WEEK 1

“No one knows what he himself is made of, except his own spirit within him, yet
there is still some part of him which remains hidden even from his own spirit; but
you, Lord, know everything about a human being because you have made him...Let
me, then, confess what I know about myself, and confess too what I do not know,
because what I know of myself I know only because you shed light on me, and
what I do not know I shall remain ignorant about until my darkness becomes like
bright noon before your face.”
― Augustine of Hippo, Confessions

Lord knows us completely. He made us wonderfully and fearfully and he

knows every inch of our behaviors and talents. I chose that passage from the book
of St. Augustine called “Confessions” because it just simply talks about our life. We
often say that we are the superiority of our own but somehow, we deny some
truths and facts about us. We can’t fool ourselves. We can’t fool the Lord. He knows
what we think every second and he knows what we really desire. As we age, our
spirits become more mature and starts finding our true selves. It is said in the
passage that there are still parts that remains hidden, but with the perfect time and
light, Lord will allow us to completely know our darkness. Lord give us the
brightness on everything.

The significance of this selection to me is it made me reflect on my life in the

present. How much do I know myself? How can I discover innermost self? I need to
put my full trust to the Lord for my being. Even though I know that it is my decision
to be who and what I am but there will always be something natural inside of me. I
do not have enough knowledge of everything, that is why I need to trust what God
wants me to know. In community, I think the significance of this quote is that we
should learn not to judge anyone. We live in a world where everyone judges and it
is not a healthy act. Judging someone practices immorality and negative
perspective in life. We do not know anyone completely, even ourselves. Lord Jesus
is the only one who truly and just to judge us. Let us all find the beauty on
everyone and accept their darkness.

While reading the selection I feel touched. The passage reflects the word of
the Lord. It inspires me to be a better version of myself without allowing any
negativities ruining my life. It inspires me to know more about myself, to know
exactly my ups and downfall, when I am strong and when I am fragile. What God
wants me to know is what I need to believe and accept.
WEEK 2
“God is always trying to give good things to us, but our hands are too full to receive
them”

- St. Augustine, City of God

We often wish for the things we thought were good for us but wasn’t. We
claim something we thought that could make us happy but, it is only a temporary
happiness. We collect things that we thought it is God’s grace, but we just don’t
think wisely if it is good. One thing for sure in life is, only God knows what’s good
for us. According to the quote, “he is always trying”, but we are all blinded with our
temptations and on things we desire. But He is God, he will always be patient for us
to realize everything and then go back to what he told us to do. I think the main
reason why we our hands are full enough to receive His grace is that we do not
center our mind on Him. If we only wait with His right time, then we will be able to
receive what is truly and just. I chose this passage because I somehow felt the
same. I was blinded with my desires, to the point that I did not know that God has
something greater to give to me. If I only did not collect temporary happiness, then
I am experiencing eternal happiness. But I know that this passage will forever be in
my mind to remember. I need to wait on the right thing. I will be more aware with
His signs.

The significance of this quote to me is that it will always be a realization to

me. All my life I have encountered many circumstances where I made bad decisions
and aware of His signs but still neglect because it is not what I want. The greatest
lesson would be is to wait and to know the difference between the needs and
wants. The needs simply illustrate the reality, hard to accept at first but later will
forever put you in the right path to happiness. The wants on the other hand are the
temporary ones, the things you thought could make you happy forever. Example of
these are desires, lust, money, temptations. We often get blinded by those because
we thought they are good. The significance of this in community is that we will all
trust on His process, we can educate other and others can educate us well. We can
help each other to be much aware of His right time and blessings. This quote will
always remind us to be patient in every point in our lives.

While reading the quote, it made me feel sad because there are a lot of times
that I was blinded by not-so-important things. God is always trying to help me and
give me things. I need to be patiently waiting and be aware of His signs. I should
not settle for temporary happiness but for eternal. I should not decide on my own, I
need to consult to Him and give signs if my decisions were good. At this point of my
life and as a student, I need to be mindful on everything so I will not regret
everything in the end.
WEEK 3
“The Bible was composed in such a way that as beginners mature, its meaning
grows with them”

- St. Augustine, Confessions

The Bible consists two parts; the Old Testament and the New Testaments.
The reason for the having New Testament is to revise what is said on the old one to
make it more understandable. Some says that there are few errors in the Old
Testament that is why it is changed. This is also related in our lives. As we age, we
grow and mature. We discover some parts of ourselves that we didn’t discover
before. When we are still young, we do not know completely why we are alive, we
don’t have the knowledge of everything, and we are too innocent in solving our
problems. As we get older, the problems we encounter is getting bigger and bigger
to the point where we are aware that we are changing physically, mentally,
emotionally, and spiritually. As we get older, we get to see the bigger pictures of
our lives and slowly we understand the meaning of everything. All of us do mature
and start experiencing things. We start to understand things we often thought as
complicated ones. I chose this this quote because it simply evaluates our lives/ my
life. I am completely aware that I became more matured compared before. One
example is if before I am not a money-wise person, now I value things better and I
think a lot of times before deciding what to buy and what to decide. I know that I
will be more matured as I age, and I will completely understand how things work
with myself and other people.

The significance of this quote to me is that I need to on with my life. What I

experience right now is a part of creating myself for the future. I know that every
hard work I did will eventually pay me off. The hardships I encountered just made
me the better version of myself. The only thing I need to be focused with is
maturity because maturity summarizes my values and hardships in life. The
significance of this in community is that we will all help each other in building our
future. We are all interconnected and as a community it is important to help each
other. In a community, we share our lives with other people and by chances, they
can help us grow independently in our lives. They can eventually be a factor in our
lives, so it is very important to help each other.

While reading the quote, it made me reflect in my life. Time really flies so
fast and it made more matured. It excites me to grow more as the time goes by. It
also excites me to understand everything I don’t currently understand. As a
student, I am happy with what is going on in my life. I am more prepared with
what my future would be and of course I do trust everything on God.
WEEK 4
“If you find physical pleasure in earthly experiences, use the occasions to praise
God for these gifts. Turn your love not on the pleasures but toward their Maker.
Otherwise, the things that please you will cause you to displease. Love those souls
that please you, but love them in God”

- St. Augustine, The Confessions

We all have different desires in our lives. We are always happy, and we feel
satisfaction for everything that we received. But at some point, we forget who
really gave that thing to us, that pleasure we want. This quote is summarized by
my favorite verse in the Bible, “She sets her mind on things above, not on earthly
things” Colossians 3:2. When God give us things we want or desire, because of
over excitement and happiness, we tend to forget the Maker of everything. He is
the one who makes everything possible. We should not love the gift, but the Giver.
If we love the pleasure, it will not love us back, but when we love the Giver, He
might bless us more. There’s a saying that when you love a person, love them
because of God. God created them that is why all of us should be thankful and
grateful for everything that we received and will be receiving. I chose this passage
because it is just true and right. In our lives, we often forget to be thankful enough.
This quote just reminds us to be thankful and focus on Him. We should not let our
desires win over Him; let us all make Him as the superior in our lives.

The significance of this quote to myself is that it will always remind me to be

thankful in life. I am super grateful to think that God blesses me in every
unexpected way. Sometimes I overthink if what I receive from Him is what I truly
deserve. I am just so blessed in life even though I encountered many problems. I
can’t say I am such a good person, but God is just too faithful to believe in me. Yes,
I am not perfect that is why sometimes I forgot to thank God for everything. I love
and focus on the earthly things not on things above or the Maker. Sometimes I
think it is my success but in reality, it is His’. The significance of this quote to the
community is that we all can help each other to focus on God. We can educate
others and correct their wrong thoughts. Most especially, we should love everyone
because they are created by God even though not everyone does good things at
you. They are still creations of God and as a son and daughters, everyone is our
responsibility because we are all made by Him.

While reading the quote I feel sad because I can somehow relate. It just
made me reflect in my life, the past and present. I need to focus on Him every
time. It’s not my success but His’. As a student and a teenager, I will be
encountering more of this in my life and I need to prepare.
WEEK 5
“Since you cannot do good to all, you are to pay special attention to those who, by
accidents of time, or place, or circumstance, are brought into closer connection with
you”

- St. Augustine

In our life, we meet a lot of people but not all are meant to stay. Sometimes
they are just passing by to give us life lessons and memories. It is true that we
cannot do good to all because it is very hard. Not all people can do good things to
us too. We meet people by chances. In my life, I learned that not all of the people
are important ones. I need to limit the people whom I can chose to be a part of my
life. Not everyone can help me, not everyone can do good to me. We all have
special attention to special people. I think it is a sign of maturity because we only
focus on what is important. Sometimes, people take us for granted because we let
them but now, we all should be mindful with everything. We need to choose people
who is in fact chose us and we can build great relationship with them. The reason
why I chose this quote is because it is the reality of our world today. Since
communication with other people and society is always involved in our lives, it is
better to have good and true people with our sides whom we share our lives. As a
famous quote says, “No man is an island”.

The significance of this quote to me is it always remind me to be wise in

choosing people I will interact with. I need to be transparent and just be true on
myself. I must not be forces to do good to all although God wants me, but the
reality is it is very hard. I encounter many people in my life and God always shows
me signs if they are really good to me and that is good. It is also better if we all do
good things to people even though they don’t thank us that enough, but the fact
that we know we did good is enough and I am sure He knows it. The significance of
this in the community is to have great relationship to each other. It is important to
maintain peace. Even though we are not all alike and has a lot differences, we need
to learn how to interact well.

While reading this quote, I feel good because at this point of life I have
learned to surround myself only with important people and I start not caring about
people whom I know will not have a great effect in my life.
WEEK 6
“What grace is meant to do is to help good people, not to escape their sufferings,
but to bear them with a stout heart, with a fortitude that finds its strength in faith”

- St. Augustine, The Confessions

Grace is something we give or acquired without hesitations and conditions.

We give it to people we know that deserve it. Grace also means help, it is
unconditional where we do not expect something in return. When you help others,
you just not simply help, you bear with them in their sufferings and you fully
understand what they are up to. You put yourself in their shoes and you try to
figure out what you can do. We should not just help them if we feel we need to but
we help them because we want to. We shouldn’t feel obligated because that is not a
good type of helping. It will just worsen their feeling. Giving help also means having
strong faith, because you believe of something positive. It helps us also to be a
good person of today. Giving grace to others also depicts good moral and it also
makes our inner self happy. We should learn how to help without any conditions
because I believe that God will bless us more knowing that we help his son or
daughter. I chose this quote because it depicts the reality of life where no man is
an island and everybody needs help of something. I also observed the wrong doings
of other where helping is just for the sake of power and media, like what is
happening in social media. We help because we want to and not because we are
expecting them to help us too.

The significance of this quote to me is that it made me realize what is

important when helping. Honestly, sometimes when I help people, I expect
something in return because of course I help them. But I did realized the best
feeling. The best feeling I could ever feel is being helped unexpectedly, it made feel
better when people around me helps me and fully understand my situation. It is
very rare to find genuine people that could help me in figuring out my life, thanks
to my friends, family, and even random people whom I’ve just met. The
significance of this quote to the community is that it could help in building
relationships through good things and God’s grace. The importance of having grace
above anything could just save the humanity.

While reading the quote I feel thankful and grateful for everybody who has
been helping me since day one. I believe that we all could be the best version of
ourselves and all of us can get more maturity from our hardships. As a teenager, I
will continue to help with all my strength and sincerity to other people.
WEEK 7
“This joy in God is not like any pleasure found in physical or intellectual satisfaction.
Nor is it such a friend experiences in the presence of a friend. But, if we are to use
any such analogy, it is more like the eye rejoicing in light.”

- St. Augustine, The City of God

All we thought is that we could find happiness on earthly things, physical

things, material things and on what we desire. But in reality, we could only find true
and genuine happiness through our Lord. He is the source of everything. I believe
that if we could just surrender everything to Him, we could experience eternal joy
and happiness that none on this earth could offer. He is the only one who could
give us satisfaction and right things. We often thinks that our desires are the only
one who could give us happiness but all things here on earth are just temporary.
Even that food, that movie, that person, that drinks, that lust. All of those are
temporary. But you know what is permanent. Believing in God. According to the
passage there is an analogy that joy in God is like a presence of a friend. It is true,
when we are with our friends, we feel genuine happiness. They are the ones whom
we are comfortable with. It is also true that God is our friend too, maybe yes, we
do not communicate with Him orally, but he is the only one who can understand us
fully. He is the one that knows everything that is going on into our mind, He is such
a great friend. There is also one analogy, joy in God is like an eye rejoicing in light.
Have you ever feel being in complete darkness but when light came in, you felt
complete, enlightened, and loved. I chose this because it just talks about pure
happiness, that God is happiness and I will always live by Him.

The significance of this quote to me is that it will always remind me the

happiness I could get from Him. I should never focus myself on temporary
happiness because there are more good things that could happen. Through this
quote and analogy, I will see Lord as my friend and father. He is also my light on
everything. I will just focus on Him as a Lord. The significance of this quote to the
community is that all of us will be happy with the same source. We will all worship
God and live with His presence.

While reading this passage, I feel happy because all this time, God has never
failed making me happy through unexpected things he give to me. He is always
there for me even on bad times and He always give me light to see the beauty on
everything.
WEEK 8
“Every where the greater joy is ushered in by the greater pain”

- St. Augustine, The City of God

I chose the quote above because I can relate to the quote and I
already experienced the great pain and the great joy the quote mentioned.
What does the selection mean The selection simply implies that a person will
only experience the greatest or ultimate joy in life if and only if he/she able
to learn to the lessons being brought by the great pain he/she encounters.
The selection is significant to me since I was in a situation wherein I suffered
the great pain, the pain of being fend up on something that will just be a
part of my imagination. A situation that will just be a possibility and a what-
if into my life. The pain taught me something, that I should find happiness
through it by using it as a movitation to move-on through the humps that
kept me from moving forward. With that great pain, it served as an avenue
to find a great joy in my life, a joy that helped me to remove the past that
hounded me for a long time and able to enjoy the company that the 'joy'
brought to my life.
This quote is also significant to the community since most of us came
from.the pain from the struggles of life in which we surpassed with the help
of the movitation and passion we have in our hearts. We are able to find that
success, our great joy that no material thing can replace.
As I read the quote, I smiled and remembered the great pain I
suffered. It's like "Hey, I surpassed that pain my life." I moved-on to that
chapter, and now the happiness overflows into mine that creates a mindset
that I can surpass every pains in my life if I work hard to defeat it, resulting
to the joy I will experience in the long run.
WEEK 9
“Sin is to a nature what blindness is to an eye. The blindness is an evil or defect
which is a witness to the fact that the eye was created to see the light and, hence,
the very lack of sight is the proof that the eye was meant to be the one particularly
capable of seeing the light. Were it not for this capacity, there would be no reason
to think of blindness as a misfortune.”

- St. Augustine, The city of God

Sin is a topic that many avoid. We don’t like to think about our sins. We don’t
like to admit to them, and we often rationalize them as if we do not have any. We
can easily come up with excuses for this “sin” or that. But here is another
perspective on sin. We should see our sin, no matter how grave or how small, as a
little twig. And then we should see a huge and blazing fire. If you were to throw
that twig into the fire it would immediately be consumed. The twig is our sin and
God’s Mercy is so powerful that it can easily and quickly consume it. Every sin
produces blindness; and as sin increases, so does the sinner’s blindness increase.
Therefore, do we see relapsing sinners lose all light, and go from sin to sin, without
even thinking of amendment. The very habit of committing sin, says St. Augustine,
prevents sinners from perceiving the evil they do, and so they live as if they no
longer believed in God, in Heaven, or in eternity. Sin deprived them of sight, and
thus they were lost. Every sin produces blindness; and as sin increases, so does the
blindness increase. God is our light; as much, therefore, as the soul withdraws from
God, so much the more blind does she become. Therefore, do we see certain
relapsed sinners lose all light, and proceed from sin to sin, without any more even
thinking of amendment.

I chose this quote because it talks about sin. It is nature for us to sin, but it
will always be our choice. It talks about the reality of life where all of us are blinded
on everything. We are blinded with the truth and other bad things in our mind. The
significance of this quote to me and in the community is that it would make us
reflect on everything in our lives. It is hard not to commit sin, but we should always
be mindful and know how to ask for forgiveness. God will always be faithful to us
no matter what and He will be there for us every day. While reading the quote, I
feel sad for when I myself is also a sinner and blind. There is no good excuse for
everything but God is just so good by always accepting me and my flaws. All of us
should be changing because asking for forgiveness without changing is nothing.