Confess to beauty

Keegan Ruddy
Outside reading
Saint Augustine's Confessions

A quote that captured my attention in Saint Augustine's The Confessions was "Narrow is the mansion of my soul; enlarge Thou it, that Thou mayest enter in. It is ruinous; repair Thou it. It has that within which must offend Thine eyes; I confess and know it." (Augustine pg.4) Our soul is a mansion. God created it, therefore it is good, as we know from the Creation story in Genesis. It is a mansion because God dwells within it. Our bodies are temples for the Holy Spirit, they must be beautiful. Yet they are like ruins, beaten down by our sin. Augustine knows that our sin is offending God. Yet we ask God to fix this, because we are helpless without Him. This is such an interesting and beautiful part of Christianity. We ask the God we offend, to clean those offenses. We ask this because, before we could even ask, He promised and gave us a Savior in the form of His Son. Augustine confesses what he believes in these books and it shows that he knows he has to rely on God! Not just n some things, but in all things. For God knows all we have done, even the "secret" faults and forgives us when we ask for His forgiveness. Then God Works with us when we try to better ourselves for Him and to know, love, and serve Him more fully.