On Compassion, Healing, Suffering, and the Purpose of the Emotional Life (Reading Augustine)

The Reading Augustine series presents short, engaging books offering personal readings of St. Augustine of Hippo's contributions to western philosophical, literary, and religious life. This book examines how Augustine negotiated the balance between maintaining tranquility and engaging emotionally with human suffering according to the model of Jesus’s ministry and of Christ’s redemptive suffering on the cross. It situates Augustine’s ideas in the context of antiquity and of early modern and contemporary ideas about compassion, human emotion, and the possibilities for spiritual healing. Susan Wessel considers several of Augustine’s emotional experiences, as well as she looks at the various contexts in which Augustine experienced sadness and human suffering in the world. She examines the relationship between and among memory, emotional experience and the formation of self-understanding; and healing in the context of the human condition and of salvation. "Reading Augustine presents concise, personal readings of St. Augustine of Hippo from leading philosophers and religion scholars. Augustine of Hippo knew that this fallen world is a place of sadness and suffering. In such a world, he determined that compassion is the most suitable and virtuous response. Its transformative powers could be accessed through the mind and its memories, through the healing of the Incarnation, and through the discernment of Christians who are forced to navigate through a corrupt and deceptive world. Susan Wessel considers Augustine's theology of compassion by examining his personal experience of loss and his reflections concerning individual and corporate suffering in the context of the human condition and salvation."-- Provided by publisher Cover Contents Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations 1 Provocation 2 Sadness 3 Suffering 4 Remembering 5 Healing 6 Accommodation Bibliography Index