Depth of the soul
Thanks be to Augustine for looking beyond himself and in humility accepting Gods great mercy. How hard it must have been for Augustine, the intellectual, to finally admit that the truth of Jesus Christ was the TRUTH which lay before him for so long. The truth he did not embrace and the truth he tried to “intelligently” explain away.
Praise the Lord, Augustine did not allow his past to keep him from God. Once he found the truth, he embraced it with pure contrition and love. By the reformation of his mind and his heart he was able to reform his rambunctious lifestyle. Augustine serves as a great example of how our sins, however great, are no match for the INFINITE MERCY of GOD!
This great saint has helped to convert countless souls with his rich and well reasoned theology by uniting his rational and scholarly mind with his heart and soul aflame with love. What a great son of the Church!
I really like the passage from Augustine’s Confessions that we read in today’s Office of Readings. In chapter 10 he speaks of his “mystical conversion” so beautifully. I will add a little snippet here…
“And being thence admonished to return to myself, I entered even into my inward self, Thou being my Guide: and able I was, for Thou wert become my Helper. And I entered and beheld with the eye of my soul (such as it was), above the same eye of my soul, above my mind, the Light Unchangeable. Not this ordinary light, which all flesh may look upon, nor as it were a greater of the same kind, as though the brightness of this should be manifold brighter, and with its greatness take up all space. Not such was this light, but other, yea, far other from these. Nor was it above my soul, as oil is above water, nor yet as heaven above earth: but above to my soul, because It made me; and I below It, because I was made by It. He that knows the Truth, knows what that Light is; and he that knows It, knows eternity.”
Excerpt from the Public Domain version of the Confessions of Saint Augustine at the Christian Classic Ethereal Library.
Image: Sandro Botticelli, Saint Augustine, Ognissanti’s Church, Firenze
I’ve only recently begun to read little excerpts from St. Augustine.Thanks for your choice , Lisa, and here is one of mine:
Late have I loved Thee, O Beauty so ancient and so new, late have I loved Thee!
And, behold, Thou wert within me and I myself on the outside,
and it was there that I sought Thee.
And into those lovely things, which Thou madest,
All unlovely did I rush.
Thou wert with me, but I was not with Thee.
Those things kept me far from Thee, things that would not exist, unless they were in Thee.
Thou didst call, and shout, and shatter my deafness:
Thou didst sparkle, and shine, and dispel my blindness:
Thou sentest forth Thy fragrance, and I breathed deeply, and now I sigh for Thee:
I tasted, and now do hunger and thirst:
Thou didst touch me, and I burned for Thy peace.
Comment by Ann — August 28, 2007 @ 2:27 pm
Yes, I burned for Thy peace!
Comment by aeternus — September 2, 2007 @ 12:56 pm
That bit of writing by Saint Augustine is beautiful. I must get me some books on and by this great saint.
Comment by Ginny — September 3, 2007 @ 10:37 pm
Ginny,
You will be glad you did!
Comment by aeternus — September 4, 2007 @ 7:25 am