What does it mean to face trial, loss, and even evil without doubt? In today’s readings, the Church speaks with three voices across centuries to answer that question. In The Shepherd of Hermas, the vision of the terrifying beast reveals that coming tribulation is real, overwhelming, and unavoidable—but not ultimate; deliverance comes not through escape, but through steadfast faith that refuses to doubt God even when destruction seems imminent. Augustine, in The Confessions, brings that trial inward, recounting the shattering grief of losing his closest friend and the way sorrow exposed how deeply his heart had fastened itself to a creature rather than to God; his suffering becomes a mirror revealing the disorder of love that only God can heal. Aquinas then provides the theological clarity beneath both experiences, explaining that God knows evil not as a thing He causes or delights in, but as a privation known through His perfect knowledge of the good, and that God knows singular events, losses, and trials—not vaguely or generally, but distinctly, eternally, and without confusion. Together, these readings move from vision, to wound, to wisdom—showing that faith, grief, and divine knowledge are not separate paths, but one coherent journey toward trusting the God who knows all things without being darkened by them.

Readings: The Shepherd of Hermas — Vision 4–5

Augustine, The Confessions — Book 4, Chapter 4 (Sections 7–9)

Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica — Part 1, Question 14 (Articles 10–12 Combined)

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In today’s readings, we watch Augustine slowly being cornered by the truth—resisting superstition on moral grounds while still clinging to astrology as an intellectual refuge—until the deeper issue is exposed: any system that removes moral responsibility ultimately makes God the author of sin, and that lie cannot stand before the God who “repays each according to his works” and delights in a contrite heart (Psalm 51:17; Romans 2:6). His rejection of the soothsayer was real, but incomplete; his rejection of astrology would require something stronger than persuasion—it would require certainty. Aquinas supplies that certainty from another angle, teaching that God’s knowledge extends even to things that are not: not as existing realities, but as possibilities, pasts, futures, and privations, all known through His own essence without confusing non-being with being. Together, these readings dismantle fatalism from both directions—pastoral and metaphysical—showing that God’s sovereign knowledge grounds reality without excusing sin, and that freedom is preserved not by ignorance in God, but by His perfect knowledge ordered to truth (Isaiah 46:9–10).

Readings: Augustine, The Confessions — Book 4, Chapter 2 (Section 3) Augustine, The Confessions — Book 4, Chapter 3 (Sections 4–6) Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica — Part 1, Question 14, Article 9

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In today’s readings, we are forced to reckon with a sobering truth: what God builds, He builds deliberately—and not every stone remains fit for the tower. Hermas presses the warning home through the vision of the Church rising stone by stone, showing how faith, repentance, discipline, and even suffering determine whether a life is shaped for the structure or set aside, reminding us that delay hardens as surely as rejection. Augustine then exposes a quieter danger, confessing how he despised superstition on the surface while still feeding the demons beneath it, revealing how easily moral restraint can masquerade as spiritual devotion when love for God is absent (Isaiah 44:20). Aquinas completes the movement by lifting us into divine causality itself, teaching that God’s knowledge is not a passive awareness of reality but the very cause of all that exists—joined to His will, ordering even contingent things without destroying their freedom (Acts 17:28).

Readings: The Shepherd of Hermas — Vision 3 (Chapters 5–8) Augustine, The Confessions — Book 4, Chapter 2 (Sections 2–3) Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica — Part 1, Question 14, Article 8

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In these readings, we confront the uncomfortable truth that spiritual blindness is not always loud or malicious—sometimes it is learned, disciplined, and even admired. Hermas is shown the towering vision of the Church rising from the waters, built patiently by God while many stones are tested, rejected, or set aside, reminding us that endurance and purity matter more than proximity. Augustine reflects on his years as a teacher of rhetoric, confessing how easily brilliance and ambition can coexist with moral compromise, even while God quietly preserves flashes of fidelity amid the smoke of vanity (Psalm 119:37). Aquinas then draws us upward, clarifying that God’s knowledge of all creatures is neither vague nor mechanical but perfectly distinct, fully actual, and eternally present—without reasoning, succession, or uncertainty—because God knows all things by knowing Himself (Hebrews 4:13).

Readings: The Shepherd of Hermas — Vision 3 (Chapters 1–4) Augustine, The Confessions — Book 4, Chapter 2 (Section 2) Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica — Part 1, Question 14 (Articles 5–7 Combined)

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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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The Epistle of Barnabas brings the whole letter to a practical edge by laying out the Two Ways—light and darkness—not as abstract theory but as a concrete pattern of daily obedience, speech, humility, purity, generosity, and peace, set against the crooked path of hypocrisy, violence, envy, and deception. Augustine then shows what it feels like to be pursued in real time: a mother’s tears, a bishop’s refusal to argue too early, and a single sentence that lands like a prophecy—God can outlast our errors without being rushed by them. Aquinas gives the foundation beneath both: God’s knowledge is not a process, not a discovery, and not an improvement; God knows Himself perfectly and immutably, and in that unwavering self-knowledge He is never caught off guard by our wandering, our resistance, or our return—so the call to walk the way of light rests on the steady reality of who God is, not the instability of who we are.

Readings:

Barnabas The Epistle of Barnabas Chapters 19–21

Augustine of Hippo The Confessions Book 3, Chapter 12 (Section 21)

Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologica Part 1, Question 14, Article 2

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Today’s readings move from a mother’s tears, to the structure of the soul, to the mind of God Himself. Augustine recounts how God quietly answered Monica’s relentless prayers—not by immediate rescue, but by a promise that slowly reshaped both of their lives. Aquinas then takes us into the inner life of God, arguing that God knows Himself perfectly, and in knowing Himself, knows all things—past, present, and possible—without receiving anything from the world. Together, these readings remind us that divine knowledge is not reactive, human, or improvised. God does not learn as we do; He knows by being. And yet that perfect, eternal knowledge bends patiently toward the cries of a weeping mother.

Readings:

Augustine of Hippo, The Confessions Book 3, Chapter 11 (Sections 19–20)

Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica Part 1, Question 14 (Articles 2–4 Combined)

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Today’s readings circle a single, demanding question: How does God give life, judge rightly, and know all things without becoming subject to change? Barnabas presses the Church to see itself as the true heir of the covenant, reading Israel’s history not as abandoned, but fulfilled in Christ and extended into a new creation shaped by the cross, the Sabbath, and the eighth day. Augustine then exposes the moral confusion of his former Manichaean life, showing how distorted views of creation and purity lead not to mercy, but to absurd cruelty and misplaced compassion. Aquinas brings the thread to its metaphysical center, arguing that knowledge belongs to God most perfectly—not as something acquired, but as identical with His very being—so that God knows all things by knowing Himself. Together, these readings confront false inheritances, false piety, and false notions of divine knowledge, replacing them with a vision of God who saves, judges, and knows in perfect unity.

Readings:

The Epistle of Barnabas, Chapters 13–15

Augustine of Hippo, The Confessions Book 3, Chapter 10 (Section 18)

Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica Part 1, Question 14, Article 1

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