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St. Augustine's Confessions

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St. Augustine’s confessions is an interesting piece of literature, with lots of thought provoking ideas surrounding Catholic religion versus philosophy. I understand how some might view Confessions as an autobiography because St. Augustine spent a lot of time talking about his personal experiences. However, I personally would not classify this piece as an autobiography nor a prayer. I believe there is no right or wrong way to pray. Believers of Jesus Christ use their prayer time to ask for guidance, show gratitude, thank God for their blessings, and use it as a time to show repentance. People also pray for other situations as well (finances, healing, etc.). St. Augustine did do a little bit of this, but I have a hard time deeming this book
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Himes mentioned in lecture, Augustine’s baptism was deferred until after infancy, which I think ties God more intimately into his life journey as he is actually aware of the most important sacrament of his life. In Book II, Augustine admits his sinful life with regret, displaying an increased conscience and awareness of God. He reasons that

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Prayer should be in the forefront of everything. The privilege of communicating with and co-laboring with God is a practice essential to fruitful work as a

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Before meeting Lady Continence, Augustine feels torn “between [the lust] against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh”; he wants to harmonize his feelings so he can “become [Y] our soldier” (VIII.11), who is not “bound to the earth… afraid of being rid of all my burdens” (VIII.11). Augustine feels guilty for being between a righteous life with God and an imperfect life with his secular desires, because he has acknowledged that a better life exists than he is living. However, he has not been able to make the full jump to being right with God. As a result of his internal dissonance, Augustine’s guilt manifests in a physically as Lady Continence. She appears to Augustine as “serene and cheerful without coquetry”, and tells Augustine to join the others who have already relinquished their earthly desires: “Cast yourself upon him, do not be afraid… Make the leap without anxiety; he will catch you and heal you” (VIII.27).

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Not only does Owen overcome adversity himself, he helps others through it too. Another part of inspirational fiction, is the fact that religious terms are not blatantly stated, or in other words, does not preach. The purpose of A Prayer for Owen Meany, is not to convert people to Christianity, but to tell a story. It is told by Johnny, who at the end begs God by asking, “O God—please give him back” (627)!

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The power of prayer in protection is a profound and essential aspect of spiritual life for many individuals and religious communities worldwide. Prayer is not merely a ritual or set of words; it is a heartfelt communication with a higher power, a means of seeking guidance, strength, and divine intervention. Throughout history, countless people have turned to prayer as a source of protection in times of adversity, danger, and

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Furthermore, prayer reminds people they still have hope, peace, and joy even when life is hard. While Hans is away, Rosa and Liesel are upset and lonely but Rosa constantly prays for his protection and safety which gives her peace to know Hans is being watched over by God. Liesel believes Rosa’s “prayers” are so powerful “that [they] helped Papa survive”(Zusak 474). During a season of loneliness and fear, Rosa demonstrates prayer as a source of strength, comfort, and peace. Zusak portrays prayer as a selfless action that focuses one’s attention on God and the needs of others.

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A Prayer for Owen Meany A Prayer for Owen Meany is a book by John Wheelwright Irving published in 1989. The novel revolves around the issues of Christianity and demonstrates the significance of religion. One of the themes that completely stand out in this novel is that of doubt and belief. The characters have a conflict about what they should believe and what they should doubt about Christianity. In addition, John Wheelwright has a great belief about the predestined plan of the life of Owen.

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Though grief is a common human emotion felt when one experiences loss, not everyone deals with grief in the same way. In fact, in Saint Augustine’s Confessions, Augustine himself handles the loss of two important people in his life in two different ways; though the feelings he experiences are similar, the duration of grief and perspective of death he has is markedly different once he converts to Catholicism, as well as the one he loses being closer to him due to a shared relationship with God. This difference in narrative and in perspective in each episode of grief highlight a way Saint Augustine believes a relationship with God can keep the deceased at the center of the grief and also make bittersweet a loss that would otherwise be pure

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He should also pray for strength to help other people. He should never pray for himself. As Huckleberry Finn says, "I went out into the woods and turned it over in my mind. I thought about it for along time, but 1 could see no advantage in it for me —only for other people-so at last I decided that I wouldn 't worry about it any

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Hope. In bible itself says that “Hope is God” in Psalm 42:5. Just as McCullers’s four desperate characters only confide in Singer with everything as one might do in God. People seek God in hope that he might understand him or her and give what they want. They, who pray at bed time or confess at church or temple to God, are the words they only share with God and no one else.

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In his “Confessions,” Augustine says that there are people who try to deny the existence of God by asking what God was doing before he created heaven and earth. People claim that Creation happening and how it happened is impossible because they believe that God have to have done something before he created the world. He is trying to answer their philosophical beliefs that led them to ask such a question. How Augustine reply to this question is he use the concept of time and he says that God is eternal time because for God there is no time. I think that Augustine’s reply is convincing.

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Yet to be able to trace the importance of confession one must consider St. Augustine’s autobiographical text Confessions. St. Augustine lived in the period right before the Middle Ages and for most of his adulthood he believed in maniquism, he was not a devout catholic from the start. In

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He is beginning to realize that he has to change his ways in order to reach absolution. In the ninth book, Augustine shows how he was able to finally connect with God through his books and teachings. “I read on: Tremble and sin no more, and this moved me deeply, my God, because now I had learned to tremble from my past, so that in the future I might sin no more.” (Book IX, Section 4, Page 187) This shows that Augustine was finally able to find God through the readings of the Bible.

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The Problem of Evil “Evil has no positive nature but the loss of good has received the name of evil” said St. Augustine. The problem comes from the fact that if there is a deity that is all good, all knowing and all powerful, how can evil exist? The problem of evil (or argument from evil) is the problem of reconciling the existence of the evil in the world with the existence of an omniscient (all-knowing), omnipotent (all-powerful) and perfectly good God. The argument from evil is the atheistic argument that the existence of such evil cannot be reconciled with, and so disproves, the existence of such a God. Therefore, the “problem of evil” presents a significant issue.

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