Confessions Of A Beginning Theologian

Elouise Renich Fraser describes her personal journey to become a theologian: confronting the past, befriending the Bible, developing theological imagination and finding an authentic voice.

This study of Augustine's Confessions presents his testimony of conversion as an antidote to modern culture's tendency toward disbelief.

In this second edition of her profound book on confession, which theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar calls "one of her most central works", Adrienne von Speyr discusses the moral and practical aspects of this sacrament in great depth. The most complete spiritual treatise on confession ever written, the book covers conversion, scruples, contrition, spiritual direction, laxity, frequency of confession, confessions of religious and lay people, and even confessions of saints. The most intriguing element in von Speyr's understanding of confession, fully developed in this volume, is its trinitarian and christological basis. The Cross is the archetypal confession, and Christian sacramental confession is thus an imitation of Christ in the strict sense. Confession examines the enormous fruitfulness of this dogmatic basis from many perspectives, giving a wealth of suggestions that both the theological expert and the layman will find very helpful. Its practical applicability to one's own confession emerges from every page.

The Reed of God is an inspirational classic written by a British Roman Catholic ecclesiastical artist, Caryll Houselander. This book contains a beautiful meditation on Mary, Mother of God and so much more. Reading this book will bring you closer to Our Blessed Mother, and hence, to Christ Himself. Filled with lyrical prose and touching analogies, the author shows how Mary was the "Reed of God" and that we are all vessels waiting to do God's work, and carrying Christ within us.

Confessions (401) is the work of Saint Augustine, a Roman theologian and bishop responsible for some of the core doctrines of today’s Catholic church. His literary works, including The Confessions, The Enchiridion, and On Christian Doctrine, are commonly viewed as foundational works of Christian theology and Western philosophy. Bishop of Hippo Regius—in modern day Algeria—from 395 to his death in 430, Augustine helped to justify and consolidate the role of Christianity in the Roman Empire and was canonized as a saint for his efforts. A young man does poorly in school, steals from his neighbor’s orchard, and has a son with a woman to whom he is not married. These are some of the core personal experiences detailed by Augustine in his autobiographical and theological work Confessions, in which he grows from a life of sin to accepting God and the Christian faith. Interspersed with stories of his life and conversion are descriptions and critiques of Neoplatonism, Manichaeism, and astrology, systems of belief and understanding which, for Augustine, fall short of the vision of humanity and salvation offered by Christianity. Throughout this text, Augustine encourages readers—especially those who have led troubled lives—not only to convert to Christianity, but to understand the inherent imperfection of all humanity and to envision the ultimately hopeful message of transformation and forgiveness offered by faith in God. Confessions is at heart a Christian text, but it is also essentially human. Augustine is remembered not just as a saint and Christian leader, but as a figure who precipitated the evolution of Western thought. Augustine’s Confessions is a foundational work of autobiographical and philosophical writing, influencing such writers as Blaise Pascal, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Aquinas, Bertrand Russell, and Friedrich Nietzsche. Its personal nature and depth of honesty are considered formal innovations in autobiography and memoir writing, and its meditations on God and human nature have made it an essential text for philosophers and theologians for centuries. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Saint Augustine’s Confessions is a classic of autobiography and Christian theology reimagined for modern readers.

On the Revision of the Confession of Faith is a religious book by Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield. The author was professor of theology at Princeton and provides here a revision for church procedures.

'The reader who has never met Augustine before ought to go first of all to the Confessions,' reflected the Trappist monk and scholar Thomas Merton. 'Augustine lived the theology that he wrote. . . . He experienced the reality of Christ living in his own soul.' Saint Augustine, the celebrated theologian who served as Bishop of Hippo from A.D. 396 until his death in A.D. 430, is widely regarded as one of the most influential thinkers in the Western world. Written in the form of a long prayer addressed directly to God, Augustine's Confessions, the remarkable chronicle of his conversion to Christianity, endures as the greatest spiritual autobiography of all time. 'Augustine possessed a strong, capacious, argumentative mind,' wrote Edward Gibbon. 'He boldly sounded the dark abyss of grace, predestination, free-will, and original sin.' And the eminent historian Jaroslav Pelikan remarked: 'There has, quite literally, been no century of the sixteen centuries since the conversion of Augustine in which he has not been a major intellectual, spiritual, and cultural force.'