August 26, 2025
Petrarch’s “Secretum”: Challenging Augustinus
Essays,Augustine Among the Moderns
As an undergraduate, I studied Petrarch’s sonnets in a pre-1800 literature survey course and remember learning about his rhyme scheme and great unrequited love for Laura. I cannot recall whether at…
August 12, 2025
Book Review: Catherine Conybeare’s Augustine the African
It is tempting when reading Augustine’s Confessions to think one has been granted access to peer inside the author’s soul and thereby learned all there is to know about him as a person. However,…
December 31, 2024
Creation through the Eyes of a Child (Conf. Book 13)
For the past three years, I have taught Genesis 1-3 to first-year undergraduate students at Villanova University as part of its Augustine and Culture Seminar Program. Some students are familiar with…
November 11, 2024
The Diversity of Truth (Conf. Book 12)
So often when we think of Augustine we might see him as a rigid, uncompromising thinker. Sometimes we are right to view Augustine in this way—for example, when he categorically condemns lying. But he…
July 31, 2024
Rooted and Stretched in Time (Conf. Book 11)
In June I had to struggle to get over jet lag since returning from a pilgrimage to Augustinian sties in Italy. During my trip, particularly on the traveling days, it was difficult to keep track of…
July 3, 2024
What Does Augustinian Spirituality Look Like for Women?
This past May, I had the wonderful opportunity to participate in a pilgrimage to Augustinian sites in Italy. Villanova University’s Office for Mission and Ministry has for decades sponsored…
March 12, 2024
Confession as an Act of Truth (Conf. Book 10)
If the Confessions were a straightforward autobiography, it would not need a book 10 – or the three subsequent books on the meaning of Genesis 1. Augustine could have chosen to end the work at the…
October 3, 2023
Augustine Loudly Quits (Conf. Book 9)
At the age of 31, in the summer of 386, Augustine converted to Christianity. And then, at the start of the Vintage holidays (August 22-October 15), he quit his job. Augustine tells us in Book 9 of…
July 13, 2023
Questioning the Veracity of Augustine’s Conversion (Conf. Book 8)
In Book 8 of the Confessions, our patience in dealing with Augustine’s doubts, errors, and procrastination is finally rewarded, and we learn about his conversion to Christianity. Augustine’s…
May 17, 2023
Augustine’s Rejection of Astrology (Conf. Book 7)
In Book VII of the Confessions, Augustine recalls wrestling with deep philosophical and theological questions in his early thirties. Not quite able to shake off his Manichean sensibilities, he…