The Slope
A snake does not creep on with open steps; in the same way the slippery motion of falling away takes hold of the negligent man gradually. Beginning with the desire to be godlike, he ends in the likeness of a beast.
The true glory of man is the image and likeness of God, which we can only preserve in our relationship with him who created it; the less therefore one loves oneself the more closely one cleaves to God.
When a man wishes to try out his own strength, he slips down to a purely human level; then, wishing to be subject to none, he falls even lower to those things in which the beasts delight, and so learns the difference between the good he has abandoned and the evil to which he has committed himself.
Only the grace of his maker calling him to repentance and forgiving him enables him to come back.
What can an evil man do when anguish falls upon him? All external resources have failed and he has no peace in his own heart: none of this world's goods can comfort the man who has not God.
The sinner finds no rest outside himself; and, within, his conscience gives him no relief.
A man can fly from an enemy, but who can fly from himself?
DAILY READING WITH
St Augustine --- The Heart at Rest
A snake does not creep on with open steps; in the same way the slippery motion of falling away takes hold of the negligent man gradually. Beginning with the desire to be godlike, he ends in the likeness of a beast.
The true glory of man is the image and likeness of God, which we can only preserve in our relationship with him who created it; the less therefore one loves oneself the more closely one cleaves to God.
When a man wishes to try out his own strength, he slips down to a purely human level; then, wishing to be subject to none, he falls even lower to those things in which the beasts delight, and so learns the difference between the good he has abandoned and the evil to which he has committed himself.
Only the grace of his maker calling him to repentance and forgiving him enables him to come back.
What can an evil man do when anguish falls upon him? All external resources have failed and he has no peace in his own heart: none of this world's goods can comfort the man who has not God.
The sinner finds no rest outside himself; and, within, his conscience gives him no relief.
A man can fly from an enemy, but who can fly from himself?
DAILY READING WITH
St Augustine --- The Heart at Rest
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