St Augustine's Confessions

Ok so there are a few topics I would like to talk about in St. Augustine’s confessions.  One thing that caught my attention was in book 1 Chapter 13 where St. Augustine was talking about studies in Greek and Latin. St. Augustine talks about a fictional character named Dido, who killed herself for love.  He claims that if people cried for her, then they are sinning because they love the fictional character more than their selves. To quote Augustine he said, “Who can be more wretched than the wretched one who takes no pity on himself, who weeps over Dido’s death, which she brought to pass by love for Aeneas, and who does not weep over his own death, brought to pass by not loving you, O God, light of my heart, bread for the inner mouth of my soul, power wedding together my mind and the bosom of my thoughts? I did not love you, and I committed fornication against you…”God made me a human being. Which means I have emotions, and as a being, emotions can’t be controlled all the time. I think God made me extra emotional too, lol. There isn’t an off and on switch that tells me to stop displaying emotions no matter the situation. Trust me I wish it were that easy. I’m known to cry during a sad part of a movie or show. Like the movie ‘John Q’, I practically cried my eyes out during that movie. I cry during sad movies, not really because the character is dying, but mostly because I sometimes put myself in those certain situations and then I see how stuff like that effects people and how situations like that happen everyday in real life. So watching ‘The Passion of the Christ’ and crying during the movie is a sin? Because I get a mental image of my Lord suffering that is a sin? I get that St. Augustine is saying a fictional character (such as an actor), but sometimes a fictional character helps us see and understand certain situations. To enter into the Lords Kingdom, we must show compassion. That does not mean that I care about a fictional character more than myself or more than God, because I know in the end its acting coming from the character, but then again something like that is happening to someone in the world. I disagree that in doing that, that is a sin of disordered love. So, St. Augustine: 0 Nena: 1. Lol, that was a joke, har har. If St. Augustine were still alive, I would tell him that he needs to relax a little. He is very obsessed with sin. I’m afraid to even say I love ice cream or anything for that matter because it is a sin of disordered love. One thing I do agree with St. Augustine is that in book 4 chapter 10 about a changing universe. “For whatever way the soul of man turns, it is fixed upon sorrows any place except in you, even though it is fixed upon beautiful things that are outside of you and outside itself.” St. Augustine is saying that anything you turn to will cause you sorrow except for God. Because, God never changes but everything else does. A particular reason this passage caught my attention is because at this moment, I’m having a difficult time with one of my good friends. I feel like they have really disappointed me and this is not the only time, there have been other times too.  Even your own mother causes you sorrow, anything you think that won’t will. The people that you love will cause you sorrow because they are always changing; they are becoming more or less everyday. I now understand why St. Augustine says, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” You can’t rest your heart in any human being because they will cause you sorrow.