By Rev. Fr. Joy Prakash, OFM –
“Too late have I loved you, O Beauty, ever ancient, ever new. Too late I loved you! And behold you were within me, but I was outside and I searched for you: I was deformed, plunging amid those forms, which you had made. You were with me, but I was not with you. Things held me far from you – things which, if they were not in you, would not have existence at all. You called and shouted, and burst my deafness. You flashed and shone, and scattered my blindness. You breathed and I drew breath from you and I pant for you. I tasted, and hunger and thirst for you. You have touched me, Lord, and I am set aflame by your peace!” (From the Confessions of St. Augustine).
A Christian at 33, a priest at 36, a bishop at 44: Coming to know Augustine (354-430) is a rewarding experience. The tears of his mother Monica, the instructions of Ambrose and, most of all, God himself speaking to him in the Scriptures redirected Augustine’s love of life to a life of love.
Having been so deeply immersed in creature-pride of life in his early days and having drunk deeply of its bitter dregs, it is not surprising that Augustine should have turned, with a holy fierceness, against the many demon-thrust rampant in his day. His times were truly decadent – politically, socially and morally. He was both feared and loved, like the Master. The perennial criticism levelled against him: a fundamental rigourism.
In his time, he providentially fulfilled the office of prophet. Like Jeremiah and other great prophets, he was hard-pressed but could not keep quiet. Like Jeremiah, “I say to myself, I will not mention him, I will speak in his name no more. But when it becomes like fire burning in my heart, imprisoned in my bones; I grow weary holding it in, I cannot endure it” (Jeremiah 20:9).
Augustine is a prophet for today, trumpeting the need to scrap escapism and stand face to face with personal responsibility and dignity.
The Franciscan theologians of the middle ages owed much to him. Augustine’s thoughts were very seminal and gave foundation for Christian Philosophy and Theology.
The oft quoted words of his: “You have made us for Yourself, Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.”