Yesterday we celebrated the model of intercessory prayer
St. Monica. Today we rejoice in
her son St. Augustine.
Augustine
lived a wayward life. He was a
womanizer and had a child out of wedlock.
He bounced around from several pagan religions and erroneous
philosophies. For much of his life
he sought the truth in his mind. He
ended up receiving a conversion of heart.
Augustine’s
conversion came thanks to two verses from Scripture. While in a garden he heard a child’s voice tell him, “Pick
up and read!” He opened to the
thirteenth chapter of Romans and read: “…let us conduct ourselves becomingly as in the day, not in
reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling
and jealousy. But put on the Lord
Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires”
(Romans 13:13-14). When I read
this I first thought this seemed like a regular section of Scripture. I didn’t experience a major life
conversion after reading them.
Yet
Augustine, “in receiving the word of God
from hearing us, you received it not as the word of
men, but as it truly is, the word of God…” His conversion shows the great power of the Scriptures. He was meant to be converted through a small section of Romans, even
though this passage was written 300 years ago to an early Christian community. So too, passages in the Bible will jump
out at us if we but pick up and read.
St.
Augustine famously said, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in thee.” Would that each of us would rest in God
through resting in the Scriptures.
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