Runaway from yourself

The God Touch
9 April, 2020
The God Touch
9 April, 2020

Running away from himself was the drama of Saint Augustine, escaping from himself, standing outside the interiority, going outside, to externally find the satisfaction of his intimate desires.

He goes through time tasting superficial life that leaves him with frustration, an internal conflict, and existential restlessness. Passed the years, his drama continues. Later on, he realizes, expressing it with nostalgia, that nothing outside his intimate being delights him according to his aspirations. His expectations always fall short. These expectations lead him to seek eagerly towards the superficial, searching for more and more of what is increasingly toxic.

Immersed in this toxic effect, he lives many years of his youth agitated, very restless in his deep desires. He keeps a tension that directs his life towards something or someone that gives him a purpose. It was a planned search for pleasure that always left him empty. However, with an intense desire to find the Truth and an ordered love in his desires, Augustines found himself pushed from two dimensions: concupiscence and charity.

In such a hard fight between what he was and what he wanted to be, the tears of his mother (Monica), prayerful, patient, and confident, get an answer. And the time of God arrives for Augustine, the moment to understand that his restlessness will only cease when he decided to order himself deep inside.

The restlessness of Saint Augustine was a product of being seduced by false values and ideals. The wrong gods proposed by his society dived him into the most terrible doubts. This burden of anxiety and emptiness will only find an answer when he met the absolute Truth, God.

Once he found that Truth, after strong struggles, he could exclaim from the depths of his essence: for You have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You”.(Confessions I,1,1)

How great, what a grace, that Augustine’s inner struggle culminates in the encounter with the Truth!