Augustine: A Lesson on Love

“A dauntless defender of the Truth.”

This is just one among many qualities attributed to one of the most prolific, if not the best, theologians of the Church—whose infamous past we all know about and whose inspiring future we all hope to become.

Yes, he is honored as a champion of defending the faith, the Truth, from various serious heresies of his time which greatly affected the Church. Further, he was said to be very passionate, sometimes even through rebuke, although always out of love, on inviting back those who were drifting away from the Truth.

But why?

“Late have I loved you, Beauty so ancient and new.” (Confessions)

Augustine could have very well said, “Been there. Done that.” And rightly so.

It was not so much of his own sinfulness, of his own drifting away, which led him to the Truth. But, I think, it was so much of his own powerful experience of the Truth that led him to the hatred of sin, to the remorse of having drifted for so long—it was such life-changing encounter of the Truth that he started to truly long, to truly love.

Hence, Augustine’s passion of inviting others to a coming back to the communion with and of defending the Truth because he had experienced it himself.

But how did he experience the Truth?

No one can describe it more beautifully than Augustine himself.

“And see, you were within and I was in the external world and sought you there, and in my unlovely state I plunged into those lovely created things which you made. You were with me, and I was not with you. The lovely things kept me far from you, though if they did not have their existence in you, they had no existence at all. You called and cried out loud and shattered my deafness. You were radiant and resplendent, you put to flight my blindness. You were fragrant, and I drew in my breath and now pant after you. I tasted you, and I feel but hunger and thirst for you. You touched me, and I am set on fire to attain the peace which is yours.” (Confessions)

It was God, the Truth, the Beauty, who had always been wooing him. It was God who had always been trying to win him back.   And it was God who had been the subject of the longing of his heart. “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in You.” 

In the heart of those, including many of us, if not all, who drift away from the love of God is the longing to go back, a longing for communion. Inside any soul who is lost is the sincere longing for the Truth amidst confusions and deceptions. 

In our passion to “win back” the sinners and to “lead back” the “lost”, we often forget that it is God who knows best how to win them back and how to lead the back. Albeit with the noblest of intentions, we therefore alienate and drive them away by seeing them with contempt or by our sheer indifference.

Jesus always had this principle of converting hearts: Communion (acceptance, welcoming) first, and Conversion follows. (cf. Jesus: A Pilgrimage by James Martin, SJ)

Augustine found the Truth and desired the Beauty through Love. Hence, although at times through rebuke, his defense of the Truth and his invitation of those who are lost to go back to the Truth had been inflamed by love. He always had this to say, “There is no Saint without a past, and no Sinner without a future.”

And we may become more effective, as mere supporting acts to that of God, if we would not stand in the way of Love who is still winning back hearts.