Augustinian Path to Vocational Discernment (Part 4)

The most useful and necessary thing is love

The impulse that propelled the life of St. Augustine, even in the most mixed up and convulsive moments of his youth, was love: “I was looking for what to love by loving love […] Loving and being loved was the sweetest thing for me” (Confessions III,1.1). The most useful and necessary thing in human life is precisely to experience the beauty of being able to love and to be loved.

I was looking for what to love by loving love […] Loving and being loved was the sweetest thing for me

Confessions III, 1, 1

What’s the most useful thing? The most useful thing is the most necessary. And what’s most necessary? The most necessary thing in the life of a human being is love, that is, to find a place in the hearts of others and for others to find a place also in one’s own heart. Putting it that way may sound a bit romantic, but it’s not…

All forms of searching for the meaning of people’s lives, in the end, run into the question: whats this about? The desire for success or prestige, whatever the type, seeks the recognition of others, their approval; to find a place in the hearts of others. Seeking wealth has a background, above all, a strong need for security that is not achieved by money in itself but in what it achieves. That others love me, even if it’s buying affection; to win a place in the hearts of others.

🎯Loving and being loved, as St. Augustine indicates, is the sweetest and most wonderful thing in life. In this sense, one of the fundamental keys to the way of discerning one’s vocation and mission in the world, has to do with unfolding the capacity to love. Only that kind of love that draws a person from his selfishness and leads him to look at suffering in the many faces around him is able to generate value in the world. Vocation springs up as an answer from the identification of that reality in which, from one’s capacity to love, a commitment to transformation is shaped.

There is a song by Salome Arricibita,🎵 “Tell Me How to Be Bread”, which can help to understand that they mystery of human life is solved precisely in the love that one receives and, above all, in the love that is given as a gift. I invite you to review the lyrics and listen to the wonderful interpretation of its author.

 🎶Tell me how to be bread, tell me how to be bread…

How to be food that satisfies inside, that brings peace.

Tell me how to be bread, tell me how to be bread…

Tell me how to approach someone who has no breath,

Who thinks that laughing loving is a story.

Tell me how to be bread

Tell me how to let me eat little by little.

Delivering everything and filling me more.

Tell me how to be bread, tell me how to be bread…

How to be for others at all times food and mana

How to be for others at all times food and mana.

You who are the bread of life,

You who are life and peace,

You who soak the earth when you rain down the sky,

Tell me how to be bread.

You who make me your reflection

You who embrace my weakness,

You who satisfy my hunger when I returned from afar,

Tell me how to be bread

Tell me how to be bread.

Tell me how to be bread that cures injustice

Tell me how to be bread that creates freedom.  🎶