote Socrates, but why did I write Socrates? Oh, I I think what I wanted to connect this back to is in in light of his education that there it is, Augustine's education, right?
And how he is harping on it. And again, I am a very big proponent of classical education and it actually ended up being a portal for me to fall back in love with philosophy and then ultimately fall back to the faith. And funny enough, I think this is more or less the same pattern that Augustine himself follows, right, is his love of literature and education eventually leads to a love of philosophy, hemanichism, and eventually it's this that leads him back to the faith. So I I think and what's interesting is, again, Augustine loves Plato. Like, he beautifully synthesizes Plato.
So he actually does see a a very deep admiration for a pagan, sense of reason, but he talks about education that it needs to be useful, where he says it's useless to memorize the story of the Aeneid just for the sake of, a play or a theatrical performance. But he does seem to find that the pagan thought and pagan stories, it can be wonderfully beneficial if you can synthesize them within the the context of, say, Christian revelation. This is what he does with Plato. And, of course, this is what Aquinas will do with Aristotle so well. So there is a very and I think a properly understood and deeply respected love of the the pagans in Greek reason.
And above all else, when you're discussing pride, I think this is the beginning of what what helps Augustine begin to open up the light is the sense of curiosity, wonder, and humility. He he has a a line in the in book one that free curiosity is of more value in learning than harsh discipline. And while he hated the the sort of rigors of education and the beatings of his teachers and the do this, do that, he was remarkably curious. And it's it's the the Socratic notion. Right?
Like, I know that I know nothing at all. And it's like once you have that curiosity and that wonder and that realization of, wait a minute. Like, I don't know, but I can know more. And the more that I know, the more I don't realize. This ties back to that sinful and wayward nature you're discussing in the, beginning, right, of your your last comments that the the more that you have this humility and the more you seek, the more that you do learn, and the more you can see and understand yourself.
And it is this twofold paradox of, I can see myself more clearly and, wow, like, I was really foolish in a lot of ways, and I was mired in sin and folly and shortcomings. But now I know myself much better. But at the same time, because I know myself much better and I realized how ignorant I was, at the same time, I have a sense that I really know nothing that's going on at the same time. And it's almost the paradox of humility that, the the less that you know you know, the more you can know and the wiser you can grow. And I think this is part of what really leads Augustine to adopt the Greeks and do so wonderfully and write so astuta theologically and intellectually speaking.
Shannon: You said something there that caught my attention. So so I'll just ask you back. So you see a little of yourself in Augustine's journey, his path to the faith?
Sean: I suppose in in one sense, I don't want to be presumptuous, but if you want to make a high levels, yeah, you could say, because my little background was cradle Catholic, but, it was very dogmatic. Right? Like, I was very much, wow. This is kind of funny as I'm saying it out loud now thinking about it. But, yeah, I I didn't love it growing up because to me, it was blind rules, and I had a very sort of curious mind.
I was like, I was I was that guy in CCD always asking questions like, explain this to me. Explain this to me. And I I did not like just being told to just, like, just do these things. And I'm like, ugh. So because of my curiosity and my own wayward sort of stubbornness, I went my own way.
But then throughout, you know, modernity and just saying let me do my own thing and let me be free and, make my own meaning, I realized that doesn't work very well. And, yeah, I it was, classical literature. A lot of people know this, but Count of Montecristo. That book did it for me. Fell in love with, literature, and then that brought me back to the Greeks.
I love Plato, much like, Augustine. And then eventually, it was this deep admiration for Greek philosophy and the idea that the truth sets you free and seek the logos, the true good and beautiful. And then Plato that, eventually, this brought me back to reading the bible. And then from there, the rest was history. So it really is, and I don't want to ramble, but if anyone here has read or read Plato, like, you really will be impressed with the Greeks that they basically get as far as you can possibly go through reason alone without revelation.
It's truly a wonderful masterpiece and how easy of a jump it is to make from if you're well versed in Plato and Aristotle, how wonderfully that maps onto Catholicism like. And that a lot of that is the genius of Augustine. But, yes, I guess the the long winded answer to your question is, in that framework, perhaps there are some similarities between us. Not that I'm about to go write my own, sixteen hundred year masterpiece here, but God willing. Right?
Shannon: You never you never know. So I think for the average person, when they hear these famous legends, you know, giants of history, Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Aquinas, you know, it's very intimidating, I think, for the average person. So you said you said how much you love Plato and recommend people to What would be who would you what how would you start reading Play Doh? Like, what book where would you start? Is it sort of, like, the easiest way to sort of get into it?
Sean: Well, first off, I'm very, very glad that you said start with Play Doh, because I do think it's a mistake if you start with Aristotle. Why? Because Aristotle is well, he's brilliant, and, I'd say the Catholic faith is probably more Aristotelian, if I were to guess. I mean, we love both, but, Aristotle, if you read him, his writing is essentially like lecture notes. So it can be very dense and you're like, what is this?
Plato, this is one of the things I would do as far as maybe evangelizing on Twitter is like, man, these great philosophers, everyone, myself included, has a sense of intimidation of like, oh, like that's for the the giants or that's for the the Ivy Leaguers. Like, no. No. No. No.
No. No. No. No. No.
No. No. Plato is meant to be read by everyone, especially. He is fun and he is approachable. And a little fun fact about Plato, just to really get the sense of, like, I love this guy.
Plato was not even his real name. Plato means broad shouldered. And, well, why does he have this nickname broad shouldered? Because, well, he was a fantastic wrestler. He wrestled in the Olympics.
So this was a guy, yes, he's writing and pontificating about the true good and beautiful, but in his free time, he's just one of the guys in the yard throwing people around the academy. And I always joke, like, Plato was ancient Greece's equivalent of The Rock today. Right? So but
Shannon: There's another similarity, you know, because I see your new your new profile pic you've had for a few weeks. You've got the boxing gloves, so there's another.
Sean: Stop it. Stop it. But yes. It is. It's funny.
I I do believe philosophy and the martial spirit is super important too. That's for a different space. But one, the the point of all this, Plato very much is a very easy and approachable guy. I would say if anyone wanted to start with one, I started with the apology and that really spoke to me like nothing else. And I think Plato was great for the the pagan who was interested in reason and interested in this idea that the truth will set you free and is maybe even so uninterested to ideas of theology.
You know much of modern man, right? What you get in the apology is Socrates is on trial for allegedly corrupting the youth with his teachings. It was a sham, but that's neither here nor there and Socrates is basically sentenced to death. He can either die or he can, stop teaching. And he says I'll die, and everyone's like why?
And he goes well I have this, daemonian inside me, this this like spirit, this sort of conscience, and when I listen to it, it kind of tells me what right from wrong and I think it's better that I live this and and follow this which seems to be true and live, die in the truth and live a lie. So yeah, I'll die. Like, I'm sure. And and everyone cries, like, don't cry for me. What?
Like, I'm just gonna either have a nice eternal sleep or I'm gonna go teach philosophy in the next era. Like, I'm good. So it's it's really wonderful. I'm completely rambling and digressing, but I would say start with the apology. And if you want, like, it's also great.
There's just a lot of people on YouTube, like, great secondary sources who make it very easy and approachable. So, long winded answer. Go to Plato. It's all in Plato as CS Lewis says. My god.
What are they teaching these kids in school nowadays? It's all in Plato.
Shannon: You mentioned, doctor Peter Kreeft. I love him. I think he's written, like, 90 books more than 90 books, you know, for, like, three or four of them, but but I love him. But he doesn't he have one on Plato? I know he's a big admirer of his.
Sean: He has, like, fifty, sixty, or 70 books, and, yes, he has he has a lot on Play Doh. So doctor Peter Kreeft is a great person to go to, and he's got some free lectures too. I I can't recommend him enough. We're we're getting some hearts in the the audience because they know. Nina and Elise, they know.
But, you know, Doctor. Peter Kreeft is a gem and that man has a great way of helping you fall in love. I think it was Kreeft who introduced me to, Augustine. So Doctor. Peter Kreeft is why I'm here and why you're all here in this space right now.
So, yes, if if anyone is interested as as we we've gone on a bit of a tangent here, but I do always love synthesizing the philosophy with the faith. If you're you're interested in a bit more of Augustine and his love for the faith, it's all in Plato. Definitely start with Plato. Look to Kreith because he's a great he has so many great free sources, and he's a wonderful way that you can get started on this idea of, well, what is the truth, and how can I exalt my reason, and how can I use my reason to find God in all things? Because that's really what Augustine says, cradle with intelligence.
Right? I believe so that I can understand. Once you believe and accept faith, well, now your reason becomes your most wonderful and powerful tool because now it's your your modicum for understanding reality as oriented and understood in God. So every time you're studying now, it's literally bringing you closer to God. Hence, studying is an act of worship.
Man, I I'm gonna toss it back to you, Shannon. I'm I'm getting too excited.
Shannon: Like I said, you're the host. There's no wrong. There's no too long. There's no too short. There's no tangent.
You're you're the host, so you can say whatever whatever you want to. Yeah. There's a lot of talks, lectures, speeches by doctor Peter Kreeft on YouTube. I first came across him when I was converting, and he's a convert as well long time ago. I think he was in his twenties.
He's, like, close to 90 now, I believe. But he's still out there on the circuit. You still find him on podcasts. And, man,
Sean: what
Shannon: a great mind. He has this no. I'll go off on a little tangent. He has this incredible talk on the Eucharist from the twenty eighteen Atlanta Eucharistic Congress. You should look that up.
It's like the greatest talk on the Eucharist you'll ever hear. It's just incredible.
Sean: I just made a book note of that. I'm gonna have to check that up because, yes, like like you said, every time you you have a speech with Craifed or read a book of his, it it just transforms you for the better. I've read so many books and and fallen so in love with life just because of him because this man has so much passion and wisdom. But yes. So I I think we're getting to close to the tail end.
We have one or two more points on Augustine and Confessions that we wanted to, get to close off here. So in about five or ten minutes, people, if they want to come up on stage, if any of you have any questions or comments, want to toss anything to the conversation, you can start requesting now. And I'd say five or so five or ten minutes will get you up here and, get you in on the conversation. You know, with that said, I think the
Shannon: Real quick before before you go to the next topic, I'd I found that speech by Peter Kreeft, and I put it in the comments.
Sean: Very perfect. And now we all have in the comments the speak, linked to a wonderful, wonderful speech that's I'll just go ahead and say in advance even though I haven't heard it. We all should probably listen to it. So I I think we'll we'll sort of end with the the tail end of book one here, which is him coming out of his, the tail end of his attacks on classical education and the effect on his character. Now I'll just read a bit more briefly from, him himself.
He's he talks about how as someone who had gone through education and been taught to love, vanities and the acclaim of others. He says, the what kind of person did I become or was I becoming as I'm aging 15, 16 years old? Well, I told endless lies to my tutors, my my masters, and my parents, and all for the love of games, the craving for stage shows, and a restlessness to do what I saw done in these shows. I stole from my parents' cellar and table. I was gluttonous.
Sometimes to have something to give other boys in exchange for implements of play, they were prepared to sell things that they loved as much as I. But even in games, I was clearly outplayed. I tried to win by cheating from the vain desire for first place. At the same time, I was indignant and argued furiously when I caught anyone doing the very things that I had done to others. When I was caught myself, I would fly into a rage rather than give away.
Is this boyhood innocence? It is not, Lord. I cry thy mercy, oh my god. And so already, you're starting to see a sense of, well, what is Augustine's character now as he's going into adolescence? And it's really just vice on vice on vice and passion on passion on passion.
You see, I mean, rage, envy, wrath, jealousy, dishonesty, stealing, theft, lust, lust, lust, vanity, vanity, vanity, on and on and on. It's like this in this simple passage here, like, this is really just the start. If anything, like, what he just described here was, like, him lighting a little match to, like, this giant, giant creative dynamite. Like, it's only about to explode and amplify in the following books. Like, he is, his education and his own word, has failed him, and he has failed himself as far as he's a wayward man with a sinful and fallen nature.
And, it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better, but it's all for the greater good and glory because he eventually finds his way back to God. The really last line I love here to close off book one is he said, ultimately, in this lay my ultimate sin, that I sought pleasure, nobility, and truth, not in God, but in the beings he had created in myself and in others. Thus, I fell into sorrow, confusion, and error. So, yes, he was seeking pleasure. He was seeking truth.
He was seeking nobility. He wanted to be happiness, but he did not look to God. He did not look to the highest good. He did not look to goodness itself. He looked in created beings instead.
And that's how you can have a man with a great desire for greatness, a great drive, great passions, but a man who because he's misoriented and misaligned and not aimed at the proper good to the proper thing, He is about to go into a path of deep, deep misery, deep, deep pain, deep, deep suffering, and in his own words, deep, deep evil. And that's really where we sort of find the end of book one. I'll toss it back to you for Shannon.
Shannon: One down, 12 to go. Like you said, there's there's so much great stuff ahead of us. We're just starting this thirteen week journey, and it's so great, Sean, to hear your passion for for literature, philosophy, these great works, Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas. You inspire me because to to read more, to, you know, maybe stop scrolling so much and spend a little time reading some of these works that we've heard about all of our lives, but you need to hear these things. You hear about Plato and the apology and this is like but you never read it.
Most people don't. And so I appreciate that, you're you're an inspiration in that in that regard.
Sean: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And I mean, again, the pleasure and honor is all mine, my friend. I thoroughly appreciate that you're gonna be here on this journey as well.
As I was saying at the beginning of this talk, I mean, this talk alone and this idea almost feels like a miracle. Like, in my real life, like, who would want to sit and meet week by week by week to discuss Augustine? And I can tell you, no one. Believe me. I have tried my entire life to get people to come to sit down and and discuss philosophy and the great books.
And, the fact that I can do it with you and everyone in here is listening, like, this is it's truly remarkable and wonderful. And it's that the small acts like this and the small disciplines, I think if we do this every day, keep our aim right and try to meditate from the greatest minds in history. I I I thoroughly believe that a little bit of their greatness, will indeed rub off on us and improve us, for the better. So, I mean, with that said, I'll I'll sort of start to close it off here, and I I think you have a few announcements yourself, Shannon. Again, in the meantime, if anyone wants any last comments, feel free to request, mic.
But I think, as a little reminder for anyone who joined late, we are doing not just the one off talk, but this is a chapter by chapter or a book by book read through of Augustine's confessions. 13 books in here, so Shannon and I will be meeting at 06:00PM every Wednesday, to do this exactly book by book by book. It's really the beginning of a wonderful journey, so you're all invited to join us along to listen or read along chapter by chapter. And in the words of Peter Kreeft, the if anyone is interested and wants to buy the book, he very much recommends the FJ Schied translation as well. I'm not sure if that's what you're using, Shannon.
But, yeah, F. J. Shead, I know Peter Kreif's, approved, and I trust that man as well. So you you can look to that to get the best poetry and the best translation and really feel a sing in the of Augustine's soul. With that said, Shannon, is there anything you wanted to sort of, any announcements you wanted to share with the rest of the audience here?
Shannon: Yeah. Just a few spaces that I'm gonna be hosting. Two tomorrow at, at 4PM eastern. The account on x here called lifenews.com. They're pretty good big account, two or 300,000 people.
Gonna have a conversation just about pro life matters. Of course, you know, there was that that big news this week about the executive order on IVF. I'm sure that will come up. Tomorrow night at 09:15PM eastern, he was in here earlier for a bit, Deacon Harrison Garlick, who's the chancellor of the Diocese of Tulsa, written this beautiful essay along not not that long ago, but maybe in the last year on the biblical symbolism of water. He talks about how water, you know, in its natural state brings death.
He talks about how God brings life from death and starting with the primordial waters of creation to the Red Sea to the flood to the Leviathan who comes out of the great deeps of this in the depth of the sea to to capture Jonah and and ties that all into baptism, how God is using water, to bring new life. So that's tomorrow at 09:15 eastern time. And, I see Kathy Teekin in here. He and I are doing a few spaces. One of them is Friday at noon with sister Orianne.
She I think she has a hundred thousand people on, she's mainly an Instagram person. But just to talk about getting prepared for Lent. And then one more, John. I promise. It's, one of our buddies from that group we're in.
It's, Memory Medieval, to talk to us a little bit about history, about medieval history. And, he wants to touch on the topic of dueling, and and Leo the thirteenth, the pope, in the latter half of the nineteenth century has an encyclical on it. I think they said some some things about it, obviously condemning it in in Trent. But, just talking about the fascination with history. Again, people in the past were much more educated, much more well read about history and literature than than people going through government schools today.
So we take these opportunities to just learn learn about something. Every space we doesn't have to be Catholic, one, you know, a % Catholic. So, again, like you talked about, Sean, the true, the good, and the beautiful, we continue to explore it. So thank you for letting me have those shameless shameless self promotion there.
Sean: No. You you are always, always, always free to plug. Having done spaces with you and heard many others before, I can say they're always worthwhile. You've had some legendary ones with Imperator. Deacon Garlic is great.
And, you said memory medieval too. I really want to catch that one. This is a weird random promotion for this guy. And no, he's not paying me, but man, I generally have not cared too much about medieval history as opposed to philosophy and theology, but this man
Shannon: Me too. Me too. Alright. Great.
Sean: He just, he has such a way, right? Like he has such a way of like, he's so passionate. He just gets you interested. And I usually don't laugh at things on Twitter, but every time I see him in the timeline, like, he just has, like, the silly, almost dad joke type humor that just makes me laugh. He had one that was, like, born to, born to, jest, like, as a jester, forced to joust, and it just cracks me up.
So random plug for memory of medieval too. Great man. You can follow him. Please catch all of Shannon's, talks because they're all just wonderful.
Shannon: I I think I mentioned the the two tomorrow, Sean. You're welcome to cohost either one of those if you're free.
Sean: Most definitely. I think I'm gonna, I've got stuff in the afternoon, but I'm gonna try to catch the the 09:15 one with, Deacon Garlic, as listener, if not host, because, man, that that topic too. And and everyone, please especially catch that Deacon Garlic Shad, coming in. The the symbolism of water is it it sounds super nerdy saying it now, but my god, that's one of my favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite theological and allegorical concepts ever. And, Shannon and Deacon Carlick, both absolute gems.
If you're around for 09:15, please catch that that talk. It's gonna be wonderful.
Shannon: And this this will be funny. I've never spoken to him before, obviously. I've messaged him. I followed him for a while, and he's followed me. But he is a great lover of literature.
I think they're reading, he's got another account, it's called Ascend, I think, about reading the great books. I retweeted it today. I think they're gonna be reading, Dante's Inferno throughout Lent once a week, but he's always promoting sort of what you were saying, like Plato and and the great great literary works early in in Western history. And he's, like, so super smart. So little intimidated to talk to him, but we'll we'll see what happens tomorrow.
The funny thing is they invited me to be on a space with him next week, and so I'm like, I really gotta brush up on my, gotta brush up on my history.
Sean: Yeah. That's a gem. It's a shame I need to do a space with them too because we have so much similar interests. And as you said, that man is a genius when it comes
Shannon: to talking to him. Talked to him before or interacted?
Sean: He and I, we did a space together with a mutual, so it wasn't ours. But we've interacted. We've DM'd a few times, I believe. Thoroughly love his, his projects as well. Like like you said, his his love for the Greeks, his love for, the Iliad too, man.
I I think I've I I first found him through, his, like, read through read of The Iliad, like, week by week, kind of like what we're doing now. So kinda how fortuitous.
Shannon: Maybe we'll get over two of you that sort of are inspiring me to to read some of these great these great works. So
Sean: Well, I'm telling you, and I guess we've now kind of transitioned into a quick casual after hours before we finally land the plane. But, man, this is, we already have you all here. So, but this is, this is what I absolutely love about, well, Augustine and Aquinas, but also the great literature and philosophy is especially once you already have the faith is like it's reading the great books. It helps you find God's glory in all things. It really truly does.
It it helps make your life a miracle. It's almost in the same way of like, well, why do Catholics pray to Samaria and not just straight to God all the time? Well, when you, have reverence for God's masterpieces, then all of a sudden you just have a whole new dimension and avenue that deepens your love for God himself. And the same with these books, like when you're reading The Count of Monte Cristo and you're reading about this man wrestling with fates and staring into the eye of the storm, or you're talking about Dumont, the young lad who wants to go be a, you know, a musketeer against all the odds. You really discover the heroism in life.
You find like a just nice vivacity to that makes you want to say yes to living. I mean the Iliad, like the heroism and pagan glory. Yes. It's misoriented, but you can adopt that to a Christian framework and you can see the necessity to be strong and great and bold in the face of evil. And, man, we're, we're really just kind of riffing it with the random plugs, but like, please, like this is, if you've ever had an interest in classical education and classical philosophy, this is what it does.
It strengthens your love. It strengthens your faith. It has these entire new dimensions that you never knew were there. And it's like, you're like you die and you're born again. You're like, Oh my gosh.
Like I said, that's what PLATO did for me and got me to the faith. And it's just, it's so enriching. It's one of the best things you can do for your life. We, we, we tend to scoff at it like, Oh, like this is useless work in the rush of modernity. And we all have our, we all have our very real pressing needs.
But if you make that time, even just ten minutes before going to sleep, just read a bit of the great books like it's, oh, what a what a treasure for your soul it is. I'm I'm sorry. It's it's too good.
Shannon: It's great to hear your passion for it. It really is.
Sean: Anyhoo. Now now I think we've held everyone hostage long enough. The fact you're all still here. I mean, that's very touching to me. I'm kind of curious what's going on.
Maybe you've all left and just kind of had the phone, phones on on the side table. But no. I mean, thank you again everyone for coming out. I I truly appreciate it. I cannot be more excited.
And thank you again, Shannon. I can't be more excited for these next thirteen weeks. Agustin really is a genius. There's we've only just touched the tip of the iceberg. There's so much more to draw out, and I really believe all of us are going to emerge on the other side, that much that much better.
So, thank you all.
Shannon: So I hope you enjoyed the first in 13 episodes of a conversation on confessions by Saint Augustine. Again, thanks to Sean for allowing me to be part of this journey. Be sure to visit our website, catholicfrequency.com. There, you can sign up for our free newsletter. Once a week, we will email you a brief reflection and keep you up to date on the different spaces and conversations we're having across podcasts and across the x social media platform.
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