The Maltese Augustinian Province has just published ‘Ir-Ritrattazzjonijiet’, which is a work of Saint Augustine about his writings, translated into Maltese and presented to us by Professor Fr. Salvino Caruana OSA. The book continues with the series of works of Saint Augustine that Fr. Salvino gave us over the years, and it is of great value for the study of the life, the writings, and the legacy left by the great bishop and doctor of the Church. This is actually a piece of literary work of a certain weight which took about two years of hard work.
In the two books of The Retractationes, Saint Augustine gave us a form of another confession, this time not the one about the journey of his life, as with great moral humility he gave us in The Confessions, but the one about his writings. In them, he stated where he could have expressed himself better, where some theological and other thoughts could have been pesented better, or even corrected aspects in his 40 years of writings. So Augustine, with a great sense of humility and with a unique approach in its nature, aged 72, looked back at all the books he had written since the year 383 AD. He had in mind to do the same thing for all his sermons, as well as for all the letters he had written, but eventually he died.
The great value of these two books is known and praised by a number of Christian writers of the first centuries. The books of The Retractationes can be considered as an introduction to all the writings of the same Augustine of Hippo, during the forty years of literary work with which he served the Church and mankind. They are a work that deserves to be put in the first place in the list of the writings of the African Doctor of the Catholic Church.
The Book can be obtained for the price of €18 from Fr. Salvinu, Saint Augustine Priory, Old Bakery street, Valletta (m. 7929 4177); from the Saint Augustine Priory in Gozo; as well as from The Santa Rita Priory, San Ġiljan (m. 79515371 e-mail. tsrp@agostinjani.org)