After Reading The Confessions: A Quiet Reflection

 

I recently finished reading Confessions by Saint Augustine.

For most of the book, I found myself surprisingly able to relate to Augustine’s reflections — his restlessness, ambition, self-examination, and search for meaning. The famous passages about memory were especially fascinating. Augustine describes memory almost like a vast inner palace where images, experiences, and emotions are stored. Reading those pages felt strikingly modern.

Toward the end of the book, however, the tone changes. After his conversion, Augustine moves into long theological reflections on heaven, earth, and the opening chapters of Genesis. I must admit that these sections were harder for me to fully grasp. At times my mind drifted, and I found myself only skimming.

Yet one idea from the final book stayed with me.

Augustine writes about the importance of loving God rather than loving His creation. When I first read that, I wondered if it meant withdrawing from the world. But gradually I realized that what Augustine is really describing is not rejection, but a hierarchy of love — an order in which everything has its proper place.

Creation itself is good. Work, beauty, family, and daily life are good. But when they become the ultimate center of our attention, they also become fragile. They can be disrupted, lost, or changed.

Perhaps what Augustine is suggesting is something simpler: when the highest place of love is stable, the rest of life can be lived more peacefully.

After finishing the book, I felt unexpectedly calm.

Maybe that calm came not from fully understanding Augustine’s theology, but from encountering his long, honest struggle with desire, time, and attention. Reading Confessions reminds us that the human heart has always been restless — and that the search for order within that restlessness is itself part of the journey.

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『Confessions』を読み終え、欲望や注意の向かう先、そして「愛の秩序」という考え方を通して自分の日常を見つめ直し、完全に理解できたわけではない部分も含めて、その過程の中で静かな安らぎを見出したという個人的な気づきを綴った一篇。

在讀完《Confessions》後，透過對慾望與注意力指向的反思，以及「愛的秩序」這一觀念，重新審視自己的日常生活，雖然並非所有內容都完全理解，但在這樣的閱讀與思考過程中，逐漸體會到一種內在的平靜。