Augustine on Friendship

Confessions, IV, 8:

All kinds of things rejoiced my soul in their company--to talk and laugh and do each other kindnesses; read pleasant books together, pass from lightest jesting to talk of the deepest things and back again; differ without rancour, as a man might differ with himself, and when most rarely dissension arose find our normal agreement all the sweeter for it; teach each other or learn from each other; be impatient for the return of the absent, and welcome them with joy on their homecoming; these and such like things, proceeding from our hearts as we gave affection and received it back, and shown by face, by voice, by the eyes, and a thousand other pleasing ways, kindled a
flame which fused out very souls and of many made us one.

Confessions, IV, 9:

This is what men value in friends, and value so much that their conscience judges them guilty if they do not meet friendship with friendship, expecting nothing from their friend save such evidence of his affection. This is the root of our grief when a friend dies, and the blackness of our sorrow, and the steeping of the heart in tears for the joy that has turned to bitterness, and the feeling as though we were dead because he is dead. Blessed is the man that loves Thee, O God, and his friend in Thee, and his enemy for Thee. For he alone loses no one that is dear to him, if all are dear in God, who is never lost.

The first citation would pass without comment as a description of the friends one meets in college (and less often in high school). As I began reading the paragraph from which I pulled the second citation, I realized how blessed I am regarding the health of those I'm close to. A function of my age, no doubt, and gone all too soon.

A further thought:

The translation I've been been reading was made by F.J. Sheed. As English it reads very well. Having never really looked at the Latin, I cannot vouch for its accuracy. The "Translator's Note" Sheed gives marks an interesting change in prayer language (at least here in the States). As rancour should have given away, Sheed is English. To get back to my point, Sheed feels the need to address a controversy that doesn't even register today:

The use of Thou or You in speaking to God presented a real problem. St. Augustine, of course, knew nothing of Thou as a term reserved for religious use. He, like any other writer of Latin, used Tu when he was talking to one (whether it were God or his mother or his mistress or an opponent in controversy), Vos when he was talking to more than one. It would seem therefore that our usage of Thou, with the special religious atmosphere that now goes with it, introduces a note into the translation that was not in the original.

On the other hand, Christians of the English tongue are so accustomed to using Thou in their prayers, that You would sound odd.

St. Augustine is addressing God all the time: he relates the story of his life to God,
discusses philosophical problems with God, and from time to time breaks into what we should more naturally regard as prayer to God. If Thou is used throughout, the effect is quite intolerably archaic and untrue to the extreme moderness of St. Augustine's Latin. I have therefore made a compromise: in passages of straight prayer, I have used Thou; but when he addresses God in narrative or discussion, I have used You.

The border-line between prayer and discussion (or narrative) is not always quite clear. And, even apart from that, it has not been possible to apply the rule with entire consistency. Where St. Augustine uses Scripture passages in which our English version uses Thou, I have kept Thou; and in his own comments arising out of or linking such Scripture passages, it seemed best to keep to Thou.

Sheed published his translation in 1942. My parents and my grad school teachers taught me to say "Our Father, who art in heaven" and "the Lord is with thee." In high school, we were supposed to say you instead of thee. I don't remember what was the preferred option regarding art. For the "Memorare," which I learned in high school, I know as "To you do I come. Before you I stand," whereas my mom uses thee.

I can see both sides of the argument here and am not too invested in either, although "who is in heaven" sounds abominable.