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Augustine Of Hippo On Creation And Evolution — Alister McGrath

December 1, 2011

Augustine Of Hippo

Alister Edgar McGrath is an Anglican priest, theologian, and Christian apologist, currently Professor of Theology, Ministry, and Education at Kings College London and Head of the Centre for Theology, Religion and Culture. He was previously Professor of Historical Theology at the University of Oxford, and was principal of Wycliffe Hall, Oxford until 2005.

McGrath is noted for his work in historical, systematic, and scientific theology, as well as his writings on apologetics and his opposition to antireligionism. He holds both a DPhil (in molecular biophysics) and an earned Doctor of Divinity degree from the University of Oxford. He recently launched a website that features many of his articles and writings here.

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THE DARWIN CELEBRATIONS OF 2009 showcased many religious issues, one being how the great creation narratives of the Old Testament are to be interpreted.’ Many Christians assume that the church’s long tradition of faithful biblical exegesis has always treated the biblical creation accounts as straightforward historical accounts of how everything came into being. In fact, things are rather more interesting, and in this chapter we shall explore why.

I have already spoken several times of one of the most respected early Christian biblical scholars, Augustine of Hippo (354-430). Augustine interpreted Scripture a thousand years before the “Scientific Revolution” of our modern period and fifteen hundred years before Darwin’s Origin of Species. There is just no way Augustine can be considered to have “accommodated” or “compromised” his biblical interpretation in order to fit in new theories about the big bang or natural selection. He set out to interpret Scripture on its own terms, faithfully and carefully. In fact, he even criticized those who tried to adapt their biblical interpretation to the latest scientific theories. The important thing was to let Scripture speak for itself.

Augustine wrestled with Genesis 1-2 throughout his career. There are at least four points in his writings where he attempts to develop a detailed, systematic account of how these chapters are to be understood. Each is subtly different. Here I would like to consider The Literal Meaning of Genesis, which was written between 401 and 415. Augustine intended this to be a “literal” commentary (meaning “in the sense intended by the author”).

Augustine discerns the following themes in his reading of Scripture and weaves them together into his account of creation. God brought everything into existence in a single moment of creation. Yet the created order is not static. God endowed it with the capacity to develop. Augustine uses the image of a dormant seed to help his readers grasp this point.

God creates seeds, which will grow and develop at the right time. Using more technical language, Augustine asks his readers to think of the created order as containing divinely embedded causalities that emerge or evolve at a later stage. Yet Augustine has no time for any notion of random or arbitrary changes within creation. The development of God’s creation is always subject to God’s sovereign providence. The God who planted the seeds at the moment of creation also governs and directs the time and place of their growth.

Augustine argues that the first creation account (Genesis 1:1-2:3) cannot be interpreted in isolation but must be set alongside the second creation account (Genesis 2:4-25), as well as every other statement about the creation found in Scripture. For example, Augustine suggests that Psalm 33:6-9 speaks of an instantaneous creation of the world through God’s creative Word, while John 5:17 points to a God who is still active within creation. God created the world in an instant but continues to develop and mold it, even to the present day. This leads Augustine to suggest that the six days of creation are not to be understood chronologically. Rather, they are a way of categorizing God’s work of creation. They provide a framework for the classification of the elements of the created world so they may be better understood and appreciated.

Augustine was deeply concerned that biblical interpreters might get locked into reading the Bible according to the scientific assumptions of the age. This, of course, is what happened during the Copernican controversies of the late sixteenth century. Biblical interpreters, who already held that the sun revolved around the earth, read the Bible in the light of this controlling assumption. Unsurprisingly, the Bible was then held to support a geocentric view of the solar system. Some church leaders mistakenly interpreted challenges to this erroneous idea in the sixteenth century as a challenge to the authority of the Bible itself. It was not, of course. It was a challenge to one specific interpretation of the Bible — an interpretation, as it happened, in urgent need of review.

Augustine anticipated this point a millennium earlier. Certain biblical passages, he insisted, can legitimately be understood in different ways. The important thing is that these interpretations must not be wedded to prevailing scientific theories. Otherwise, the Bible becomes the prisoner of what was once believed to be scientifically true.

In matters that are so obscure and far beyond our vision, we find in Holy Scripture passages which can be interpreted in very different ways without prejudice to the faith we have received. In such cases, we should not rush in headlong and so firmly take our stand on one side that, if further progress in the search for truth justly undermines our position, we too fall with it.

Augustine’s approach allowed theology to avoid becoming trapped in a prescientific worldview. It is important to appreciate that he faced significant cultural pressure to adapt his biblical interpretations to prevailing thinking. For example, many leading contemporary scientists of the late classical era regarded the Christian view of creation from nothing (ex nihilo) as utter nonsense. Claudius Galen (129-200), celebrity physician to the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, dismissed it as a logical and metaphysical absurdity. Augustine noted the resistance of his culture to this notion, but believed that the biblical texts required him to affirm it. It was an integral part of the web of Christian doctrine, a coherent set of interlocking ideas.

This doctrine of “creation from nothing” had some important implications. For example, Augustine argues that Scripture teaches that time is part of the created order. God created space and time together, so time must therefore be thought of as one of God’s creatures and servants. Time is an element of the created order; timelessness, on the other hand, is the essential feature of eternity.

So what was God doing before he created the universe? Augustine undermines the question by pointing out that God did not bring creation into being at a certain definite moment in time, because time did not exist prior to creation. For Augustine, eternity is a realm without space or time. Interestingly, this is precisely the state of affairs that many scientists believe existed before the big bang.

So what are the implications of this classic Christian interpretation of Genesis for the Darwin celebrations? One point is particularly obvious. Augustine’s exegesis of Genesis shows that a “faithful” or “authentic” interpretation of the biblical texts concerning creation does not necessarily demand a six-day period of creation. The opening chapter of Genesis must, Augustine argues, be set in context — initially, in the context of Genesis 2, and subsequently in the context of Scripture as a whole.

For Augustine the big question is this: what way of articulating the doctrine of creation makes sense of all the biblical statements on the matter and not simply the first chapter of Genesis? His own answer is hardly the last word on the matter. But it is an excellent starting point for reflection. Above all, it shows the importance of weaving the total witness of Scripture into a coherent doctrine of creation and not limiting this to Scripture’s first few dozen verses.

Augustine does not limit God’s creative action to the primordial act of origination. God is, he insists, still working within the world, directing its continuing development and unfolding its potential. There are two “moments” in the creation: a primary act of origination and a continuing process of providential guidance. Creation is thus not a completed past event. God is working even now, in the present, Augustine writes, sustaining and directing the unfolding of the “generations that he laid up in creation when it was first established.”

This twofold focus on the creation allows us to read Genesis in a way that affirms that God created everything from nothing, in an instant. However, it also helps us affirm that the universe has been created with an intended capacity to develop, under God’s sovereign guidance. Thus the primordial state of creation does not correspond to what we presently observe. For Augustine God created a universe that was deliberately designed to develop and evolve. The blueprint for that evolution is not arbitrary but is programmed into the very fabric of creation God’s providence superintends the continuing unfolding of the created order.

Earlier Christian writers noted how the first Genesis creation narrative speaks of the earth and the waters “bringing forth” living creatures. They concluded that this pointed to God’s endowing the natural order with a capacity to generate living things. Augustine takes this idea further: God created the world complete with a series of dormant powers, which were actualized at appropriate moments through divine providence. Augustine argues that Genesis 1:12 implies that the earth received the power or capacity to produce things by itself: “Scripture has stated that the earth brought forth the crops and the trees causally, in the sense that it received the power of bringing them forth.”

Where some might think of the creation as God’s insertion of new kinds of plants and animals ready-made into an already existing world, Augustine rejects this as inconsistent with the overall witness of Scripture. Rather, God must he thought of as creating in that very first moment the potencies for all the kinds of living things to come later, including humanity.

This means that the first creation account describes the instantaneous bringing into existence of primal matter, including causal resources for further development. The second account explores how these causal possibilities emerged and developed from the earth. Taken together, the two Genesis creation accounts declare that God made the world instantaneously, while envisioning that the various kinds of living things would make their appearance gradually over time — as they were intended to by their Creator.

The image of the “seed” implies that the original creation contained within it the potential for all the living kinds to subsequently emerge. This does not mean that God created the world incomplete or imperfect, in that “what God originally established in causes, he subsequently fulfilled in effects.” This process of development, Augustine declares, is governed by fundamental laws, which reflect the will of their Creator: “God has established fixed laws governing the production of kinds and qualities of beings, and bringing them out of concealment into full view.”

I must emphasize at this point that neither Augustine nor his age believed in the evolution of species. There were no reasons at that time for anyone to believe in this notion. Yet Augustine developed a theological framework that could accommodate this later scientific development, though his theological commitments would prevent him from accepting any idea of the development of the universe as a random or lawless process. For this reason Augustine would have opposed the strict Darwinian notion of random variations, insisting that God’s providence is deeply involved throughout, directing a process in manners and ways that lie beyond full human comprehension.

Let’s be clear about this: Augustine isn’t playing at being a scientist. Nor is he confusing science and theology. Augustine is not contradicting a scientific account of origins; rather, he is setting it within a theological scaffolding. Scientific analysis clarifies how cosmic development takes place; Augustine’s theological framework clarifies how God is involved in this development.

Augustine’s approach to creation is neither liberal nor accommodationist, but is deeply biblical, both in its substance and intentions. It needs to be taken into account when Christians reflect on the themes of creation and evolution. Sloganeering and grandstanding will not help us at all here. Examining the long Christian tradition of biblical exegesis will.

Posted in Creation and Evolution, St. Augustine | Tagged Augustine, biblical exegesis, creation ex nihilo, evolution of species, space and time | Leave a Comment »

You Have Made Us For Yourself – St. Augustine

November 21, 2011

St. AugustineTiffany Window at the Lightner Museum, St. Augustine FL

This is the famous passage from St. Augustine’s Confessions in which Saint Augustine states “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” It is used in the Roman Office of readings for the Ninth Sunday in Ordinary time with the accompanying biblical reading of Job 28:1-28, also included here.

If you think about it, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you,” really forms the basis for the Christian assertion that God’s existence need not be “proven” in any way for the knowledge of his existence comes with the territory of simply being human and sharing in the glory of his creation. That is not to deprecate any of Thomas Aquinas’ metaphysics or any of the great Doctor’s meditations on the nature of God’s existence. Rather it is to recognize that for many, God’s existence begins with the knowledge that we already possess of him and the restlessness that occurs in our being when we sense ourselves not being ordered to His creation or abusing the imago dei in ourselves and others.

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Great are you, O Lord, and exceedingly worthy of praise; your power is immense, and your wisdom beyond reckoning. And so we men, who are a due part of your creation, long to praise you – we also carry our mortality about with us, carry the evidence of our sin and with it the proof that you thwart the proud. You arouse us so that praising you may bring us joy, because you have made us and drawn us to yourself, and our heart is unquiet until it rests in you.

Grant me to know and understand, Lord, which comes first. To call upon you or to praise you? To know you or to call upon you? Must we know you before we can call upon you? Anyone who invokes what is still unknown may be making a mistake. Or should you be invoked first, so that we may then come to know you? But how can people call upon someone in whom they do not yet believe? And how can they believe without a preacher?

But scripture tells us that those who seek the Lord will praise him, for as they seek they find him, and on finding him they will praise him. Let me seek you then, Lord, even while I am calling upon you, and call upon you even as I believe in you; for to us you have indeed been preached. My faith calls upon you, Lord, this faith which is your gift to me, which you have breathed into me through the humanity of your Son and the ministry of your preacher.

How shall I call upon my God, my God and my Lord, when by the very act of calling upon him I would be calling him into myself? Is there any place within me into which my God might come? How should the God who made heaven and earth come into me? Is there any room in me for you, Lord, my God? Even heaven and earth, which you have made and in which you have made me – can even they contain you? Since nothing that exists would exist without you, does it follow that whatever exists does in some way contain you?

But if this is so, how can I, who am one of these existing things, ask you to come into me, when I would not exist at all unless you were already in me? Not yet am I in hell, after all but even if I were, you would be there too; for if I descend into the underworld, you are there. No, my God, I would not exist, I would not be at all, if you were not in me.

Or should I say, rather, that I should not exist if I were not in you, from whom are all things, through whom are all things, in whom are all things? Yes, Lord, that is the truth, that is indeed the truth. To what place can I invite you, then, since I am in you? Or where could you come from, in order to come into me? To what place outside heaven and earth could I travel, so that my God could come to me there, the God who said, I fill heaven and earth?

Who will grant it to me to find peace in you? Who will grant me this grace, that you should come into my heart and inebriate it, enabling me to forget the evils that beset me and embrace you, my only good? What are you to me? Have mercy on me, so that I may tell. What indeed am I to you, that you should command me to love you, and grow angry with me if I do not, and threaten me with enormous woes? Is not the failure to love you woe enough in itself?

Alas for me! Through your own merciful dealings with me, O Lord my God, tell me what you are to me. Say to my soul, I am your salvation. Say it so that I can hear it. My heart is listening, Lord; open the ears of my heart and say to my soul, I am your salvation. Let me run towards this voice and seize hold of you. Do not hide your face from me: let me die so that I may see it, for not to see it would be death to me indeed.

Job 28:1-28
“Surely there is a mine for silver, and a place for gold to be refined. Iron is taken out of the earth, and copper is smelted from ore. Miners put an end to darkness, and search out to the farthest bound the ore in gloom and deep darkness. They open shafts in a valley away from human habitation; they are forgotten by travelers, they sway suspended, remote from people.

As for the earth, out of it comes bread; but underneath it is turned up as by fire. Its stones are the place of sapphires, and its dust contains gold. “That path no bird of prey knows, and the falcon’s eye has not seen it. The proud wild animals have not trodden it; the lion has not passed over it. “They put their hand to the flinty rock, and overturn mountains by the roots. They cut out channels in the rocks, and their eyes see every precious thing. The sources of the rivers they probe; hidden things they bring to light. “But where shall wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding?

Mortals do not know the way to it, and it is not found in the land of the living.

The deep says, ‘It is not in me,’ and the sea says, ‘It is not with me.’ It cannot be gotten for gold, and silver cannot be weighed out as its price. It cannot be valued in the gold of Ophir, in precious onyx or sapphire. Gold and glass cannot equal it, nor can it be exchanged for jewels of fine gold. No mention shall be made of coral or of crystal; the price of wisdom is above pearls. The chrysolite of Ethiopia cannot compare with it, nor can it be valued in pure gold.

“Where then does wisdom come from? And where is the place of understanding? It is hidden from the eyes of all living, and concealed from the birds of the air. Abaddon and Death say, ‘We have heard a rumor of it with our ears.’ “God understands the way to it, and he knows its place. For he looks to the ends of the earth, and sees everything under the heavens.

When he gave to the wind its weight, and apportioned out the waters by measure; when he made a decree for the rain, and a way for the thunderbolt; then he saw it and declared it; he established it, and searched it out. And he said to humankind, ‘Truly, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.’”

Posted in St. Augustine | Tagged imago dei, Job 28:1-28, St. Augustine's Confessions, the fear of the Lord, the God in me, To depart from Evil, Where does wisdom come from? | 1 Comment »

Augustine On Unceasing Prayer — Fr. Thomas Hand

September 22, 2011

“One Thing I Have Asked of the Lord”
The end of all Christian endeavor, and the object of all Christian prayer, is to see God face to face in the kingdom of his glory. This will be the reward of the pilgrim’s love. And in order to attain this never-ending end, we must adhere to Christ so as to be one with him even on this earth.

Augustine observes that, “Our Lord Jesus Christ himself said: No one has come up to heaven except the One who came down from there — the Son of Man [who is in heaven] (John 3:13). And he seems to have spoken of himself only. If, then, he alone ascends who alone descended, have all others been left behind? What must these others do? They must be united with his body, so that there may be but One Christ who descends and ascends. The head descended, and he ascends with his body; he ascends clothed with the Church which he has presented to himself without spot or wrinkle (cf. Ephesians 5:27). In this way he still ascends alone. For when we are so united with him as to be his members, then even with us he is alone, and therefore one — always one.” [On Psalm 122, 1]

Saint Augustine exhorts us, therefore, to stand fast in the faith, and to be loyal to our holy Mother the Church, in all the temptations of life. The history of the Mystical Body was graphically summarized by Saint Matthew when he said: Meanwhile the boat, already several hundred yards out from shore, was being tossed about in the waves raised by strong headwinds (Matthew 14:24). “By the very nature of the journey we are exposed to waves and tempests; so it is necessary that we be at least in the ship.” “If there be danger on board ship, there is instant disaster outside of it … And even though the ship be in difficulty, still it is the ship. . . Keep yourself safely on board, then, and pray to God. For when all counsels fail, when the very helm is unserviceable, and the spreading of sail more hazardous than helpful, when all human help and strength have been exhausted, then, for those on board, there remains only the earnest cry of entreaty, and the pouring forth of prayers to God. And shall he, who grants that sailors reach their haven, so forsake his Church as not to lead it on to rest!” [Sermon 75, 4]

One thing I ask of the Lord; this I seek: to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, that I may gaze on the loveliness of the Lord and contemplate his temple (Psalm 27:4). “In order that we may attain this happy life, he who is himself the true Blessed Life has taught us to pray.” [Letter 130, 15] But what shall we do now, during this our life and pilgrimage? “Let us sigh now; let us pray now. Sighs belong to the miserable; prayers belong to those in need. Prayers shall pass away and praise shall take their place; tears shall pass away to be replaced with joy. Meanwhile, during these evil days let us never cease from making that petition until, by his grace and guidance, we have attained to it.” [On Psalm 26 -- 2nd -- 14]

“In the midst of our wanderings here, we are hurt at times; but our last home shall be a home of joy alone. Hard work, sighs, and prayers shall pass away, to be succeeded by hymns of praise. . . For he shall be with us for whom we sigh, and, We shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is (1 John 3:2) … Prepare yourselves for a certain ineffable delight; cleanse your hearts from all earthly and mundane affections. We will see something, the vision of which shall make us happy, something which shall alone suffice us.” [On Psalm 86, 9] “We shall see God. And that shall be so great, so stupendous a reality, that in comparison with it, all else shall be as nothing.” [Sermon 127, 11] “We shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” “The tongue has done what it could; it has spoken the words. Let the rest be pondered in the heart.” [Treatise on 1 John, IV, 6]

“It will repay us, then, to inquire after and to discuss in detail what we are going to do in that home, for which we express our hope and desire when we repeat the words, One thing I ask of the Lord. What shall we do in that home in which we hope to dwell all the days of our lives? Listen: that I may gaze on the loveliness of the Lord. That is what I love; and that is why I wish to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life. What a glorious vision will be presented to us in the gazing on the loveliness of the Lord!” [On Psalm 26 -- 2nd -- 8] We shall see God. “And so charming is the face of God, that once it is seen, nothing else shall ever give delight.” [Sermon 170, 9] “There we shall rest and we shall see; we shall see and we shall love; we shall love and we shall praise.” [City of God, XXII, 30] Such will be the activity of the elect: contemplation, love, and praise.

Happy they who dwell in your house! (Psalm 84:5). But why? Continually they praise you (Psalm 84:5). “Such will be our activity, the praise of God. You love and you praise. You would cease to love if you ceased to praise. But you will never cease to love because he whom you shall see will never weary you.” [On Psalm 85, 44] Such is the reward of the pilgrim’s love. He shall rest in the Lord; he shall gaze on the loveliness of the Lord; he shall love and praise the Lord. He shall rejoice in “the everlasting reign of those who perfectly praise him because they see him face to face.” [On Psalm 105, 37] “

There is praise given to God, and here on earth is praise given to God; but here by those full of anxious care, there by those who are free from care; here by those whose lot it is to die, there by those who are to live forever; here in hope, there in hope realized; here on the way, there in our Fatherland. Now, therefore, my brethren, let us sing, not for delight as we rest, but to cheer us in our labor. As pilgrims are wont to sing, sing, but travel on!” [Sermon 256, 3]

Meanwhile, as they walk the pilgrim’s way, men must be careful of what they love and of what they ask in prayer. “Men have many things,” observes Augustine, “and when a man seems to have what he loves, he is called happy. But he is truly happy, not if he has what he loves, but if he loves what he ought to love. Many are more miserable in having what they love than in wanting it. For men who are miserable through loving hurtful things are rendered more miserable still by possessing them ... This is the one petition that ought to be loved — that we may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of our life.”[ On Psalm 26 -- 2nd -- 7]

“Whoever desires that one thing of the Lord and seeks after it, asks with certainty and with confidence, and has no fear that when it is obtained it may be harmful to him, seeing that without it anything else he may have acquired through praying as he ought is of no advantage to him. The thing referred to is the one true and only happy life in which, immortal and incorruptible in body and in spirit, we may contemplate the joy of the Lord forever. All other things are desired and are prayed for without impropriety, with a view to this one thing.” [Letter 130, 27]

The whole life of a Christian should be a holy desire for this truly happy life, “for a person lives in those things which he loves, which he greatly desires, and in which he believes himself to be happy.” [Letter 130, 7] This desire, moreover, will enlarge the soul until it is capable of receiving everlasting happiness. “By desiring you open up and expand the soul, by expanding it you make it capable of receiving more. Let us stretch ourselves unto him, so that when he shall come he may fill our souls.“[Treatise on 1 John, IV, 6]

This should be our unceasing desire, our unceasing prayer. “What else is intended by the words of the Apostle: Pray without ceasing, if not, `Desire without ceasing, from him who alone can give it, a happy life, which no life can be but that which is eternal’? This, therefore, let us desire without intermission from the Lord our God, and so let us pray without ceasing.” [Letter 130, 18] “This is the final blessedness, this is the ultimate consummation, this is the unending end.” [City of God, XIX, Ic]

Amen. Alleluia!
Eternal life will be the last Amen, the final Alleluia, that shall be never-ending. “And it is not with the fleeting echoes of our voices that we shall then be saying, `Amen’ and `Alleluia,’ but with the affectionate feelings of the heart.” [Sermon 255, 5] Alleluia means the praise of God. “To us as we labor,” says Augustine, “it signifies the activity of our eternal rest. For when, after these labors, we come to that rest, the praise of God will be our sole occupation. Our activity there will be `Alleluia’ … our food will be `Alleluia’; our drink will be `Alleluia’; our whole joy will be `Alleluia’ — the praise of God.” [Sermon 252, 9] “Today, hope sings it, and sometimes love. But then love alone shall sing it. The love that sometimes sings it in this life is a love of desire, whereas it will then be sung by a love that rejoices in the everlasting possession of its beloved.” [Sermon 255, 5] Such will be the Sabbath of life everlasting, in which the only ultimate happiness open to man will be forever realized.

“There shall peace be made perfect in the sons of God all loving one another, seeing one another possessed of God, since God shall be all in all. We shall have God as our common vision, God as our common possession, God as our common peace. And whatever there is that he gives us here and now, he himself will be in place of all his gifts. He will be our full and perfect peace … . Our peace, our rest, our joy, the end of all our troubles, is none but God.” [On Psalm 84, 10] The Savior has transformed us into a new race. He has put a new canticle into our mouths — a song to our God. [Cf. Psalm 39, 4] We are pilgrims homeward bound, as we sing praise to the Lord with all our hearts (Ephesians 5:19). “O sons of peace, sons of the one, Catholic Church, walk in your way, and sing as you walk. Travelers do this to keep up their spirits. Do you also sing on the way. I beseech you, by the very way in which you walk, sing on this road, sing the new canticle. Let no one sing old songs, but sing the songs of love of your country; let none sing the old. For the way is new, the traveler is new, and the song is new.” [On Psalm 66, 6]

Turning, then, to the Lord our God, let us as best we can give thanks with all our hearts, beseeching him that in his goodness he would mercifully hear our prayers, and by his grace drive evil from our thoughts and actions, increase our faith, grant us his holy inspirations, and lead us to never-ending joy, through his Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amens [With this prayer Saint Augustine concluded almost all his sermons.]

Posted in Prayer, St. Augustine | Tagged the object of all Christian prayer, unceasing prayer | 1 Comment »

Augustine On The Voice of Prayer in the Church — Fr. Thomas Hand

September 21, 2011

The Unity That Prays
“Let the members of Christ understand. Let them see Christ in his members, and the members of Christ in Christ; for head and members are one Christ.” [On Psalm 54, 3] It was the will of God that Christ and the Church should be one. And the two shall be made into one. said Saint Paul. This is a great foreshadowing; I mean that it refers to Christ and the church (Romans 5:2). “And if they be two in one flesh,” queries Augustine, “why not two in one voice?” [On Psalm 30 -- 2^nd -- 4]

For if they be one, then, the Church speaks in Christ, and Christ speaks in the Church: the body in the head, and the head in the body. “Even though absent from our eyes, Christ our head is bound to us by love. And since the whole Christ is head and body, let us listen to the voice of the head in such a manner that we may also hear the body speak. He no more wished to speak alone than He wished to exist alone, for He says: And know that I am with you always until the end of the world! (Matthew 28:20). If He is with us, then, He speaks in us, He speaks for us, He speaks through us; and we also speak in him.” [On Psalm 56, 1]

Augustine tells us that he found it difficult to find any voices in the Psalms except those of Christ and the Church. “Sometimes,” he says, “it is the voice of Christ alone, and sometimes it is that of the Church alone, of which we certainly are members.” [On Psalm 59, 1] “The members of the Church, many though they be, are bound to one another by the ties of charity and of peace under the one head, who is our Savior himself, and they form one man. The voice of the many is frequently heard in the Psalms as the voice of one man; the cry of one is as the cry of all, for all in one are one.” [On Psalm 69, 1] “And because we are many, the Scriptures say that we praise God altogether (collaudamus); and because we are one, it says that each of us praise him (laudamus). The same who are many are one; for he is ever one in whom we are one.” [On Psalm 147, 7]

“Consequently, when we speak to God in prayer for mercy, we do not separate the Son from him; and when the body of the Son prays it does not separate itself from the head. It is the one Savior of his body, our Lord Jesus Christ, who prays both for us and in us, and is prayed to by us. He prays for us as our priest; he prays in us as our head; he is prayed to by us as our God. Let us, then, acknowledge our words in him, and his words in us … He is prayed to in the form of God; He prays in the form of a servant. In the first case He is the Creator; in the latter He is `created,’ the unchanging assuming the form of a creature that the creature may be changed, and so making us with himself, one man, head and body … Be unwilling to say anything without him, and he will say nothing without you. ” [On Psalm 85, 1]

Sometimes, then, Christ speaks as our head, and at other times he speaks and prays on behalf of his members. “This is the case,” observes Augustine, “in that Psalm, the first verse of which the Lord himself spoke from the cross: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? (Psalm 22:2). Transferring us into what he was saying, and into his body — for we also are his body and he is our head — he uttered our cry from the cross, not his own. Because God never forsook him; nor did he himself ever depart from the Father. So it was on our behalf that he uttered the words: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? (Matthew 27:46).

Moreover, note the words that follow after: Far from my prayer, from the words of my cry? (Psalm 22:2). This verse shows in whose person He spoke the preceding words, for sin could find no place in him.” [On Psalm 43, 2] “Sometimes, then, he speaks as our head, and at other times he speaks for us who are his members. When he said: For I was hungry and you gave me food (Matthew 25:35), he spoke for his members, and not on his own behalf. And when he said: Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? (Acts 9:4), it was the head crying out on behalf of its members. Yet, he did not say: `Why do you persecute my members,’ but, Why do you persecute me?

If he suffers in us, then we also shall be crowned in him. Such is the love of Christ. Can anything be compared to this?” [On Psalm 39, 5] “The Church suffered in him, when he suffered for the Church; just as he suffered in the Church, when the Church suffered for his sake. For just as we have heard the voice of the Church suffering in Christ: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? so also have we heard the voice of Christ suffering in the Church: Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” [Letter 140, 18]

“Why, then, do we disdain to hear the voice of the body from the mouth of the head?” [Letter 140, 18] His prayer is our prayer, and our prayer is his prayer — provided we do not cut ourselves off from him. “Therefore, as soon as our head begins to pray, let us understand that we are in him, that so we may share our prayer with him just as we share in his tribulation.” [On Psalm 54, 4]

The prayer of all is as the prayer of one man; and this one man can address the Lord and say: From the earth’s end I call to you (Psalm 61:3). “If we are his members and in his body — as we are bold enough to believe on his exhortation — then, we should acknowledge the voice in this psalm as our own and not that of any stranger. I have not called it our own as if it were that of those of us who are now here present, but of all of us spread through the whole world from the east even to the west.

And that you may know it is our voice, He speaks in this psalm as if with the voice of one man; but like a single man, it is the unity that is speaking. In Christ we are all one man; and the head of this one man is in heaven while the members are still toiling on the earth. And because they are toiling, see what Hesays: Hear, O God, my cry; listen to my prayer! From the earth’s end I call you as my heart grows faint (Psalm 61:2-3) … But what one man cries from the ends of the earth? Nothing cries from the ends of the earth save that inheritance concerning which it was said to the Son himself, Ask of me and I will give you the nations for an inheritance and the ends of the earth for your possession (Psalm 2:8). This inheritance of Christ, this body of Christ, this one Church of Christ, this unity to which we belong, is crying from the ends of the earth.” [On Psalm 60, 1-2]

“Let him rise up, this one chanter; let this man sing from the heart of each of us, and let each one of us be in this man. When each of you sings a verse it is still this one man that sings, since you are all one in Christ. We do not say, `To you, 0 Lord, we lift up our eyes,’ but To you Ilift up my eyes (Psalm 123:1). You should of course consider that each of you is speaking, but that primarily this one man is speaking who reaches to the end of the earth.” [On Psalm 122, 2] “How can this one man cry out from the ends of the earth unless he be one in all?” [On Psalm 54, 17]

Posted in Prayer, St. Augustine | Tagged the voice of the Church, Unity of Prayer | Leave a Comment »

Augustine On The Prayer Of The Church I — Fr. Thomas Hand

September 20, 2011

Madonna in the Church (detail), Jan van Eyck, 1425

Unity in Multiplicity
Insofar as Christ is the source from which we receive the life of grace, He is, from that point of view, the “Father” of our supernatural life. But if he be the “Father” of a supernatural family, he must have a bride; and it is the Church that is chosen as the spouse of Christ. Through her He brings us forth to the life of grace, builds himself a family that shall grow into a great people — the city of God. “We had a father and mother on earth that we might be born to labor and death; but we have found other parents: God our Father and the Church our Mother, by whom we are born unto life everlasting.” [Sermon 57:2]

There were two things, according to Augustine, that our Divine Lord loved above all others on this earth: his mother and his Church. “Mary mothered your leader,” preached Augustine; “the Church mothered you; for she also is mother and virgin. Mother through the womb of her charity; virgin in the integrity of her faith and of her piety. She issues to the world entire peoples, but they are all members of a single Christ, of which she is the body and the spouse. One can say of her as of Mary: She is the mother of unity in multiplicity.” [Sermon 192, 2 -- In multis mater est unitatis.]

The comparison according to which the Church appears as an interior and spiritual society of souls, linked directly to the Incarnate Word as to its chief, is inspired by the Gospel, in which Christ said to his apostles: Live on in me, as I do in you. No more than a branch can bear fruit of itself apart from the vine, can you bear fruit apart from me (John 15:4). This organic unity is again explicitly affirmed by Saint Paul. The body is one and has many members, but all the members, many though they are, are one body; and so it is with Christ.

It was in one Spirit that all of us, whether Jew or Greek, slave or free, were baptized into one body. All of us have been given to drink of one Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:12-13). This unity in multiplicity, this oneness of his members with himself, was the theme of the Savior’s prayer at the Last Supper. I do not pray for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their word, that all may be one as you, Father, are in me, and I in you; I pray that they may be [one] in us, that the world may believe that you sent me. I have given them the glory you gave me that they may be one, as we are one (John 17:20-22).

The Church, then, is not just a society of many members, however numerous; nor is it merely an external organization united by the will to pursue the same common good. Its unity is that of a single, living organism, like a vine; or like that of a single, living person. It must not be equated with the worldwide association of all Christian souls, as if it were the sum of all Christian personalities, created by their voluntary federation, and dependent on their good pleasure for its continued existence. The Church is antecedent to all Christian personalities; it does not presuppose them, it creates and produces them. It is not the branches that give life to the vine; it is the vine that gives life to the branches. “Therefore, all of us, together with our head, we are Christ: without our head we are worth nothing. Why? Because, together with our head we are the vine; without our head — which God forbid — we are lopped-off branches, destined to do no work for the Husbandman, but for the fire only.

So he himself says in the Gospel: I am the vine, you are the branches. He who lives in me and I in him, will produce abundantly, for a part from me you can do nothing (John 15:5). [On Psalm 30 -- 2nd -- 4] Being engrafted into this vine which is Christ, is the very condition of our spiritual life and of our supernatural fruitfulness.

“When I call Christians many,” declares Augustine, “I understand them to be one in Christ. ” [On Psalm 127, 4] So we are many, and we are one. “He is one, we are many; he is one, and we are one in him.” [On Psalm 88 -- 1st -- 7] “We are one because Christ is one and we are his members.” [On Psalm 60, 2] “Our Lord Jesus Christ, like a whole and perfect man, is head and body … The body of this head is the Church; and not just the Church in this particular place, but both the Church that is here, and the Church that extends itself over the whole earth; and not only the Church that is living today, but the whole race of saints, from Abel down to all those who will ever be born, and who will believe in Christ to the end of the world. For all belong to one city. This city is the body of Christ. . . This is the whole Christ: Christ united to his Church.” [On Psalm 90 -- 2nd -- l] “Let us rejoice and give thanks. Not only are we become Christians, we are become Christ! My brethren, do you understand the grace that is given us? Marvel, rejoice, for we are made Christ! If he be the head and if we be the members, then, he and we together are the whole man ... This would be foolish pride on our part were it not a gift of his bounty. But this is what he promised by the lips of his Apostle: You, then, are the body of Christ. Every one of you is a member of it (1 Corinthians 12:27).” [Treatise on John XXI, 8]

While emphasizing the intimacy of the union between Christ and his members, however, Augustine clearly maintains certain distinctions. “We do not separate the two realities,” he says, “though we do distinguish two different dignities: For the head saves, the body is saved.” [On Psalm 37, 6]

Furthermore, it is not Christ as the Word of God who is the head of the Church. “The Word is made flesh in order to become the head of the Church. Because the Word himself is not a part of the Church; but in order to become the head he has taken a body.” [On Psalm 148, 8] In this way he preserves his own personal activities, those of his divine life, in spite of the intimacy of his union with his members. It is not the Word, or divinity as such, that is the head of the Church, but the Word made flesh. Consequently, though he as their head condescends to be what his members are, it does not follow that they are what he is as the second person of the Blessed Trinity, that is, God. Nevertheless, the Word Incarnate is “human divinity and divine humanity,” [Sermon 47, 21] and even as the humanity of Christ was sanctified through its assumption by the Word, so are the members of Christ sanctified in their head.

“Since, then, he is the Mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus has been made head of the Church, and the faithful are his members. Wherefore, he says: I consecrate myself for their sakes now (John 17:19): And when he says this, what else does he mean but, `I sanctify them in myself, since truly they are myself’? For, as I have already remarked, those of whom he speaks are his members, and head and body are one Christ. That he signifies this unity is certain from what follows in the same verse. For having said: `For them do I hallow myself,’ he immediately adds: `that they also may be sanctified in truth.’ Now, the words, `in truth,’ can only mean, `in me,’ since truth is the Word who in the beginning was God. The Son of Man was himself sanctified in the Word at the moment of his creation, when the Word was made flesh, for Word and man became one person.

It was at that instant, therefore, that he hallowed himself, that is, that he hallowed himself as man in himself as the Word. For there is but one Christ, Word and man, sanctifying himself in the Word. But now it is on behalf of his members that he adds: `and for them do I hallow myself.’ That is to say, that since they too are myself, so they too may profit by this sanctification, just as I profited by it as man without them. `And for them do I hallow myself’: that is, I sanctify them in myself as myself, since they too are myself.” [Treatise on John, 108, 5]

This very manifest desire of the Son of God made man to identify us with himself, should not surprise us. For God is love; and love not only creates more love, it strives to unite those who love each other. “What is love, if not a certain life which unifies, or seeks to unify, two things, namely, him that loves and that which is loved?” [Trinity, VIII, xi, 14] Christ, therefore, has identified the Church with himself so that they are one person, one man, one body, the whole Christ — the unity in which we love and pray. “He wills his own to be one,” says Augustine, “but in himself… that they may be one in him, not only through the same nature in which all from being mortal men are made equal to the angels, but also through the same will harmoniously conspiring to the same happiness, and fused in some way by the fire of charity into one spirit.” [Trinity, IV, ix, 12]

We have seen that love and prayer are gifts from God, and that the love which is God is poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (Romans 5:5). Now this Holy Spirit is the very soul of the Mystical Body of Christ, because “the body of Christ cannot live but by the spirit of Christ,” [Treatise on John, XXVI, 13] and if we would live by this spirit, we must be members of that body in which the spirit dwells, and through which it communicates itself.

We are all one in Christ, as the body and soul are one in a single living man. For though we be many, we all live by the same life, and we are unified by the same Holy Spirit that dwells in us, just as all the members of a body are given unison of life and harmony and of operation by the indwelling soul. “See what the soul does in the body. It feeds all the members; it gives life to all; and it gives to each member the function proper to it. The eye does not hear, the ear does not see, nevertheless, it lives. The functions vary, but the life is common to all.

So it is with the Church of God. There are priests and laity, virgins and married people, each having their own proper activity, but all having the same spiritual life. Now, what the soul is to the human body, the Holy Spirit is to the body of Christ which is the Church. He accomplishes in the whole Church what the soul does in all the members of a single body.” [Sermon 267, 4] Through the Mystical Body of Christ, therefore, the Savior communicates his life and his holiness to us, and in so doing he communicates his love and his prayer. And this love which is poured forth in our hearts must be, not only affective, but effective; and to be effective it must be operative — it must express itself in prayer.

Posted in Prayer, St. Augustine | Tagged Christ's body, Jesus and the Church, the vine which is Christ, unity in multiplicity | Leave a Comment »

Augustine on Prayer: Why We Should Pray II – Fr. Thomas Hand

September 15, 2011

Washington In Prayer by contemporary artist, Arnold Friberg

Amidst all the discussion here and the truths St. Augustine advances about prayer, there is a frightening simplicity to all of this. Namely that prayer forms the basis for our reality in this world (It obviously did for General Washington) – whether you view it as the building blocks to form the Christian that you are (as you grow through grace in perfection) or the method by which we learn to see the world. How could you NOT pray or NOT implore the Lord to give you the grace to pray constantly? It is simply the most important thing that you do as a Christian.

Quite frankly, I’ve never had the strength to preservere nor the grace to do so. Prayer never came naturally to me. My contemplative prayers were devious and my prayers of intercession were baldly ego driven. Recently though, things have changed. My prayers have changed also, praise the Lord. Fr. Hand’s book has been a thunderclap upside the head.

That We May Advance In Perfection
“As far as perfection is concerned, I can say this to you, briefly: You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, with your whole soul, and with all your mind, and You shall love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:37, 39). These are the words in which our Lord when on earth gave an epitome of religion, saying in the gospel: On these two commandments the whole law is based, and the prophets as well (Matthew 22:40). Advance, then, daily in this love both by prayer and good works, that by the help of him who so commanded you, and whose gift it is, it may be nourished and increased until, being perfected in you, it may make you perfect. For this is the love which, as the Apostle says, has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (Romans 5:5).” [Letter 189:2]

Augustine maintains that, “We must by no means deny to human nature the power of perfectibility since we admit its capacity for progress — by God’s grace, however, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” [On Nature and Grace, 68] “We assert that human nature becomes holy and happy by the assistance of him who created it to be so.” [On Nature and Grace, 68] “There is no method whereby people arrive at absolute perfection, or whereby any man makes the slightest progress toward true and godly righteousness, but by the assisting grace of our crucified Savior, Christ, and the gift of his Spirit — and whosoever shall deny this cannot rightly, I think, be considered a Christian at all.” [On Nature and Grace, 71] To advance in perfection we need grace; to grow in grace we must have recourse to prayer. No man gives it to himself; it is the gift of God.

This God-given love for God is the criterion and the measure of our progress. “Great in some souls, less in others, nonexistent in some; there is no one in this life so perfect that he cannot increase in it. But as long as he can increase, that which he lacks of what he ought to be is beyond doubt a defect.” [Letter 167:15] Consequently, we must reach forward and strive to advance daily in this love. There is perpetual motion in the spiritual life, the motion that is inherent in growth. “Charity knows nothing but to increase more and more.” [On Psalm 91:1] It is not born in us in a state of perfect development. “It is born that it may be perfected,” says Augustine, “and when born it is nourished; when nourished it is strengthened; when strengthened it is made perfect.” [Treatise on 1 John v:4]

The love, therefore, whereby we adhere to God is given to us in a seedling state and it needs a favorable ground in which to grow. To make room for that seed to grow we must clear the ground of our souls of all pernicious growth, that is, of all adherence to the world. This is the labor and the battle of a lifetime. “In this life there are two loves fighting one against the other in every temptation, the love of the world and the love of God, and whichever of these gains the victory draws its lover in its train as by a weight. Christ came to change our love and to transform the lover of earth into a lover of the celestial life. This is the combat proposed to you: to subdue the flesh, to conquer the devil, to wage war on the world. But have confidence. He who declared this war does not look on without offering to help you: nor does he exhort you to rely on your own strength.” [Sermon 344:1]

“For even this very thing that man can live justly, as far as man can live justly, is not the fruit of human merit, but of divine beneficence.” [On Psalm 109:1] “To live a good life is the gift of God,” because by the Holy Spirit he pours forth charity in the heart of man. [On the Spirit and Letter, 7] This indwelling love, which is God’s gift of himself, must express itself in action, and by so doing it grows. “All our good works are one work of charity, for love is the fulfilling of the law.” [On Psalm 89:17]

So the gift becomes a virtue, and is, according to Augustine, not the only virtue, but the principal virtue, having all other virtues under its command by means of which it attains its end. For even though charity commands all the virtues it is in the practice of these virtues that it conserves and augments itself, or rather, it is by performing acts of virtue as yet imperfect that it elevates itself from an imperfect charity to a charity that is more and more perfect. These virtues, says the holy bishop, “are like the army of a general whose headquarters is within your soul. And just as a general does what he wants through his army, so the Lord Jesus Christ, when he begins to inhabit our inner man, makes use of these virtues as if they were so many instruments of his will.” [Treatise on 1 John vii:1]

“Our righteousness in this pilgrimage of absence is such that we press forward to that full and perfect righteousness where love shall be fulfilled and perfected in the vision of his glory. We accomplish this by the rectitude and perfection of our lives, by disciplining our bodies and mastering them (see 1 Corinthians 9:27), by giving alms cheerfully and heartily, by bestowing kindnesses and forgiving trespasses committed against us, and by persevering in prayer (see Romans 12:12). By doing all this, moreover, with sound doctrine whereby a right faith, a firm hope, and a pure charity are constructed. This is our righteousness now in which we pass through our course here, hungering and thirsting after that perfect righteousness that shall delight us hereafter.

Therefore, after our Lord had said in the Gospel, Be on guard against performing religious acts for people to see (Matthew 6:1) — that we might not measure our course in life by the limits of human glory — he goes on to expound righteousness itself, but he points out only these three constituents of it: fasting, alms, and prayers. In fasting he indicates the complete subjugation of the body; in alms he indicates all kindness of will and deed either in giving or forgiving; in prayer he indicates all the rules of holy desire … In that case, run so as to win! (1 Corinthians 9:24).” [On Man's Perfection in Righteousness,viii:18]

To demonstrate the progress of the pilgrim soul Augustine avails himself of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit (Isaiah 11:2-3), presenting them as stages in the pilgrim’s progress toward perfect union with God. And to show the necessity of prayer on this pilgrimage he tells us that the seven petitions of the Lord’s Prayer may be interpreted as having reference to the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. [See Sermon on the Mount, Il, xi:38] This correspondence of the petitions of the Lord’s Prayer with the stages of our spiritual progress is a fundamental trait in the spirituality of Saint Augustine. The steps we take toward union with God are taken in an atmosphere of prayer. They are in point of fact a continual prayer, for prayer is the affectionate reaching out of the mind for God. It is prayer that gives expression to the heart’s desire for the perfecting of its love for God. It is prayer, furthermore, that constructs that desire until the heart is capable of embracing God himself.

“Let us not fall back, then, to the point from which we started,” exhorts Augustine, “neither let us remain stationary in the spot at which we have arrived. Let us run. Let us reach forward. We are on the way. Do not feel safe because of what you have passed on the way, but anxious rather because of what you have not as yet attained. ” [On Psalm 38:6] “Let us run by believing, by hoping, by desiring. Let us run by subjugating the body, by doing kindnesses and forgiving injuries. The strength of the contestants will be helped by prayer. And let us listen to the commandments that urge us on to perfection so as not to neglect running toward the fullness of charity.” [On Man's Perfection in Righteousness,viii:19]

That We May Persevere Unto The End
In conclusion, the Bishop of Hippo reminds us that prayer is necessary for perseverance, which he defines as: “A fixed and lasting constancy in a well-considered resolve.” [On Questions, 31] “I make the assertion,” he declares, “that the perseverance whereby you continue in Christ unto the end is a great gift of God. The end, however, to which I refer is the end of this life wherein alone lies the danger of your falling. As long as you live, therefore, it is uncertain that you have received this gift; for if you fall away before you die, I say, and I say most truly that you did not persevere.” [Gift of Perseverance, 1]

“How much is it to be feared that the ship may be diverted and turned back! This happens when, abandoning the hope of heavenly rewards, desire turns the helm and man directs his gaze with distorted cupidity to the visible and transitory things of earth.” [Sermon 75:6] We must pray that this may not happen because perseverance is given only on condition that we ask for it. “It is evident that God will give some things, like the beginning of faith, even to those who do not pray, and that he has reserved other things, like perseverance unto the end, exclusively for those who do pray.” [Gift of Perseverance, 39]

“When the Apostle says: We pray God that you may do no evil (2 Corinthians 13:7), beyond doubt he prays to God on their behalf for perseverance … And in that other place, moreover, where he says: I give thanks to my God every time I think of you –which is constantly, in every prayer I utter — rejoicing, as I plead on your behalf, at the way you have all continually helped promote the gospel from the very first day. I am sure of this much: that he who has begun the good work in you will carry it through to completion, right up to the day of Christ Jesus (Philippians 1:36) — what else does he promise them from the mercy of God but perseverance in good unto the end? … And no one need doubt that whoever prays from the Lord that he may persevere in good, confesses by that very act that such perseverance is a gift from God.” [On Correction and Grace, 10]

Augustine teaches that the necessity of prayer for perseverance has always been the faith of the Church. “As the Church has been born and grows and has grown in these prayers, so it has been born and grows and has grown in this faith, by which it is believed that God’s grace is not given according to the merits of the receivers … For the Church would not pray that it might persevere in the faith of Christ, neither deceived nor overcome by the temptations of the world, unless it believed that the Lord has our hearts in his power in such a manner that the good we do not hold save by our own will, would not be held except he worked in us to will also.

For if the Church asks these things of him but thinks that they are given by itself, it makes use of prayers which would be not true but perfunctory. May such prayers be far from us! For who truly sighs, desiring to receive what he prays for from the Lord, if he thinks that he receives it from himself and not from God?” [Gift of Perseverance, 63]

“Fix your gaze on him who leads you and do not look back to the place from which he brought you. He who leads you goes ahead of you; the place from which he brought you lies behind you. Love your leader for fear he may condemn you for looking backward.” [On Psalm 75:16] “Forget the things that lie behind you, forget your past life of sin, and reach forward to those things that are before you. ” [On Psalm 130:14] “Let no one look back; let no one delight himself with his former interests; let no one turn from what lies ahead to that which is now behind; let him run until he arrives — and we run, not with our feet, but by the power of our desiring. But never let anyone say that he has reached it in this life.” [On Psalm 83:4]

If it be tiring to advance always and perseveringly in perfection, Augustine directs our attention to the reward in store for us and urges us to imitate the example of those pilgrims who sing as they march along. “The time of faith is a laborious time, who denies it? But this labor has as a recompense an eternity of happiness.” [Sermon 38:4] It is from this happy fact that he derives the cheerful spirit in which this pilgrimage of ours should be run. Speaking of the paradise in store for us he says: “O, the happy Alleluias there! … There is praise given to God; here on earth is praise given to God. But here by those full of anxious care; there by those free from care. Here by those whose lot it is to die; there by those who live forever. Here in hope; there in hope realized. Here on the way; there in our fatherland.

Now, then, my brethren, let us sing; not for pleasure as we rest, but to cheer us in our labor. As pilgrims are wont to sing, sing, and travel on. . . If you are making progress you are marching on; but progress in good, progress in the true faith, progress in right living — sing, and travel on!” [Sermon 256:3] This spiritual slogan of Augustine, Canta et ambula, has been rendered as “Sing, And Travel On,” or again as “Sing, And March On,” but the real spirit of Augustine’s Canta et ambula is, “Sing, And Soldier On!”

Prayer is necessary on every stage of our journey, that we may avoid evil and do good; that we may not be led into temptation; that we may grow in the love of God and so advance in perfection; finally, that we may persevere unto the end. The soul is a pilgrim homeward bound and prayer is the pilgrim’s song. And the theme of the pilgrim’s prayer-song is epitomized in this petition of the psalmist: One thing I ask of the Lord; this I ask: to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, that I may gaze on the loveliness of the Lord and contemplate his temple (Psalm 27:4).

In order that we may one day enjoy that truly happy life, he who is true life has taught us to pray. And when that prayer is finally answered, our pilgrimage shall have ended, and a happy permanent perfection shall be established when perseverance and salvation shall have been realized. “The end, therefore, of our purpose is Christ, for however much we attempt, in him and by him we are made perfect. And this is our perfection, that we come home to him.” [On Psalm 56:2]

Posted in Prayer, St. Augustine | Tagged Advancing In Perfection, charity, human nature becomes holy, Persevere Unto The End, seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, temptation | Leave a Comment »

Augustine on Prayer: Why We Should Pray I – Fr. Thomas Hand

September 14, 2011

That We May Keep God’s Commandments
OUR LOVE FOR GOD is measured, not by how we feel, but by how we live; not by sentimentality and emotion, but by our conduct and behavior. He who obeys the commandments he has from me is the man who loves me, declared our divine Lord (John 14:2 1). And again, anyone who loves me will be true to my word (John 14:23). Our union of love with God, therefore, consists in the fulfilling of his will as expressed in the commandments. “I would that you conform your life and behavior to God’s commandments, which we have received as the rule of right living,” [Letter 171(a):1] wrote Augustine. He tells us, furthermore, that to so conform our lives we must pray for divine assistance. “Let us live well; and that we may live well let us invoke the aid of him who has commanded us to live well.” [Sermon 19:6] But if we would live well and grow in this union of love with God we must avoid evil and do good. And the good we must do and the evil we must avoid are made clear to us in the commandments of God.

“Now, the Lord himself not only shows us what evil we should avoid and what good we should do — which is all the letter of the law can do — he helps us also turn from evil and do good (Psalm 37:27), which is something no one can do without the spirit of grace. If this is wanting, the law comes in only to make us guilty and to destroy us. Is is for this reason that the Apostle says: The written law kills, but the Spirit gives life (2 Corinthians 3:6). He, therefore, who uses the law lawfully learns good and evil in it if he does not confide in his own strength, but flies rather to grace by the help of which he may avoid evil and do good.” [On Correction and Grace, 2]

“It is quite obvious that to know the commandments of God is one thing, to keep them is another. The knowledge of them does not of itself impart the power to keep them. Consequently, God’s help does not consist in this only, that we have learned by our knowledge.” [Letter 188:8.] “Strengthen me that I may be able,” prayed Augustine. “Give what you command and command what you will.” [Confessions, X, xxi:45] “It is certain that we keep the commandments if we so will, but because the will is prepared by the Lord, we must ask him for such force of will as suffices to make us act by willing. It is certain that it is we who will when we will, but is it he who makes us will what is good … It is certain that it is we who act when we act, but it is he who makes us act by supplying efficacious powers to our will. ” [Grace and Free-Will, 32]

“He who wishes to keep God’s commandments but is unable to do so already has a good will, but as yet a small and delicate one; he will become able, however, when he shall have acquired a great and robust will … And who was it who had begun to give him his love, however small, but he who prepares the human will and perfects by his cooperation what he initiates by his operation? For just as he begins his influence by working in us that we may have the will, so does he complete it by working with us when we have the will.” [Grace and Free-Will, 33]

God gives us the realization that his yoke is sweet by inspiring our wills to find sweetness in doing good; he strengthens our will in its adherence to his commandments by giving us patience in tribulation; he gives us knowledge by insinuating understanding. It was for these things that the psalmist prayed, saying: Teach me wisdom and knowledge, for in your commands I trust (Psalm 119:66).

“God, therefore, teaches sweetness by inspiring delight; he teaches discipline by the moderate use of tribulation; he teaches knowledge by the insinuation of understanding. Since, then, there are some things we learn merely that we may know them, and other things we learn that we must also do them, when God teaches he does so in such a manner that we may know what ought to be known by revealing the truth, and do what ought to be done by inspiring sweetness. Not for nothing are these words addressed to him: Teach me to do your will (Psalm 143:10). He said, teach me that I may do and not merely that I may know. For the good deeds we do are the fruits we render to our landlord. The Scripture says: The Lord himself will give his benefits; our land shall yield its increase (Psalm 85:13). And what is that land but the human soul of which it is said to him who gives sweetness: My soul thirsts for you like parched land (Psalm 143:6) … Then teach me sweetness by inspiring charity; teach me discipline by giving patience; teach me knowledge by enlightening my understanding, for I have believed your commandments. I believe that you have commanded these things; you, who are God, who gives a man the means of keeping your commandments.” [On Psalm 118 - 17th - 3:4]

In his homilies on the psalms Augustine frequently reminds us how fervently the psalmist prayed for the gift of the Holy Spirit that he might keep the divine commandments. I gasp with open mouth in my yearning for your commands (Psalm 119:13 1). “What did he long for but to obey God’s commandments? But there was no possibility of the weak doing hard things, of a little one doing great things, so he opened his mouth to confess that he could not do them of himself and he drew in the power to do them. He opened his mouth by asking, seeking, knocking; thirsting he drank in the good Spirit which enabled him to do what he could not do of himself — the commandment is holy and just and good (Romans 7:12). For if we being evil know how to give good gifts to our children, how much more shall the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him (see Luke 11:13). For, it is not those who are led by their own spirit, but all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God (Romans 8:14). Not that they do nothing, but that they may do something good, they are moved by the good Spirit. For so much the more is every man made a good son insofar as the good Spirit is given him by the Father.” [On Psalm 118- 27th - 4]

The yoke of God’s commandments is sweet and light, but only for those who really love God and who find sweetness in doing his will. To those who have given their hearts to the pleasures attendant upon sin, the commands of God are burdensome. “For no other reason,” writes Augustine, “does Holy Scripture insist on the truth that God’s commandments are not grievous, except that the soul that finds them grievous may understand that it has not yet received those resources of grace that make the Lord’s commandments such as they are commended to us as being, that is, gentle and even pleasant, and that the soul may pray in the deep earnestness of sincerity for the gift of a ready facility in keeping them. For the man who says: Let my heart be perfect in your statutes (Psalm 119:80); and the one who says: Steady my footsteps according to your promise, and let no iniquity rule over me (Psalm 119:133); the man who says: Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven (Matthew 6:10); and, Subject us not to the trial (Matthew 6:13); and other prayers of a similar import it would take too long to particularize, he does, in effect, offer up prayer to keep God’s commandments. Neither, on the one hand, would any injunctions be laid on us to keep them if our own will had nothing to do in the matter; nor, on the other hand, would there be any room for prayer if our will were alone sufficient.” [On Man's Perfection in Righteousness,X:21]

“God’s commandments, therefore, are commended to us as not grievous, so that he to whom they are grievous may understand that he has not yet received the gift that removes their grievousness, and that he may not think he is really keeping them when he keeps them but finds them burdensome. For God loves a cheerful giver (2 Corinthians 9:7). Nevertheless, when a man finds God’s commandments burdensome, let him not be broken by despair; let him rather be driven to ask, to seek, and to knock.” [On Man's Perfection in Righteousness,X:21]

That We May Avoid Sin
We have seen that it is good for us to adhere to God and that we adhere to him by loving him. We have seen, furthermore, that loving God involves the keeping of his commandments. Consequently, we must avoid whatever might violate God’s commandments and so interfere with our loving adherence to him; that is, we must avoid sin. “For men are separated from God only by sins.” [City of God, X:22]

And Augustine tells us that we cannot avoid sin unless we have recourse to prayer. “We guard against sin by prayer. When a man wills what is evil and commits sin, his will has been deceived. He must guard against such deception. If it cannot be resisted there is no sin. If it can be resisted and is not submitted to, there is no sin. Whatever may be the cause of this deception it certainly can be resisted, because there are sins committed. This implies that they could have been resisted and were not. Now, it is for this reason that we pray for help, saying: Subject us not to the test. We would not ask for help if we supposed that resistance were impossible. It is possible to guard against sin, but only by the help of him who cannot be deceived.” [On Nature and Grace, 80]

Man’s good, man’s virtue, man’s happiness, consists in the soul’s adherence to God by love. A man must make choice of this because it is the express will of God. He must be subject to God on this vital issue if he would retain his mastery over other inferior creatures that God made for his use and benefit. If a man freely expresses preference for a lesser rather than the Supreme Good, he has been deceived; but that deception involves a capitulation within the soul itself for which man is responsible. This is what constitutes sin. “Therefore, sin is a real inordination and perversion in man, a turning away from the most excellent Creator and a turning toward inferior creatures.” [On Various Questions to Simplicanus,I,ii:18]

“What is evil is the will’s aversion from the changeless good and its conversion, being voluntary and not compelled, is followed by the fit and just punishment of misery.” [On Free Will, II:53] Sin, then, consists in a transference of love from the supreme to a lesser good. And since our union with God is our love for God as manifested in the fulfilling of his will, there is no sin that does not separate us from God. Its misery consists in this, that God relinquishes the sinner to his disorderly love, leaving him to be the slave of things that were created beneath him. God delivered them up in their lusts to unclean practices (Romans 1:24). I give you my assurance, everyone who lives in sin is the slave of sin (John 8:34).

“On all sides is the beauty of the work that commends the Maker to you. You admire the workmanship; then love the Craftsman. Be not too preoccupied with what was made and so withdraw from him who made it. He who made you beneath himself made these things with which you are preoccupied beneath you. If you cling to him who is above you, you will trample under foot what is beneath you; if you withdraw from him who is above you, these things will be turned into misery for you.

For this is the case, my brethren; man received a body to serve him, having God as his Lord and his body as his servant; having above him his Creator and below him what was created inferior to him; while the reasonable soul, set in a sort of middle ground, had a law laid upon it to cling to him who is above it so as to control what is below it. It cannot rule what is below it unless it be ruled by him who is above it. If it be seduced by what is beneath it, it has abandoned him who is better than itself.” [On Psalm 145:5] In order that this may be avoided we must persevere in prayer, which is the affectionate reaching out of the mind for God.

About the year 416 Augustine and his good friends Alypius, Evodius, and Possidius wrote a joint letter to His Holiness Pope Innocent concerning the teachings of Pelagius. In that letter they maintained that when a man makes the petition, Subject us not to the test, he is, in effect, praying for help that he may avoid sin. “He prays, therefore, not to commit sin, that is, not to do any evil. And that is what the Apostle asks in prayer for the Corinthians, when he says: We pray God that you may do no evil (2 Corinthians 13:7). From this it is quite clear that though the freedom of the will is called into play in refraining from sin, that is, in doing no evil, still, its power is not efficacious unless there is help forthcoming for its weakness. Therefore, the Lord’s Prayer itself is the clearest testimony of grace. Let Pelagius admit this and we shall rejoice over him as being in the right, or as having been set right.” [Letter 177:4]

Augustine observed, furthermore, that the inspired writers in Scripture prayed frequently to be delivered from the enemies of their souls’ salvation. The psalmist prayed, Rescue me from the clutches of my enemies and my persecutors (Psalm 31:16). “The devil and his angels, these are the enemies against whom we pray. They envy us the kingdom of heaven; they would not have us ascend to the place from which they were cast down. From these let us pray that our souls maybe delivered.” [On Psalm 30 - 3rd - 2] Resist the devil and he will take flight, says Saint James (James 4:7). Even the followers of Pelagius held this.

But Augustine remarks: “There is this difference between us and his partisans, that whenever the devil has to be resisted, we not only do not deny, we actually teach, that God’s help must be sought for; whereas they attribute so much power to the human will as to take prayer out of our religious duty.” [On Nature and Grace, 68] “If any man says that we ought not to use the prayer, Subject us not to the test — and he says as much who maintains that God’s help is not necessary to avoid sin, and that a person’s own will after accepting the law is sufficient for that purpose – then, I do not hesitate to affirm at once that such a man ought to be removed from the public ear and have his anathema pronounced by every tongue.” [On Man's Perfection in Righteousness,xxi:44]

Who can free me from this body under the power of death? prayed Saint Paul (Romans 7:24). A man makes this prayer, according to Augustine, because he desires “to be strengthened against sinning in future. For he delights in the law of God after the inner man, but sees another law in his members fighting against the law in his mind (see Romans 7:22-23). Observe this, that he sees there IS such a law; he does not recall it as if it were in the past. It is a present pressure, not a past memory … Hence, that cry of his: `O, wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?’ Let him pray. Let him beg for help from the mighty Physician. Why gainsay that prayer? Why shout down that entreaty?” [On Nature and Grace, 65]

That We May Not Enter Into Temptation
“Every temptation is a test,” declares Augustine, “and every test applied bears its own fruit. For the most part you are unknown even to yourself; you do not really know what you are able or unable to bear. Sometimes you presume to withstand what is beyond you; at other times you despair of being able to cope with what you could well bear. Temptation comes, as it were, in the form of a question, and you are found out by yourself because you did not know even your own self.” [On Psalm 55:2]

Now, the temptation that assails us may be one or the other of two kinds. It may be the kind that deceives us; on the other hand, it may be the type that subjects us to a kind of test that reveals our moral strength or our moral weakness. “This latter God makes use of, not to learn something that he himself did not previously know, but that by tempting you, by drawing you out, he may reveal what is hidden in you. For within you lie things hidden even from yourself in whom they reside. These things are discovered, brought out in the open and exposed, only by temptations. If God should cease to permit temptation, the Master would cease to teach.” [Sermon 2:3] “It is not good for you to be without temptation. Do not, therefore, ask God not to be tempted, but not to be led into temptation.” [On Psalm 63:1]

To enter into temptation, or to be led into it, means to be subjected to a temptation under the pressure of which we shall surely fall. “We are led into them if they are such that we cannot endure.” [Sermon on the Mount, Il,ix:34] It means being abandoned by God in time of temptation because of our self-reliance. “But God turned away his countenance from the one who said, I shall never be disturbed (Psalm 30:7), and that one was confounded and shown to himself.” [On Psalm 118- 26th - 2]

Consequently, we must pray never to be so abandoned by God. We may rest assured that we shall never be completely free from temptation of some kind or other, for the life of man on earth is a temptation. My son, when you come to serve the Lord, prepare yourself for trials (Sirach 2:1). “Wherefore, our heavenly Master also says: Be on guard, and pray that you may not undergo the test (Matthew 26:41) … He does not enter into temptation who conquers his evil desire by the bent of his will to do good. And yet the human will is insufficient to refuse to enter into temptation unless the Lord grant it victory in answer to prayer. What indeed offers clearer evidence of the grace of God than the granting of what is prayed for? If our Savior had said merely: Be on guard that you may not undergo the test, he would evidently have done nothing but admonish man’s will; but since he added the words, and pray, he indicated that God helps us not to be led into it.” [On Grace and Free Will, 9]

The effort of the human will, then, is not enough of itself to conquer temptation. Nevertheless, that effort must be made, and the reinforcing strength of grace should be asked of God in prayer. “No man is assisted by God unless he himself also does something. He is assisted, however, if he prays …” [On Man's Perfection in Righteousness,xx:43] Writing on the petitions, Subject us not to the trial but deliver us from the evil one, Augustine asks: “Why, indeed, do we present such petitions in earnest supplication if the result is of him that wills, and of him that runs, but not of God that shows mercy? Not that the result is quite independent of our will, but that our will does not accomplish its aims in action unless it receives divine assistance. Now the wholesome effect of faith is this — that it makes us ask that we may receive, seek that we may find, and knock that it may be opened to us. Whereas the man who disputes this, closes the door of God’s mercy against himself.” [On Man's Perfection in Righteousness,xx:43]

Writing on another occasion against the Pelagians, who exaggerated the power of the human will both in doing good and avoiding evil, Augustine said: “They are beginning to corrupt the minds of their hearers, and it must be said with sorrow that they are hostile to the grace of Christ, for they would persuade us to regard as unnecessary the prayer to the Lord that we enter not into temptation. As champions of the freewill of man they try to prove that we can fulfill the divine commandments by our will alone and without the assistance of God’s grace. From this teaching it would follow that the Lord spoke to no purpose when he said, Be on guard, and pray that you may not undergo the test; and that we say daily in the Lord’s Prayer itself, and to no purpose, Subject us not to the trial. If to overcome temptation is already in our power, why do we pray not to enter into it or not to be led into it?” [The Excellence of Widowhood, xvii:21]

Finally, in a letter to Pope Anastasius, Augustine again condemns these champions of the unaided human will. “Through their argument,” he wrote, “the weakness of men, wretched and needy as it is, is convinced that we ought not to pray lest we enter into temptation. Not that they dare say this openly, but whether they like it or not this conclusion certainly follows from their theory. For what use is there of his saying, Be on guard, and pray that you may not undergo the test and what use, when after this exhortation he was teaching us to pray, that he instructed us to say, Subject us not to the trial, if this is not to be fulfilled by the help of divine grace, but to rest entirely with the human will? What more is there to say?” [Letter 145:8]

Posted in Prayer, St. Augustine | Tagged Pray Keep God's Commandments, Pray That We May Avoid Sin, Pray That We May Not Enter Into Temptation, Prayer | Leave a Comment »

Augustine on Prayer: Man’s Quest For Happiness And Prayer II — Fr. Thomas Hand

September 13, 2011

St. Augustine in prayer by Botticelli, 1480

“We Must Adhere to God by Love, and Reach Out for Him in Prayer”
Man’s quest for happiness in this life, therefore, consists in following after God. It is obvious that the full attainment of God, and the full resultant delight that shall forever beatify the soul, is reserved for the future life. If we truly desire happiness then, we are, by that very fact, desiring immortality. It cannot be something identified with this life, for if life ends, happiness ends, and the loss of it even in expectation cannot be conducive to our enjoyment. Here below, then, we can go in quest of it only by following after God, and, as it were, reaching out for him.

Consequently, the great law of morality is to attach ourselves to God, to adhere to him, a law which, Augustine reminds us, was formulated by the psalmist long ago: My soul clings fast to you (Psalm 63:9). “God is good; so that it can be well with no one who deserts him. And among his creatures the rational creature is so great a good, that no other good save God can make it happy.”[On the Nature of Good, VII] God, therefore, who is our Supreme Good, must be the final object of all our striving and of all our yearning. “The sum of all our goods, and our perfect good, is God. We must not fall short of this, nor seek anything beyond it; the first is dangerous, the other impossible.”[Morals of Catholic Church, VIII, 13]

In this life, therefore, our most important and pressing duty is to unite ourselves to God by love. Going in quest of God, striving to adhere to him, reaching out for him, makes us good; attaining him, seeing him, securely possessing him, makes us happy. “Following after God is the desire of happiness; to reach God is happiness itself.” [Morals of Catholic Church, XI, 18] “How can anything be man’s highest good but that in cleaving to which he is happy? Now this is nothing else but God, to whom we can cleave only by affection, by desire, and by love.”[Morals of Catholic Church XIV, 24]

This makes us good. “For a man is never in so good a state as when his whole life is a journey toward the unchangeable life, and when his affections are wholly fixed upon it.” [Christian Doctrine, I, XII, 21] “A man is what his love makes him.” [Various Questions, 83, 35 - Talis est quisque, qualis ejus dilectio est.] “For this is the power of love, that it transforms the lover into the image of the object loved.”[Various Questions, 35] Now, the love whereby we adhere to God is called charity, and is defined by Augustine as: “The movement of the soul that carries it to the enjoyment of God for his own sake.” [Christian Doctrine, III, x, 16 - Caritatem voco motum animi ad fruendum Deum propter Ipsum.] This love, moreover, needs a medium of expression, and that need is supplied by prayer, which is the affectionate reaching out of the mind for God. [Sermon 9 (de Passione), 3 - Oratio namque est mentis ad Deum affectuosa intentio.]

Prayer, then, plays a most important part in man’s quest for happiness. For the life of a Christian on this earth is conceived by Augustine as the journey of a pilgrim soul toward everlasting life and everlasting happiness. It involves the descent of a loving, redeeming God, and the ascent of a loving, aspiring soul. The only ultimate happiness open to this pilgrim soul is the loving possession of God in the security of eternal life.

In the meantime, the Christian’s quest of happiness consists in his endeavor to adhere to God, in his efforts to unite himself to God by love, and in his reaching out for God in prayer. There is a wonderful feeling of motion in this conception of the Christian life — the motion that is inherent in all things that grow. The soul’s love for God is defined as “the movement” that carries it to the enjoyment of God. And prayer is “the reaching out” of the mind for God. In this moving, growing experience of Christian life man’s only sure road to happiness is in his desire for God and, as we shall see, his heart’s desire is his prayer. May we not conclude, therefore, that prayer, as Saint Augustine defines it, is also man’s road to happiness?

He tells us that it is “the affectionate reaching out of the mind for God.” How like Augustine to introduce that word “affectionate”! He never really succeeded in separating theology from devotion or logic from love. For him, to speak or to speculate about God merged spontaneously and irresistibly into the affectionate reaching out of his mind for God. Prayer is the language of the soul’s yearning for God; it is the interpreter of the heart’s desire. “The mouth speaks through the medium of words; the heart speaks through the medium of its desires. It is your heart’s desire that is your prayer.” [On Psalms, 37, 14]”It is not words that God wants of you, but your hearts.” [Sermon 91, 3]

“It is with the heart that we ask; with the heart we seek; and it is to the voice of the heart that the door is opened. ” [Sermon 91, 3] In these texts, of course, the term “heart” is used in the scriptural sense, in which it indicates our whole interior and spiritual life and all its faculties. Consequently, it signifies not only the heart, but the mind as well. True, according to Augustine, it is with the heart that we pray. For God wants to hear the call and the cry of a loving heart. But what is this cry of the heart? Augustine himself answers: the cry of the heart is a solemn earnestness of thought, which, when given vent to in prayer, expresses the profound yearning of the one who prays. [On Psalms 118 29] Prayer is the affectionate reaching out of the mind for God; it involves mind and heart, thought and desire, knowledge and love.

Prayer Is the Heart’s Desire
“The whole life of a good Christian is a holy desire.”[Treatise on 1 John, IV, 6] This desire is the unsatisfied yearning of a pilgrim’s heart, and the voice of the pilgrim’s heart is the voice of his heart’s desire. That voice is the only one that penetrates to the ears of God. “He who prays with desire sings in his heart, even though his tongue be silent. But if he prays without desire he is dumb before God, even though his voice sounds in the ears of men.” [On Psalms 86, 1] “I may be wanting in sound,” exclaims Augustine, “but never let me be wanting in love!” [On Psalms 102, 8] Prayer is not the reverberation of sound; it is the articulation of love. “As the ears of men are attentive to your lips, so are the ears of God inclined to your heart. How many there are whose lips are silent, but whose love is eloquent. So many are heard though their lips do not move, and many are left unanswered in spite of their noisy clamor. We ought to pray, then, with our affections.” [On Psalms 119, 9]” It is with the heart, rather than with the lips, that we pray.

Augustine observes that prayer actually has a voice of its own, and quite distinct from the voice of the one who prays. This “voice of prayer” is the heart’s desire, which, though not audible to human ears, sounds like a cry in the ears of God, and “is called a cry by reason of the intensity of its reaching for God.” [On Psalms 3, 4] The psalmist makes it quite clear that prayer has a voice of its own, when he says: Yet you heard the sound of my pleading when I cried out to you (Psalm 31:23). Again, he says: But God has heard; he has hearkened to the sound of my prayer (Psalm 66:19). And in yet another psalm we find these words: I say to the Lord, you are my God; hearken, O Lord, to my voice in supplication (Psalm 140:7).

Commenting on this latter psalm, Augustine says: “It is a simple statement indeed, and easy to understand; yet it is worthwhile considering why he did not say simply, `Hear my prayer.’ But, as if he would express more emphatically the affection of his heart, he said, `The voice of my prayer.’ That is, the life of my prayer, the soul of my prayer; not merely what sounds in my words, but what gives life to my words. For all other lifeless noises can be called sounds, but not words. Words belong to those who have souls — to the living. But how many pray to God, who have neither a proper perception of him, nor right thoughts concerning him? Such people may have the sound of prayer, but the voice of prayer they cannot have, for there is no life in their prayers.” [On Psalms 139, 10]

“Who can doubt but that cries raised to the Lord in prayer sound in vain if uttered only with the voice of the body and not with the heart fixed on God? But, if they come from the heart, then, they may escape any other man’s notice if the physical voice be silent, but they will not escape the notice of God. Therefore, whether we cry to the Lord with the voice of the body — when occasion demands it — or in silence, we must cry from the heart.” [On Psalms 118 - 29th - 1]

The Use of Words in Prayer
Now, while there is no doubt but that in prayer the primacy rests with the mind and with the heart, nevertheless it would be very wrong to conclude that Augustine scorns the use of ready-made formulas of prayer. Words have their place in the affectionate reaching out of the mind for God; they have vitally important functions to fulfill, and not merely in concentrating our attention and aiding our memory, but, above all, in stimulating our desire.

Concerning this very matter he wrote to the Lady Proba: “At certain hours we recall our minds from other cares and business in which somehow or other desire itself grows cool — to the business of prayer, admonishing ourselves by the words of our prayer to fix attention upon that which we desire, for fear that what had begun to lose heat might become altogether cold, and be finally extinguished if the flame were not more frequently fanned.” [Letter 130, 18]

Augustine, however, is most insistent upon this that, when we pray, we do not use words for the same purposes as in ordinary human affairs. Normally, we make use of words to teach, to convey information, or to recall something to somebody’s attention. And as Adeodatus observed in The Teacher, “It is not proper to believe that we teach God anything, or that we remind him of anything.” [The Teacher, 1, 2] God knows all things. Hence, the advice of Saint Matthew not to talk too much: Your Father knows what you need before you ask him (Matthew 6:8).

Referring to these very words, Augustine demands: “What is the good of prayer if our Father knows beforehand what we need? A man can say to his neighbor: `There is no need to say any more; I know what you want.’ If then, you know, O Lord, why should I ask.” [Sermon 80, 2] Surely it is a waste of time and energy to ask, seek, and knock, as though trying to convey information to one who knows already!

Let it be said at once, therefore, that the words we use in prayer are not intended for the instruction of God, but for the construction of our own desires. That is what God wishes to accomplish by means of the formulas of prayer. Not that he has any need of them for himself, but in the sense that he makes use of them to build up our desires for heavenly things. That is why he gave us the Lord’s Prayer. “These words employed by our Lord Jesus Christ in his prayer constitute the form for the expression of our desires. ” [Sermon 56, 4; cf, also letter 140, Pius mentis affectus est, ut ipsa construantur non ut Deus instruantor.]

By using these words we keep in mind the things we ought to desire; by insistently asking for them we develop and intensify our desire for them. “To obtain our petition we ought to urge our case with God, not by words, but by the ideas we cherish in our minds, and by directing these ideas with pure love and sincere desire. The Lord made use of words to teach us these very ideas that by committing them to memory we might recall them when we pray.” [Sermon on Mount, II. III, 13]

This teaching is admirably summed up in the following dialogue passage from The Teacher. Having observed that prayer should be made in the temple of the mind, and that God does not seek to be taught or to be reminded by our speech that he may give us what we desire, Augustine puts this question to Adeodatus: “‘Are you not disturbed by the fact that our great Master, in teaching his disciples to pray, taught them certain words, so that it looks as if he taught them what words to use in prayer?’ (Adeodatus) `No. That does not disturb me. For he did not teach them words merely, he taught them by means of words, so that through these words they could keep themselves in constant remembrance. He taught them realities: what they should pray for, and from whom they should ask, when they prayed in their innermost mind, as we have said.’ (Augustine) `You have correctly understood the point.’ ” [The Teacher, 1, 2]

There is no doubt but that Christ himself ratified vocal prayer when he said, Ask, and you shall receive; and again when, in answer to a most formal request of his disciples, he gave them the Lord’s Prayer. Augustine, consequently, never scorns the use of words or formulas; he insists that these words were put into our mouths by the Master, in order to foster and stimulate our desire for the gifts that he would love to bestow. “When you pray you need piety, not verbosity. Your Father knows what you need before you ask him (Matthew 6:8). Do not speak too much, therefore, he knows what you need…But he wished you to pray for this reason, that he might give you desire, and that his gifts might not be lightly esteemed; for it is he himself who insinuates this desire.”‘ [Sermon on Mount, 4] In a word, “The Lord our God requires us to ask, not that our wish may be made known to him — for to him it cannot be unknown — but that through the medium of prayer, that desire may be developed in us by virtue of which we may receive what he is prepared to bestow.” [Letter 1.30, 17]

Prayer and Happiness
The words we use in prayer, therefore, turn our thoughts and desires toward the things that God would love to bestow — if we would only have them. He would give us himself, and in so doing would make us happy forever more. And in giving himself he would give us the Supreme Good, together with the life of eternity, the health of immortality, truth that never deteriorates into folly; love, goodness, and beauty immutable in their everlasting perfection. Augustine refers to these benefits as “the proper objects of enjoyment.” All other things must be used as means to the attaining of them. “Those things which are objects of enjoyment,” he says, “make us happy. Those things which are objects of use assist us, and, as it were, support us in our efforts toward happiness, so that we can attain the things that make us happy and rest in them.” [Christian Doctrine, I, iii, 3]

Augustine warns us, however, that “if we set ourselves to enjoy those things which we ought to use, we are hindered in our course, and sometimes even led away from it, so that, becoming entangled in the love of inferior pleasures, we lag behind in, or even turn completely away from, the pursuit of the real and proper objects of enjoyment.” [Christian Doctrine, I, iii, 3] That this may not happen, we affectionately turn our minds and hearts to God in prayer.

“A happy life is to be sought from the Lord our God. Many different people have given many different answers when discussing wherein true happiness resides. But why should we go to many teachers or consider many answers to this question? It has been briefly and truly stated in Holy Scripture: Happy the people whose God is the Lord (Psalm 144:15).” [Letter 130, 24] “Why, then, are our desires scattered over many things? And why, through fear of not praying as we ought, do we ask what we should pray for, and not rather say with the psalmist: One thing I ask of the Lord, this I seek: To dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, that I may gaze on the loveliness of the Lord and contemplate his temple (Psalm 27:4)? … In order that we may attain this happy life, he who is himself the true Blessed Life has taught us to pray …” [Letter 130, 15 - Propter hanc adipiscendam vitam beatam ipsa vera Vita beata nos orare docuit ..]

“The only true life is the happy life, and there is no happy life that is not also eternal life.”[The Trinity, XIII, vii, 10] Health also is vital to happiness; and real health shall not be enjoyed until this mortal shall put on immortality. [Cf. 1 Cor. 15, 53] “True, perfect and everlasting health, which is neither reduced by earthly infirmities nor repaired by corruptible gratification, but which endures with celestial vigor, is animated with a life eternally incorruptible.” [Letter 130, 7]

Since we cannot enjoy everlasting life or immortality here and now, neither can we be perfectly happy in this life — except through hope. “Many have reached boldly through transitory evils to good things that will last. And these no doubt are happy through hope … But he who is happy through hope is not yet happy, for he awaits in patient expectation a happiness he does not yet grasp. ” [The Trinity, XIII, vii, 10] Nevertheless, he is steadfast in his hope, and his goodwill brings him closer to it. For “he is the nearer to happiness whose will is good, and is directed to that which when attained will make him happy.” [The Trinity, XIII, vii, 10]

“We are not Christians except on account of a future life. Let no one hope for immediate happiness. Let no one promise himself the happiness of this world because he is a Christian.” [On Psalms 91,1] If a Christian is blessed with temporal prosperity, no doubt, he should give thanks to God for it. But if temporal misfortune befall him, then his faith should help him to conquer the present and look to the future. “There are some,” complains Augustine, “who do not realize that because they are Christians they must hope in the life to come. Such people imagine that Christ has forsaken them, and that they are Christians to no purpose, as soon as they are afflicted with temporal misfortune. They do not realize that the reason for their being Christians is that they must conquer the present and hope for the future … that what God has promised is neither of this life, nor of this earth; that all trials must be endured, so that we may receive and secure what God has promised in eternity.” [On Psalms 90 - 1st - 7] Someday faith will give place to vision, and the happiness of hope will be happiness realized in the world to come. Augustine assures us that “everything there will be good, and the Supreme God will be the Supreme Good, and he will be present for those to enjoy who love him. And, what is altogether most blessed, it will be certain to be so forever.” [The Trinity, XIII, viii, 11]

Whoever attains this will have attained the ultimate happiness open to man. He will have all that he desires and will be incapable of desiring anything together with it that would be unfitting. He will enjoy a state of well-being so perfect as to leave nothing to be desired — forever more. “For in it is the fountain of life, which we must now thirst for in prayer so long as we live in hope, not yet seeing what we hope for, trusting under the shadow of his wings before whom are all our desires, that we may be abundantly satisfied with the fullness of his house, and made to drink of the river of his pleasures. For with you is the fountain of life, and in your light we see light (Psalm 36:8-10), when our desire shall be satisfied with good things, when there shall be nothing beyond to be sought after with groaning, but all things shall be possessed by us with rejoicing.” [Letter 130, 27]

In desiring and praying for happiness, then, we are by that very fact hoping and praying for immortality; for if we desire a happy life, we desire also that it would last forever. “As, therefore, all men wish to be happy, certainly if they wish truly, they wish also to be immortal: for otherwise they could not be happy … In order that a man may live happily he must at least be alive. But if life quits him through death, how can a happy life remain with him?” [The Trinity, XIII, viii, 11] Happiness demands everlasting security, it demands immortality. Augustine declares, therefore, that “no one wrongly desires immortality if human nature is by God’s gift capable of it; and if it is not capable of it, then it is not capable of happiness.” [The Trinity, XIII, viii, 11]

Whether human nature is capable of immortality and should aspire to it is no small question. “But if that faith be present which is in those to whom Jesus has given power to become the sons of God, then, there is no question … For that faith promises, not by human reasoning but by divine authority, that the whole man, who certainly consists of body and soul, shall be immortal, and on that account truly happy.” [The Trinity, XIII, viii, 12] Not that the guarantee of immortality alone constitutes happiness, for the fallen angels are also immortal. Yet no one can be completely and perfectly happy unless he be immortal.

And Augustine tells us that the Son of God became man, precisely in order to convince men of that which seemed incredible, namely, that they could and would be immortal. “For if he who is by nature the Son of God was made Son of Man through mercy, for the sake of the sons of man … how much more credible is it that the sons of men by nature should be made the sons of God by the grace of God, in whom alone and from whom alone the blessed can be made partakers of that immortality? That we might be convinced of this the Son of God was made partaker of our mortality.” [The Trinity, XIII, viii, 12]

“What has God promised you, mortal man? That you shall live forever. Do you not believe this? Then, do believe it, do believe it. For he has already done something greater than what he has promised. What has he done? He has died for you. What has he promised? That you shall live with him. It is more incredible that the Immortal should die than that a mortal should live forever.” [On Psalms, 148, 8]

It is almost incredible; yet it is true. One day we shall be immortal; we shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever and see the delight of the Lord. There is no doubt but that it was for this vision of God face to face that the psalmist prayed when he said: Of you my heart speaks; you my glance seeks; your presence, O Lord, I seek (Psalm 27:8). Augustine continues that prayer in his own words: “In this search I will continue perseveringly, not seeking anything that is common, by your countenance, O Lord, that I may love you gratis, for I can find nothing more precious. Turn not away your face from me, that I may find what I seek. Turn not aside in anger from your servant, lest in seeking you I run toward something else … Be my helper.” How shall I find it if you will not help me? “Leave me not, neither despise me, O God my Savior. Scorn not that a mortal should seek the Eternal …” [On Psalms 26 - 1st - 8, 9] So did Augustine reach for God in prayer. Because, then only shall all the desires of the human heart find rest, when God and man are reunited in love, in the happy security of everlasting life. “In order that we may attain this happy life, he who is himself the true Blessed Life has taught us to pray.” [Letter 130, 15]

Posted in Prayer, St. Augustine | Tagged everlasting security, immortality, Man's quest for happiness, Prayer, Prayer Is the Heart's Desire, the affectionate reaching out of the mind for God, the great law of morality, The Use of Words in Prayer, true life and the happy life | Leave a Comment »

Augustine on Prayer: Man’s Quest For Happiness And Prayer I — Fr. Thomas Hand

September 12, 2011

Fr. Thomas Hand

This is from a marvelous little book called Augustine on Prayer written by Fr. Thomas Hand. My teacher in the seminary who is having us read it called it “ a great book.” I went out to Amazon, as is my custom, looking forward to reading some good reviews and wouldn’t you know, not a one. Ever the cynic, I snorted to myself and thought “What’s so great about a book that no one has anything nice to say about it. Shame on me.

It’s an amazing book because Augustine never wrote a book on prayer. He wrote a lot about prayer but it took Fr. Hand to bring it all together from this plethora of sources. And he did it in 1962 – no online search and electronic convenience – simply scholarship, an intelligent reader of Augustine who searched his topic out and brought it all together.

Who was this wonderful reader, man after my own heart? Turns out we shared the same country for many years – his bio here and a neat article . Fr. Hand passed in 2005 but what a great gift he has left us here. I’ve put the source footnotes into the text so you can see the level of complexity the end product reflects – a simple paragraph built from a half dozen sources. Something Augustine never strung together but does through the agency and intelligence of Fr. Hand.

Desire for a Happy Life
Every man, whatsoever his condition, desires to be happy,” declares Augustine. “There is no man who does not desire this, and each one desires it with such earnestness that he prefers it to all other things; whoever, in fact, desires other things, desires them for this end alone.” [Sermon 306, 3] There are various ways of living adopted by men, “yet, in whatever kind of life he chooses, there is no man who does not wish to be happy.”[Sermon 306, 3] “

To aim at the happy life, to wish for the happy life, to covet the happy life, to seek it and follow after it, is, I think, the business of all men.”[Sermon 150, 4] This desire, then, is common to all men; to all men, absolutely — be they good or evil. “He who is good is therefore good that he may be happy; and he who is evil would not be so, if he despaired of the possibility of being happy by that means.”[Sermon 150, 4] But, while no one escapes this universal thirst for happiness, or disputes its existence, nevertheless a good deal of controversy appears to revolve around its object. All men seek happiness: “But to know where to find this thing desired of all; that is disputed among them, that divides them.” [Sermon 150, 4]

Some people seek happiness in wealth;[Cf. Sermon 345, 5] others seek it in honors;[Cf. Letter 130, 12] others again in the pleasures of the body. [Cf. Trinity, XIII, iv, 7] More prudent people seek their happiness in knowledge,[Cf. Against the Academics, I, ii, 5] or in virtue, [Cf. Trinity, XIII, iv, 7] or, like the philosophers, in wisdom. [Cf. City of God, VIII, 4]All of them tend toward the same goal by a multiplicity of ways, and the goal they seek is the delight they hope to enjoy in being happy. And though the ways they follow in search of this enjoyment may differ, still they come to the experience of it by a rhythmic movement of the soul, simple in character and common to all.

The first movement is of the intellectual order: they must know the object that offers them happiness. “For who can love what he does not know?” [Trinity, VIII, iv, 6]This knowledge, manifestly, must concern the beauty, charm, and attractiveness of the beloved object. Could it possibly engage their attention and animate their hearts without that? [Confessions, IV, xiii, 20]
The second act is of the sentimental or emotional order. Arrayed in all the attractions that their intelligence discovers in it, the object excites their affections and enkindles an ardent desire in their hearts to possess it. [City of God, XIV, 7]
The third act is an act of the will. Having been enticed to yield to the attraction which enthralls it, the will stirs itself, and, translating desire into action, takes possession of the beloved object. That is the moment of delight. [City of God, XIV, 7:Id autem habens eoque fruens, laetitia est] It is obvious, however, that while all the faculties cooperate in procuring the beatifying object, the decisive act appertains to the will. And this movement of the will is released by the impulse of an interior power called love. It is this that draws every lover to seek happiness in his beloved.

According to Greek physics all bodies, the smallest as well as the greatest, are carried by their natural weight toward a particular place in the universe. “Fire tends to rise, a stone tends to fall. Drawn by their weight they reach their proper places. Oil released under water makes its way above it. Water poured over oil slides beneath it. Both are carried by their weight toward the place that is proper to them. [Confessions, XIII, xi, 10] And this place toward which they are drawn is the place in which they come to rest. [Confessions, XIII, xi, 10]

Under the impulse of a power given by nature, everybody tends toward that state which is natural to it, and in which alone it finds rest and stability. Now, the human soul, according to Augustine, is subject to this same law. “It only tends toward what it loves, so that attaining it, it may find rest.”[Letter 55, 18 - Donec ad locum quo nititur veniens, requiescat.] And the power that draws it is like an interior weight that puts pressure on the will, and this power is called love. “Just as the body gravitates according to its weight, so also the soul, in whatever direction its movement tends, is carried along by love.” [Letter 55, 18]

Love, therefore, is a vital necessity for man; he loves, in fact, as naturally as he breathes. “Not to love is to be cold, to be callous”; [On Palms. 31 - 2nd - 6] it is to place oneself beneath inanimate bodies, which respond at least to the traction of their weight. For the human soul also must find its proper place if it would enjoy a happy rest, and in so doing it is carried along by love.

But, unlike a stone, which moves with the inexorable necessity of nature’s law, the movement of the soul is free. [Cf. On Free Will, III, i, 2 - "Lapidi naturalis est ille motus, animo vero iste voluntarius] People delight only in what they love, but they love only what they want to love. They permit themselves to be drawn only by what gives them pleasure, but they remain free not to follow it. [Cf. Tr. on John XXVI, 4: -Non necessitas, sed voluptas; non obligatio, sed delectatio.] Love is so far from being inevitable, that its most exquisite pleasure is to choose according to its taste and liking the object of its delight. [Tr. on John XLI, 10 - Libertas enim delectat.] Quite naturally it will choose the object in which it expects to find the greatest happiness. “For as men find special delight in this thing or that, so have they placed in it their idea of a happy life.”[ Trinity, XIII, iv, 7]

And what an amazing variety and diversity of ideas there are, regarding what gives men happiness! How numerous are the loves of the human soul! More numerous than the hairs of our heads.[Cf. Confessions, IV, xiv, 22] It is necessary, then, to choose with great care and discernment the love that will most ennoble our lives, and give us the greatest happiness. For it does not follow that everyone who attains what he loves is therefore happy. It all depends on what he loves. “Do we say to you: Love nothing?” demands Augustine. “God forbid! Dull, dead, hateful, miserable shall you be if you love nothing. Love, but take care what you love.”[ On Psalms 32-2nd-5] It is urgently necessary, therefore, that we know which love, out of the many loves that affect our hearts, will procure for us a truly happy life.

What Happiness Entails
In common with all other men Augustine also went in quest of a happy life. But he did not seek it like most other men. He was one of the greatest geniuses of all time; a man who felt with exceptional intensity, and expressed with an amazing acuteness and clarity the great needs of the human spirit. He could never rest content with a little happiness now and then, like splashes of color against the drab background of daily drudgery. Fleeting pleasures could never satisfy his questing soul.

What he wanted was an ecstasy, and a permanent ecstasy, of life, love, and happiness. The happiness he visualized and sought after was a permanent state of well-being, so perfect as to leave no conceivable desire of his heart unfulfilled. He had observed that a man is not happy if he has not gotten what he desires. What he sought, then, was a perfect form of life in which desire itself finds rest, a state of well-being made perfect by the possession of all accumulated good. [Cf. On Psalms 2, II - Ubi est bonorum omnium summa et cumulus.] What he sought to know was, under what conditions all the desires of the human heart would be stilled, and forever; conditions under which a man might find the full perfection and enjoyment of which his being is capable. Some philosophers held that a man who lived just as he pleased, was a happy man. But what if his pleasure inclined him to evil! Would he still be considered happy? Other philosophers — even though strangers to the worship of God — rejected that opinion; they counted such a man miserable, in proportion to the facility with which his depraved will was translated into action. [Cf. Letter 130, 10] To be happy, therefore, two things are required: A man must “have all that he wants, and want nothing wrongly.”[ Cf. Letter 130, 10; cf. Trinity, XIII, V. 8] Is that all, then? No. He must not only possess it, he must love it as well.

“In my opinion,” says Augustine, “you will not be happy if you are unable to possess what you love, be that what it may; nor can you be happy if you do not love what you have, be it ever so good; nor even if you are able to have what you love, if it be harmful to you. For if you desire what you cannot have, you are tormented; if you acquire what you do not want, you are deceived; if you do not desire what should be acquired, you are not mentally sound. Now, none of these conditions is unaccompanied by a feeling of misery, but misery and happiness cannot abide together in you.” [Morals of Catholic Church III, 4] To be happy, therefore, a man must have what he loves, and love what he has, and it must be something that will do him no harm. But the question still remains unanswered: What must a man acquire for himself that he may be happy?

Manifestly, it must be an object, the possession and love of which would leave nothing to be desired; an object of such transcendent goodness and beauty, that knowledge, possession, love and enjoyment of it, would leave man in a state of well-being so perfect that nothing could possibly be desired beyond it; an object, moreover, possible of attainment which a man could possess if he so willed; something, furthermore, wholly immune from decay — and from the possibility of loss through disaster – the enjoyment of which would give complete, perfect, everlasting satisfaction. Such an object would be the best and the greatest good imaginable.

It would be the Supreme Good. “He, therefore, who inquires how he may attain a happy life, is surely inquiring after nothing else but this: Where is the Supreme Good? In other words, in what does man’s Supreme Good reside, not according to the perverse and hasty opinions of men, but according to sure and immovable truth?”[Letter 118, 13] For life is happy, “when that which is man’s Supreme Good is both loved and possessed.“[ Morals of Catholic Church, III, 4] “Not that there are no other goods, but that is called the Supreme Good to which all others are referred. For everyone is happy when he delights in a good for the love of which he desires to have the others, and which he loves, not for the sake of any other, but for its own sake.”[Letter 118, 13]

Now, this good cannot be something within ourselves; if it were we should never be unhappy. True, the Epicureans identified it with the pleasures of the body, and the Stoics with the virtue of soul. But, the advancing ages of the body from youth to old age, and the fickleness of the soul, commuting as it does between folly and wisdom, virtue and vice, certainly leave much to be desired. On the other hand, neither can we say that the Supreme Good is something inferior to ourselves, for that would place our fulfillment and happiness in something less than our own nature; “and that which gives a happy life, or any part of a happy life, is better than that which receives it.” .[Letter 118, 14]

Since, therefore, the Supreme Good is neither in us nor beneath us, it must be above us. “What now remains but God himself in whom resides man’s highest good?” .”[Letter 118, 14] Loving and possessing him is what constitutes a happy life. So great a good is happiness that it merits to be called “the gift of God.”[Sermon 150, 8] So great and noble a being is the rational creature, even in its fallen state, that nothing inferior to God suffices to yield it a happy rest — not even itself.” [Cf. Confessions, XIII, viii, 9.112-7] I say, therefore, that he is happy who possesses God.”[ On the Happy Life, 11- Deum ,igitur,inquam, qui habet, beatus est.]

That God is the Supreme Good is manifest, since good is identified with being. Everything that exists is good insofar as it enjoys some degree of being. “For all existence as such is good.”[On the True Religion, XI, 21] It follows that absolute and perfect good, the Supreme Good, can reside only where there is Infinite Being — Immutable and Everlasting Being. This can be none other than God: “For there is no life that is not of God: God is supreme life and the font of life.” [On the True Religion, XI, 21]

Our happiness consists, therefore, in the permanent possession and everlasting love of this Supreme Being, this Supreme Good, which is God. “From all this it will readily occur to anyone that the happiness which an intelligent being desires as its legitimate object is the result of a combination of two things: namely, that it enjoy the Immutable Good, which is God, without interruption; and that it know with a certainty that is exempt alike from doubt as from error, that it shall abide in that enjoyment forever.” [City of God, XI, 13]

Now, when Augustine had put aside the books of the Platonists to take up and read the Scriptures — Tolle!Lege! — he found that the yearning of the human heart for happiness, and the findings of reason concerning man’s Supreme Good, were ratified by divine assurance, and buttressed by the authority of divine command: You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, with your whole soul, and with all your mind (Matthew 22:37). This is the commandment “which leads to the happy life.”[Morals of Catholic Church, XI, 18]

It imposes absolute obligation. It has no limits, for the measure of this love is the utmost capacity of mind, heart, and soul. [Cf. Sermon 34, 7 - Totum exigit te,qui fecit te] Saint Paul assured him of complete satisfaction in this love, because we know that God makes all things work together for the good of those who have been called according to his decree (Romans 8:28).

It was Saint Paul again who gave him the assurance of permanence in the possession of his Beloved: For I am certain that neither death nor life, neither angels nor principalities, neither the present nor the future, nor powers, neither height nor depth nor any other creature, will be able to separate us from the love of God that comes to us in Christ Jesus, our Lord (Romans 8:38-39). It is God, therefore, “in following after whom we live well, in reaching whom we live both well and happily.”[Morals of Catholic Church, VI, 10] “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless till they rest in you.”[Confessions, I, i, 1] Our desire for God is the only road that leads to happiness.

Posted in Book Recommendations, Prayer, St. Augustine | Tagged Augustine on Prayer, Fr. Thomas Hand, Happiness, Love, possessing what you love, the Happy Life, the soul, the Supreme Good, What Happiness Entails | Leave a Comment »

Reading Selections from The Rise of Western Christendom by Peter Brown

March 24, 2010

Peter Robert Lamont Brown is one of America’s major historians and certainly the dean of Late Antique studies in the American academe. Elsewhere I have reviewed and provided reading selections from his magisterial Augustine of Hippo. This is another great read.

Monks
In 270, the year Constantine was born, Anthony (250-356) a comfortable farmer on the Egyptian Fayum, made his way out into the desert, to emerge around 310 as a famous ermites, a “man of the desert” the “model” Christian hermit of all future ages. In Syria, also, the roads had long been traveled by bands of charismatic preachers who owed nothing to the “world.” Pointedly celibate, and filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, their traveling bands were a sight to be seen. They had to be advised not to burst into chanted psalms when passing through non-Christian villages — lest they be mistaken for traveling musicians! They were the “unique ones,” the “lonely ones.” In Egypt, the Greek word monochos, “lonely one,” from which our word “monk” derives, soon became attached to such eccentric persons. Unmarried, detached from society either by living in the desert or by their restless movement, the “wanderers” of Syria and the “men of the desert” of Egypt represented a new form of radical Christianity, henceforth associated with a new term, “monasticism” — the life of monks.

Augustine And The Pelagian Controversy
For Augustine the convert emerged as a person sheathed in the will of God “For He hath made me and not we ourselves…” indeed we had destroyed ourselves but He who made us, made us anew. Augustine never doubted this about himself or others. The grace of God worked on the heart, “as it were as speck of gold in the hands of a master craftsman, “hammering the fragile, discontinuous will into an ever firmer, finally victorious resolve. This was no abstract doctrine for Augustine. The life of the Catholic Church, as he saw it, was made up of countless small victories of grace. To those who had learned to pray with a humble heart, God would always give the grace which fired the will to follow His commands….

Not every ascetic Christian in this age of great converts was comfortable with such a view. When the Confessions were read out, in the company of Paulinus, Pelagius, a devout layman from Britain, walked out of the room. For Pelagius and his many supporters, the “grace” of God did not work in this manner. God’s “grace” consisted rather in God’s decision to create human nature in such a way that human beings could follow his commands through the exercise of their own free will.

This was grace enough. Human beings had never lost their original, good nature. Everyone was free to choose the good. Once the accretion of evil habits, contracted through contact with the “world”, had been washed away through the transformative rite of baptism, every Christian believer was both able and obliged to reach out for perfection. For Pelagius, the Christian was the master craftsman of his or her own soul.

Augustine’s Theology Of Grace
Augustine’s theology of grace embraced more believers. It had room both for acknowledged heroes and for the average Christina. Pelagius, by contrast, had little to say to the average Christian. He insisted that all Christians were capable of being perfect and that they should become perfect. He wished to blur the distinction between lay person and monk by making every Christian equally a convert and a devout ascetic. He seemed to leave no place for the slow and hesitant progress of the rank and file, whose “conversions” were far from dramatic and far from complete….Augustine, by contrast , accepted that the Christian Church had come to contain a large number of distinctly mediocre persons. He did not expect ever Christian to be perfect. Yet each Christian was equal to every other, because all Christians were equally dependent on the grace of God …. Augustine’s doctrine was a source of comfort to the humble and a warning to the proud. There was no room in his view of the Church for self-created distinctions, based on the belief that some Christians could make themselves more “perfect” than others…Augustine saw the Catholic Church as a united community precisely because it was community of sinners as well as a community of heroes and of heroines.

Augustine’s City of God
Augustine’s City of God, was a book he began in 413, as an answer to pagan criticisms and to Christian disillusionment, provoked by Alaric’s sack of Rome in 410. The disaster of the sack o f Rome provided Augustine with an excuse to expatiate on a theme dear to his heart. It was summed up in the title of the book, On the City of God. For as in Psalm 86 (87), Jerusalem was the “City of our God, of which “glorious things are spoken” Like the Jerusalem of the Psalms (as Augustine read them) the Heavenly Jerusalem claimed those born in all other nations as potential citizens. A common sin had made all men and all women quite irrespective of race, of class, and of level of culture, equally aliens from that Heavenly Jerusalem. All were summoned with stark impartiality, to become Christians and so to begin the long, slow return to heaven, their true homeland…Augustine deliberately created common ground with his readers , precisely so that, all obstacles removed and all arguments vanquished, they might have no excuse not to slip across that shared ground in order to become potential citizens of heaven by joining the Catholic Church.

Gregory The Great: Discernment In The Commentary on Job
Gregory entitle his commentary the “Mortalia of Job.” By this he meant a guide for the moral life derived from contemplation of the Book of Job…..It was the stuff of the soul that concerned him, in every situation and every turn and twist of its daily struggle with itself. Gregory was a throwback. He brought into the late sixth century an ancient strand in Roman thought — the austere tradition of ethical guidance earlier associated with the Stoic sages.. Gregory’s emphasis on the examination of ones’ motives, on the need for consideration of one’s response to every situation, the perpetual awareness of the inner self laid out before the quiet eyes of God are themes which hark back to the letters of Seneca and the Meditations of Marcus Aurelieus.

Gregory The Great: Praedicatio
“Once the world held us in its delights. Now it is so full of disasters that the world itself seems to be summoning us to God.” What mattered now was praedicatio, the gathering into the Christian Church of what remained of the human race, so as to face the dread Judgment Seat of Christ…It as a thought to greatly concentrate the mind. For Gregory the age of praedicatio was not an age of panic. It was, rather, an age of unexpected excitements. Like soft dawn creeping beneath a door, Gregory saw in his own age, a subdued recrudescent of the miraculous powers which had once accompanied the first advance of the Apostles. In 594 his Dialogues…announced to the Christian world that …his native Italy had been filled with vibrant holy men and women. They had been sent by God, in the last days of he world to warn mankind.

How The Irish Did Not Save Civilization But Did Something Greater
It is important not to exaggerate the cultural riches of sixth century Ireland. An enthusiastic nationalist tradition has claimed that an entire range of classical Latin books were transported to the island at the time of “Barbarian Invasions.” They were saved by the Irish form the barbarism into which , so these enthusiasts assert, continental Europe had irrevocably sunk. Books are still written entitled “How the Irish Saved Civilization”. This is a myth that has no scholarly support. It is also a myth that overlooks the true originality and creativity of Irish Christian culture at that time. For what Irish and West Britons lacked in books , they more than made up for though the intensity and originality with which they read what books they had, and the zest with which they applied their reading to substantially new situations, The Irish did a lot more than “save” the relics of classical civilization. They created something new.

Penance: Augustinian and Gregory the Great
Penance, for Augustine, was not a spectacular remedy for occasional great sins. It was, rather, a frame of mind. It was a lifelong process, because sin also, was the lifelong companion of the Christian. It was Gregory the Great who added a final, distinctive tone to the Augustinian tradition of perpetual penance. His contribution derived, in many ways, from a very ancient Roman past. The aristocratic tradition of moral guidance, represented by Seneca and others, had always urged its practitioners to subject themselves to relentless inner cross-examination, so as to lay bare their failings and to correct them. To this venerable, almost instinctive tradition, maintained among the Roman elites, Gregory added the entire world of the Desert Fathers, with their unflinching emphasis on the constant inner struggle of the monk and on the need for candor in revealing all sins to a spiritual guide…all sins mattered; and all must be examined with medical precision if they were to be “healed.” …The more Christians strove for perfection, he believed, the more clearly they would see heir own imperfection…Gregory used he word “horror”…not the fear of hell, rather, he referred to a nightmare sense of vertigo experienced by pious persons at the sight of the sheer tenacity, the insidiousness, and the minute particularity of their sins…They must look at themselves as God saw them, that is, with the divine impatience of an utterly just being, for whom a shoddy, unfinished soul was not enough.

Islam
In 610 at the age of 40, Muhammad began to see visions. They came from Allah, “The Lord of the World.” For the next 20 years, the messages came irregularly, in sudden, shattering moments, up to his death in 632. In them Muhammad believed, the same God who had spoken to Moses and to Jesus, and to many thousands of humbler prophets, now spoke again, once and for all, to himself. Vivid sequences of these words from God were carefully memorized by Muhammad’s followers. They were passed on by skilled reciters throughout the Arabic speaking world. For these were nothing less than snatches of the voice of God himself speaking to the Arabs through Muhammad. They were not written down until 660, in very different circumstances from the time of their first delivery. When written out…they came to be known as the Qur’an. What Muhammad recited was a direct rendering of the eloquence of God as he spoke to the human race…His messages declared that neglect and partisan strife had caused Jews and Christians to slip away from, even to distort the messages which they had once received from their prophets Moses and Jesus. Christians were told in, in no uncertain terms, that they had erred. They were warned by God that the Christological controversies which had absorbed their energies for so many centuries were based on a gigantic misunderstanding. Jesus had not been God and had never claimed to be treated as if he was God: “And behold God will say: “ Jesus, son of Mary! Didst thou say unto men: worship me and my mother as gods in derogation of God?” He will say:” Glory to Thee. Never could I have said what I had no right to say [Qur’an v:119]

The Dome Of The Rock
Caliph ‘Abd al-Malik had made an even more aggressive statement of the superiority of Muslims to all other religions. In 692, he began to build the Dome of the Rock on top of the deserted site of the former Jewish Temple at Jerusalem. The new dome towered above the dome of Constantine’s Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Inside the mosaics around the base of the dome bore inscriptions from the Qur’an. …They showed that the Caliph wished to make plain to visiting Muslim pilgrims that, in God’s definitive judgment, the entire past of Christianity had been weighed and found wanting. The inscriptions were taken from verses of the Qur’an in which Christians were rebuked: Oh People of the Book (i.e. Christians), do not go beyond the bounds of your religion….Jesus , the son of Mary, was only God’s messenger…It is not for God to take a son…The true religion with God is Islam.{ Qur’an iv:171 and iii:19]

Subordination of Christians and Jews in the Islamic Empire
Christians paid a special poll tax – the jizya – in return for the “benefaction” of being allowed to continue to practice their religion undisturbed. The jizya tax was intended to make plain their subordination. It was paid by individuals and not by communities. Its administration required an elaborate and vexatious system of registration, such as only a strong empire, backed by a professional bureaucracy, could have imposed. Event he moment of payment was supposed to emphasize the subordinate position of the “people of he book” over against Muslims. Lawyers insisted hat those who offered the jizya must be careful to present the money on their upraised palms, in such a way that their hands should never e seen to rise above those of the Muslim recipient. In return for this mark of inferiority, Christians and Jews were left free to carry on their lives under the protection of an Islamic empire.

Bands of Human Wolves: 7^th Century Ireland
The monks knew that in 7^th Century Ireland a further, concentric band of persons lurked in the moral equivalent of the wild. The worst examples of these were bands of landless, unmarried young men…who lived a wild existence in the woods and bog lands. Eating horseflesh marked by sinister tokens of their vows of vengeance, frequently employed as the powerful as “enforcers”, these groups shadowed Irish society like the grey shapes of he wolves the cu glas, the grey dogs, packs of savage creatures who had broken loose from human control. Human wolves, untamed warrior sand brigands, occupied the unchurched edges of society.

Pascha And Easter
Pascha, the Latin version of the Jewish feast of Passover, the Pasah, was still the word used in all the romance languages…but in England, Pascha became Easter. “The name was derived from Eostre, the pagan goddess form whom the month was named – the joy of a pagan spring festival became the joy of Easter

The Wisdom Of An Anglo-Saxon In 628
This is how the present life of man on earth appears to me, King, in comparison with the time that is unknown to us. You are sitting, feasting with your earldormen and thegns in winter time; the fire is burning on the hearth …and all inside is warm; while outside the wintry storm of rain and snow are raging; and a sparrow files swiftly though the hall ….it flits from your sight, out of the winter storm and back into it again. So this life of man appears but for a moment: what follows, or, indeed, what went before, we know not at all. If this new doctrine [Christianity] brings us more certain information, it seems right we should accept it.

Posted in Book Recommendations, Church History, St. Augustine | Tagged 7th Century Ireland, Augustine’s City of God, Augustine’s Theology Of Grace, Gregory The Great, Islam, Monks, Pascha And Easter, Peter Robert Lamont Brown, The Dome Of The Rock, The Irish, The Pelagian Controversy | Leave a Comment »

Paying Attention To The Sky

Archive for the ‘St. Augustine’ Category

Augustine Of Hippo On Creation And Evolution — Alister McGrath

You Have Made Us For Yourself – St. Augustine

Augustine On Unceasing Prayer — Fr. Thomas Hand

Augustine On The Voice of Prayer in the Church — Fr. Thomas Hand

Augustine On The Prayer Of The Church I — Fr. Thomas Hand

Augustine on Prayer: Why We Should Pray II – Fr. Thomas Hand

Augustine on Prayer: Why We Should Pray I – Fr. Thomas Hand

Augustine on Prayer: Man’s Quest For Happiness And Prayer II — Fr. Thomas Hand

Augustine on Prayer: Man’s Quest For Happiness And Prayer I — Fr. Thomas Hand

Reading Selections from The Rise of Western Christendom by Peter Brown

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