Augustine's Scarred, Restless and Flaming Heart




"You have wounded my heart with your Word, and from that moment on, I love you."

Augustine is just as ordinary as we are. He was a parochial boy who made his way into the metropolis and grabbed certain popularity as a rhetorician and a teacher in some respected institution. As a farm boy, he was notorious for raiding fruit trees in the neighborhood--not for want of food to eat though but for the fun of it and the excitement of watching swines gobbled those pears.

As a young man, he was unabashed in expressing his appreciation for beauty and admiration of great curves. He was almost trapped when he sired a son, but he lacked a sense of humor to enter into a one-way contract. His heart was restless--too restless to be caged into such carnal relationship. But he did not ran. He faced the consequences of his lust and set himself to be a good father to his Adeodatus (god-given). And of course, as a bonus, he continued to indulge himself to bodily pleasures.

Yet his heart was restless and in his mind, questions rebutted answers. He envied the drunk who though out of tune, kept on singing to the top of his voice in his improvised karaoke. The drunk appeared to be happy and contented and he was not. There must be more to life, he deduced, than just having sex and indulging oneself to worldly possessions, than being popular, powerful and relevant, than satisfying oneself to sophistic and conventional wisdom and having access to information.

I know a couple of friends who keep on asking questions about the MORE to life, the MORE in life, the MORE of life. These friends seek answers in logic and facts. Like Augustine, they want to contain everything within their consciousness. They pretend that they are supermen but the wounds in their hearts and the doubts in their minds humiliate them. No doubt, they too, are restless, sleepless, nursing hearts that are wounded and bearing minds that are too tired ferreting half-truths and fabricated facts.

Augustine has now the ANSWER to the questions and his once wounded and restless heart is now healed (scarred, of course) and at rest. Yes, indeed, his heart is at rest yet still aflame with the Love that had carried him home to his BELOVED.


"My love is my weight: it is what carries me whenever I am borne." (Conf. XIII, 9,10)



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