In today’s readings, we trace a single thread running from conscience, to confession, to divine simplicity: how God confronts sin, heals the soul, and grounds all knowing in Himself. In The Shepherd of Hermas, a vision exposes the danger of sinful desire, misplaced discipline, and spiritual negligence, while holding out the hope of repentance and restoration for the household of faith. Augustine, looking back on nine years of deception among the Manicheans, confesses the emptiness of false wisdom and the humiliation of being both deceived and a deceiver, offering his shame as a sacrifice of thanksgiving to God. Thomas Aquinas then lifts us into the mystery of God Himself, arguing that in God the act of understanding is not something added to His being, but is identical with His subsisting essence—showing that the God who judges, heals, and forgives is also the eternal act of knowing itself.

Readings: The Shepherd of Hermas — Book 1, Visions, Vision 1 (Sections 1–4) Augustine of Hippo — The Confessions, Book 4, Chapter 1 (Section 1) Thomas Aquinas — Summa Theologica, Part 1, Question 14, Article 4

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