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Yes. There Really is a St. Augustine.

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During a scripture study session a friend of mine casually mentioned St. Augustine:  “Is there really a St. Augustine?  I mean, isn’t that just a made-up name for an old town in Florida?’

Good grief, as Charlie Brown used to say.  Doesn’t anyone know of saints anymore?  Those heroes and heroines from our Christian heritage are important.  They show us how to live the life that Our Lord hoped would take root in our world.

St. Augustine avoided baptism until he was in his early thirties.  He famously said: “Lord give me chastity –but, not yet.”  He lived with a woman for ten years without marrying her.  His only child, Adeodatus, was illegitimate.  He just couldn’t find it in his heart to be  a disciple of Jesus Christ like his mother.

After losing his teaching job in Rome and coming down with what might have been asthma or chronic bronchitis, he was depressed and grieving for his life when he picked up a scroll of scripture and read the words: “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provisi0n for he flesh.” In that moment, God’s grace entered his heart like a flash of lightening.  He was soon baptized and embraced the life that Jesus came to bring to the world.

Augustine  eventually became a bishop in his homeland of North Africa. He challenged his priests to live more transparently as true disciples of Jesus. He gathered them together and had them live a common life. For this reason, St. Augustine is called the Father of Western Monasticism.

Yes, St. Augustine was a real person and a real saint.  But, hold on! There’s more!

He is, also, one of the great theologians of the Church.  Listen to him speak of why Christians should rejoice in the midst of suffering:

“But how can we rejoice in the Lord if he is far from us?  Pray God that he be not far.  If he is, that is your doing.  Love and he will draw near; love, and he will dwell within you.  Are you puzzled to know how it is that he will be with you if you love? God is love.

‘What do you mean by love?’,  you will ask me.  It is that which enables us to be loving. What do we love?  A good that words cannot describe, a good that is forever giving….Delight in Him from whom you have received everything that delights you.”

Ronald Rolheiser, a contemporary theologian, says that to have a thankful heart is a first principle of spirituality.  If we are genuinely grateful for what we have, we will experience a delight that leads us to love.   St. Augustine and all the saints testify by their lives that love is the presence of God.  How could we forget something so basic as Augustine’s teaching on love?

So, yes, there really is a St. Augustine who teaches us that wherever there is gratitude, whenever there is hope, then, we can experience the love of  the God for whom our restless hearts yearn.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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St. Augustine, St, Monica and Conversion.

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St. Augustine’s feast day is this week. For years I have found his “Confessions” inspiring. Here was a citizen of the late Roman empire who ranks right up there with the greatest minds of all time but his prayer life was that of a very humble man. He simply wanted to find God’s will for him and fulfill it.

His story is simple. He was raised in a well-to-do family in Northern Africa. His mother tried to entice him to become a Christian but Augustine was more interested in secular pursuits.  He immersed himself in the philosophies of the day and became a professor of rhetoric.

He lived with a girl for years and had a son with her. By that time in his life he was living in Milan and teaching.  He listened to Ambrose, the local bishop and became a fan of his sermons. Meanwhile his mother Monica kept asking Augustine when he was going to be baptized.  He preferred to remain a catechumen.

The story of his conversion is the heart of the “Confessions.”  He describes a moment when he suddenly realized that St. Paul was speaking to him directly when he said: “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the desires of the flesh.” It was the most dramatic moment in his life.  He was soon baptized along with his best friend and his own son, Adeodatus.

Monica, his mother, is featured in Augustine’s story and Augustine’s description of the days leading up to her death is poignant and riveting. He knows he owes two births to her: his physical birth and his re-birth in Christ.

Sometime after his death, Augustine’s writings were hand-carried out of North Africa by bishops who were fleeing an enormous barbarian invasion near the end of the fifth century. Those writings are revered by scholars today.

Here is an example of the way Augustine prays: 

“Your best servant is he who looks not so much to hear from You what he wants to hear, but rather to want what he hears from You.”(Confessions, Chapter 26, #37)

Monica’s feast day is the 27th of August and Augustine, the 28th.

This is Augustinian week in my soul.

 

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Writing Books, Writing in Books.

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I write in my books. Yes, I write in pen without any guilt at all. But, don’t tell anyone.  People can’t believe that a reader would write in ink all over a new novel or non-fiction book. 

Yep, I’m scribbling statements,
shooting arcing arrows to the page margins of my book to target some idea, and generally defacing a perfectly good book.

I do it to my bible, too. You should see the first chapter of John with notes in red, underlining in black and even tiny drawings in whatever color pen I had in may hands at the time. Whole sentences are highlighted in yellow.  My bible looks like a friendly edit.

My books are my friends, so I talk to them.  Why shouldn’t I, they are talking to me? I take the text seriously as a conversation between the author and me. When I converse, I often learn something, if I am listening. And, when I listen for a while, I want to respond.

At restaurants when I am alone at a table with my book, I catch people staring at the guy who is writing in a perfectly good book. What a waste!

Although I throw most books away after reading them, I  keep a few of the books by authors with whom I’ve had discussions.  Every so often,  I’ll pick up an old friend whose pages are worn and whose binding is loosening and begin asking new questions of something I hear for the first time in the text.

As his editor said to Gibbon when he presented a mass of pages entitled “The Decline and Fall of the
Roman Empire”:  “Always, scribble, scribble, scribble, heh, Mr. Gibbon?”

Yeah, I’m always scribbling, though I would not have been worthy to carry Mr. Gibbon’s snuff box, much less emulate his writing.

If I have been reading a book and there are no handwritten exclamation points or question marks along the edges of the text in the margins, I’m not liking the book much. I’ll probably not finish it.

I’m not going to loan a book to you either. Too much of myself is revealed in glosses all through my books. I would be embarrassed to offer one to you. Too much of my soul would be hanging out in the pages.

St. Augustine reminded us that God has written his existence into our universe. He is there, always,  scribbling away, amending and mending his creation. We should read His  book again and again. We should make comments and ask Him questions.  I know He will be pleased that someone cares enough to join in the eternal conversation.

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