Feast Day of St. Augustine

Today is the feast day of St. Augustine--if you wanted, you could make a case for him as one of the most important thinkers in the history of the Church. We can trace our ideas about original sin and grace back to him. His thinking about God and God's existence outside of time has been enormously influential. His views of just war continue to be debated. His confessional style continues in writing to this day.

Now I know that many of us don't agree with our church's view of concepts of original sin or grace or time or abortion or war or confession. That doesn't mean that Augustine should be abandoned. Many of us reject the teachings of the church without giving them serious consideration, much less reading the important works and wrestling with the concepts.

Augustine did some serious pondering and serious wrestling. And because so many of his writings survive, we get to see that process.

Augustine is one of the easiest of the early church writers to read. This week-end would be a great time to revisit his work.