St. Augustine, Is it Easy After Man Has Found the Path to God?
Question 022.
What is the relationship between prayer and conversion?
Part III: Three Conversions Through Trial: Trial II
The second trial is that of how to do good… In his crying out to the Lord, he is heard and the Lord breaks his chains of difficulty…To abstain from every sort of sin has not become easy. God could have granted this without difficulties, but if there […]
St. Augustine, How Is It At the Very Beginning of the Search for God?
Question 022.
What is the relationship between prayer and conversion?
Part II: Three Conversions Through Trial: Trial I
The first trial is one of wandering and hunger. Once [man] has had enough of this trial and is brought to call out to God, he takes to the way of faith, that path whose journey will bring him to the city of Peace. […]
St. Augustine, What is It Like For Man Before He Seeks God?
Question 022.
What is the relationship between prayer and conversion?
Part I: Before Conversion
Whoever knows himself to be in the depths [that is lost in sin] cries out with groans and sighs until he is delivered from the depths..until [God’s] own image, that image which is man, is freed by God. Unless he is made anew and […]
St. Augustine, Does Finding God End Our Searching?
Question 021.
Is God to be sought even after we have found him?
Such is the way with incomprehensible things – they must be investigated so that no one believes he has found a mere nothing, when in fact he has been able to find how incomprehensible that is what he was seeking…And making progress in the search itself, he becomes ever better while seeking […]
St. Augustine, Though I Seek God, He Seems to Hide From Me?
Question 020.
If God wants me to find him, why does he play hide-and-seek with me?
… simply beginning the search is, to a certain extent, already to have begun to bridge the gap between God and ourselves. It enables us to enter into the mind of God, and from that point of vantage to contemplate God’s work and the mysteries of faith. To arrive […]
St. Augustine, How Is It That My Inclination to Pray Is a Part of My Nature?
Question 019.
Does that mean that my inclination to pray is part of my nature? That I have come prepackaged for an encounter with God?
[Jesus] being glorified in his resurrection and ascension, brought many rich men to hold this present world in disdain, and thus truly enriching them by granting them the Holy Spirit and thereby extinguishing all longing for wealth. Otherwise, […]
St. Augustine, Why is Prayer not an Optional Thing?
Question 018.
In other words, prayer is not an extra, but is a part of the fulfillment of our nature?
Man is the image of the one whom he is capable of enjoying, and whose partner he can become…man has been created in such an excellent state that even although it is itself mutable, it reaches happiness by cleaving […]
St. Augustine, Isn’t This Just “Navel Gazing”?
Question 017.
But isn’t the “going into ourselves” thing narcissistic?
More than an introversion, prayer is a transcendence of oneself. Do not wander outside of yourself, but return into yourself, for within the interior man dwells the truth. And when you discover that you too are mutable, transcend yourself. You transcend a reasoning soul. Therefore, gravitate towards that place where your reason is […]
St. Augustine, Where Should I Go to Find God?
Question 016.
Where should I look for God?
It is difficult to find Christ in the crowd. Your mind needs a certain solitude, for it is only by this type of contemplative solitude that God is seen… purify the chamber of your heart. Regardless of where you are, there pray, for he who dwells within, hears you.
from St. Augustine Answers 101 […]
St. Augustine, Might We Have Fulfillment in this Life?
Question 015.
Isn’t it expecting too much to think that anything can truly fill us in this life?
There let us dwell in hope, since we do not yet dwell in reality… And that which was our hope will become our reality, it will be our repose… You move us to delight in praising you; for you have made us for yourself, and our hearts […]