“Lord my God, to whom I owe humble and simple service, how many machinations are used by the Enemy to suggest to me that I should seek from you some sign! But I beseech you by our King and by Jerusalem our simple and pure home, that as consent to these suggestions is far from me, so it may always remain distant and even more remote. But when I pray to you for the good of someone, my intention is directed to a very different goal. Grant me now and in the future to follow gladly as you do with me what you will.”—Saint Augustine, Confessions
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This past Monday was the Feast of Saint Augustine, feasts of saints being a tradition of our faith to honor those whose example lived before us.
For the past week, I have been reading Saint Augustine’s Confessions. It’s a book I’ve owned for nearly twenty years, began many times, but never made it more than a few pages before laying it down and alone for years between (the bleached Borders receipt as bookmark serves as proof); but this time, the reading is different.
I have a belief—right or wrong—that God, or life, save some books and readings for when our spirit and life-condition are better able to receive, and make use, of imparted messages. The more I read, the more I believe this true. Maybe such is the reason for my many starts, and only now, full-reading of the story.
Saint Augustine’s Confessions is an account of his coming to Faith. It is the story, not so much of a bad man turning good (though he may argue different) but of a Man of the World discerning there is more; of finally acknowledging surrendering to, and following what he always sensed within his soul: GOD.
It happened in his thirties, near to the age as I—and perhaps God shapes many full-conversions at this age: life experience, trials, disappointments, and sustainment of enduring hopes being necessary to shape and prepare a soul to open and follow fully.
Saint Augustine’s life is a testament that it is never too late to begin, to surrender and follow in faith the purpose for which we’re made and called; and that despite our prides, errors, vanities, and sins—our histories—God holds ability and blessing to make saints, and use, of all of us.
What a beautiful Hope to live.