Take care what you love
October 23rd, 2009 | Published in Prior's blog | 1 Comment
St. Augustine’s level of rhetoric is so uniformly high, and the critical literature surrounding him so overblown, that it is easy to take him for granted. Then, every so often, he outdoes himself, and one recalls why he is the greatest Latin theologian (w/ apologies to his great follower Thomas Aquinas).
“What is it in any one of us that prompts action, if not some kind of love? Show me even the basest love that does not prove itself in action. Shameful deeds, adulteries, villainies, murders, all kinds of lust–aren’t they all the work of some sort of love? Purify this love, then, divert onto your garden the water that is going down the drain, let the current that drove you into the arms of the world be redirected to the world’s Maker. Do you want people to ask you, “Don’t you love anything, then?” Of course not. If you loved nothing you would be sluggish, dead, loathsome and unhappy. Love as much as you like, but take care what you love. Love of God and love of your neighbor are called charity; but love of the world, this passing world, is called greed or lust. Lust must be reined in, charity spurred on.
–from the second exposition of Psalm 31; translated by Maria Boulding, OSB
October 25th, 2009 at 11:14 pm (#)
“Shameful deeds, adulteries, villainies, murders, all kinds of lust–aren’t they all the work of some sort of love?”
Although I can say, through many experiences, many homicides and “villainies” are related to a love of money. I have seen though, on occassion, true evilness, in man. There is no doubt that the devil is out there.