“Tolle lege experience”

Please read the script below.

Introduction:
Saint Augustine’s restless conversion has three-stages namely: Intellectual, moral, scriptural. The
conversion happened through the influences of the significant persons who touched his life.
Eventually, Augustine’s conversion made him a follower of Christ. May his desire to search for
God to attain real happiness would influence your decision making as you enter the world of
knowledge full of enthusiasm and ideas. Let us begin our search too, towards our conversion as
we study the journey of Saint Augustine following the path that leads to life.

Questions to ponder:
Have you ever experienced being restless?
What have you done to overcome your restlessness?
Were you able to find answers to your queries?

A. Augustine’s Conversion: A Key to Understanding his Spirituality

Fr. Eusebio Berdon, OSA, former Father Provincial of the Augustinian Order - Sto. Nino Cebu –
Province, wrote an article concerning Augustine’s conversion. Fr. Berdon claims that “on August
28, the universal Church, and the whole Augustinian family celebrated the Feast of our great
father, Saint Augustine, a proclaimed Doctor and Father of the Church, and the occasion was
appropriate for reflection on the many aspects of his life or the variety of topics in his teachings.
To discuss the relevance of Augustine’s conversion is important in the understanding of his
Spirituality, and on the need, therefore, to constantly celebrate such event among us. Every
celebration of his feast is a celebration of his conversion.

To place in proper perspective, this sharing on the conversion of Saint Augustine, Pope Paul VI
declared: “For us, Saint Augustine is an always productive mind, or better yet, an ever-flowing
fountain. One never finishes admiring or drawing from his words, his insights, and the richness of
his Spirit, treasures which can be of great importance, not only for scholarship and for the religious
life... but also for that of the modern world. He is the one who has spoken of the Interior Master
better than anyone else (“Show Your Love for Augustine.” Living in Freedom under Grace, Rome:
1979, p. 38).

It is obvious from the above papal statement that a celebration of the conversion of this great
“man for all seasons”, is not simply a re-enactment of that moving drama in the garden of Milan,
faithfully recorded and transmitted to us through the immortal book of the author, The
Confessions, but a celebration of the return to God of a great multitude, and whose spirit and
wisdom have renewed, strengthened, and even transformed the life of the Church herself.

Concretely, in celebrating the conversion of Augustine, we pay tribute to a man who has
discovered the true meaning of life after a long, tortuous, and painful search; we proclaim to the
whole world the ever alive Christian hope for personal and eventually social transformation,
because of the dynamic presence of God’s grace and Spirit; and we perform an act of faith in the
transforming work of the same Spirit in our personal lives, and in our communities. To celebrate
this event is to honor the man, to pray to our God, and to proclaim the good news.

Augustine himself would have wanted us to retell the story of his conversion. As Jose Rodriquez,
commenting on Augustine’s proselytizing temperament, rightly remarks: “He was a man who felt
an impressible need for sharing with his friends his restlessness and discoveries... Augustinian
proselytism becomes more vividly active when it is a question of sharing values capable of giving
meaning to human existence. Every time Augustine thought he had a way of salvation, he felt the
powerful urge to show it to others and to travel in their company (“The Search for God and
Apostolate.” Searching for God, Rome: 1981, pp. 301-31).

B. Augustine’s Internal Journey

The life of Augustine is an open book to us who have read his previously mentioned great book,
The Confessions. There is no need, therefore, to retell it here. But for the sake of having a
comprehensive view of his internal journey, it is necessary to underline a few but important factors
that contributed to the transformation of his life.

Despite having a great and saintly mother or a catechist during his early childhood, Augustine
perhaps because of his father’s influence or simply because of universally shared shortcomings
of born Catholics, that is, presumed conviction towards one’s inherited faith – led the normal life
of a boy of his time with a semi-pagan culture. The only difference was that he was gifted with a
brilliant mind, a genial character, and a strong sense of dedication to whatever task he had at
hand. Moreover, he was, in his own right, the ambition of having a better life than that of many of
his peers. This means more education, and eventually more money, honor, and power.

His first conversion, as he tells us, took place after reading a philosophy book of Cicero titled
“Hortensius”. The book propounds the stoic doctrine that the happiness of man does not exist in
the possession of wealth, honor, or power, but in the possession of wisdom. Let us humbly listen
to Augustine himself: “The prescribed course of study brought me to a work by an author named
Cicero...the title of the book is Hortensius, and it recommends the reader to study philosophy.
According to Augustine: “It altered my outlook in life. It changed my prayers to You, O Lord, and
provided me with new hopes and aspirations. All my empty dreams suddenly lost their charm and
my heart began to throb with a bewildering passion for the wisdom of eternal truth. I began to
climb out of the depths to which I had sunk, to return to You, My God, how I burned with longing
to have wings to carry me back to You, away from all earthly things, although I had no idea
what You would do with me!” (Conf. 3.4).

From this moment, at the age of nineteen, Augustine spent most of the time looking for this
philosophical ideal. And this search, brought him to the fold of religious sects, like Manichaeism.
Augustine, however, soon discovered the shallowness of the teachings of these sects, and when
already in Milan, as panegyrist of the Emperor, he began listening to the sermons delivered by a
former governor of the city, now the Catholic bishop, Saint Ambrose, and the edifying presence
of the Church and her leaders led to Augustine’s second conversion: acceptance of the authority
of the Church and the Sacred Scriptures. As Boyer says: “The complete conversion which has to
transform his heart and life will occur later. But his adhesion to the Church, the conviction that she
possesses the truth, in other words, his return to the true faith, is taking place at this time” (cited
by Capanaga, V. In “S. Agustin en nuestrotiempo....’Augustinus: 1956, p. 38). Capanaga himself
adds: “In Milan, the Church showed itself as a social entity, firm and evident, attracting the
attention of all with the strong presence of Christ. These things above all impress the young
professor from Carthage, the crowd of the faithful, the sanctity and leadership of the Church” (ibid.
p. 39). Despite this positive impression, Augustine still entertained some doubts particularly in the
understanding of some doctrines, like the divinity of the Word, Christ. While finding himself in this
predicament, Neo-Platonism came to his aid. And this is described by some authors as the third
conversion of Augustine.
Briefly, following the doctrine of Plato, this school of philosophy claims that the visible world is but
a manifestation or reflection of the “spiritual world”, the world of ideas (Spirit), which, in turn, is
the creation of the Absolute (Unum), through the instrumentality of the Word (Logos). Since the
true home of the spirit or soul is in the realm of the spiritual, it is, but natural that creatures should
yearn and search for their origin. Man, particularly, a rational creation, enjoys a privilege, through
interior illumination, of having the power to communicate with or contemplate this Unum (God) in
this life. Now, while Augustine did not fully accept this purely philosophical explanation of the
spiritual origin of man – he believed in the God of the Scriptures, who directly created man and
other creatures – he found answers to some of the intellectual doubts. With this acceptance of
the Divine Revelation and the Authority of the Church (Magisterium), his heart was ready for a
complete conversion. As to understanding of the concept of spiritual substances, and therefore
of the concept of a spiritual God, his reading of the books of Plato and his disciples, the Platonists,
led him to a method of research similar to today’s transcendental meditation whereby he was able
to arrive at a certain contemplative experience of God. Augustine likes to read the Platonists
especially on their idea of God; how the world is a manifestation of the Divine and how the Spirit
of God is present in all things.

But for a time still, Augustine remained uncommitted. In the words of Capanaga, (op.cit., p. 37),
he was convinced but not touched, that is, the conversion was more intellectual than effective.
Augustine himself confirms this: “The words of your Scriptures were planted firmly in my heart...
Of you, eternal life I was certain... But in my worldly life, all was confusion... I should have been
glad to follow the right road, to follow our Savior Himself, but still, I could not make up my mind to
venture along the narrow path” (Conf. 8.1).

Only after a painful period of struggle, through study, prayer, and dialogue with close friends,
Augustine was able to arrive at that dramatic climax of his return to God. Vividly, he describes the
scene to us: “I probed the hidden depths of my soul and wrung its pitiful secrets from it, and when
I mastered them all before the eyes of my heart, a great storm broke within me, bringing with it a
great deluge of tears... For I felt that I was still the captive of my sins, and in my misery, I kept
crying, how long shall I go on saying ‘Tomorrow, tomorrow? Why not now? Why not make an end
of my ugly sins at this moment? I was asking myself these questions... when all at once I heard
the singing voice of a child...Take it and read, take it, and read" (Tolle lege experience).

Library Exhibits: About St. Augustine

“So, I hurried back to the place where Alypius was sitting... (where) I had put down the book
containing Paul’s Epistles. I seized it and I opened it, and in silence, I read the first passage: “not
in reveling and drunkenness... in an instant, as I came to the end of the sentence, it was as though
the light of confidence flooded into my heart and all the darkness of doubt was dispelled” (Conf.
7.12).

The process of conversion of Saint Augustine did not end here. It was only a turning point in his
life during which he, with his whole being, embraces GOD. But that was just the beginning of a
life with and for GOD. Jose Rubio, on this point, observes: “It would be wrong to presuppose that
the Augustinian crisis was solved in the garden of Milan. For many years after, he would exert
effort to uncover the existential mystery of his conversion and explain the more intimate and
personal aspects of the experience... Later, his experience will be projected socially with a
universal application, thus, illustrating and supporting the Christian tradition” (Haciaunateoria
Augustinian de la conversion”, Augustinus 9, 1964, p. 472).
In light of the previous presentation and description of Augustine’s internal journey, we can draw
a synthesis of his theology on conversion.

Before man’s fall, he possessed a total rectitude and his spirit governed all his faculties in harmony
with the Divine plan. He was in the admirable state of tranquil peace, of the authentic knowledge
of self in God through participation in and impression of the eternal truths (intellectus Dei) and
hierarchically arranged values (amor Dei) in his rational soul. But with the entrance of sin, man
lost such internal equilibrium. His faculties were, so to say, blinded and confused. The man
embraced, in the words of Augustine himself, man found difficulty in determining which are truths
of eternal and lasting values, because of disordered will, man’s objects of love were not always
the eternal goods. The senses took control of reason and will so that these faculties confused the
temporal with the eternal as their objects (Jose Rubio, op. cit., pp. 481-82; also Trape, The Search
for God in Contemplation, Searching for God, Rome, 1981, pp. 10-13).

However, because a man was made in the image and likeness of God and therefore capable of
the immediate vision of the Infinite God (capx Dei), though he is finite and has a profound drive
“which carries him towards God whether he realizes it or not| (indigens Deo), he conserves a
vague memory of what he once was (memoria Dei). This memory and this in-built dynamism
propel man towards God's cause is man’s restlessness or existential thirst for the eternal. This
thirst is especially accentuated with the experience of frustration and desolation on the
transitoriness of things, like honor, riches, power, human friendship, etc. This awareness and the
consequent action of a man searching for God in the process called a conversion.

To stress this point, Trape comments: “The search for God is an essential element in the
experience and thought of Saint Augustine... Saint Augustine was a man dominated by a thirst
for God, an insatiable thirst...He sought God everywhere in the beauty of nature, in the
inexhaustible richness of Scriptures, in the depths of the interior man, in the life of the Church, in
the events of history (op.cit., p. 8).

Because God is primarily encountered in the inner self of man (of course, as far as the man
searching for God Himself is concerned) then the direction of man’s search is inward, which
processed Augustine calls RETURN TO SELF. In De Vera Religione, he says: “Don’t go out of
yourself. Enter into yourself, for the Truth inhabits in the interior of man. And if you discover that
your nature is changeable, transcend yourself” (39.72). Also, in his commentary on the Gospel of
Saint John, he adds: “In the interior of the man Christ dwells. And in the interior, you will be
renewed according to the image of God. Recognize then in the image of its Author (XVII, 10).”

Now, how to transcend oneself? How to bridge the gap between our finite self and the infinite
God? Augustine himself answered: through PRAYER. Trape identifies this prayer with a
contemplative one: “Contemplative prayer is intrinsic to the search for God and even constitutes
its very essence... It could not have been otherwise seeing that contemplation is the practical
recognition of the primacy of God over the reason for the search for God” (op cit., p. 13).

And man’s inner journey to encounter God is best helped by lectio (listening to God and
responding in love), interior silence (inner presence of a more genuine and higher love), and
purification (a strict ascetical program along with the consequent progressive exercise of the
moral virtues) (See Trape, op cit., pp. 18-23).

But does this emphasis on the interiority not undervalue the importance of apostolate, of
encountering God in neighbors? The answer is it does not! Here we are speaking only a personal
journey that is true to all individuals. Everybody is exhorted to cultivate this love for interiority, but
not to the abandonment of Christian concern for the common good. One could cite hundreds of
texts to prove that Augustine greatly stressed the greater value of the common good over private
one, in fact, he repeatedly stressed that genuine love is always communitarian; while private love
is destruction and un-Christian. Let us allow Augustine to speak for himself: “Struck with terror at
my sins and the burden of my misery, I had been tormented at heart and had pondered flight into
the desert. But you forbade me and comforted me saying: There Christ died for all; that they who
live may now live not to themselves, but to him who died for them” (Conf. X, 43, 70).

Augustine added: “If Mother Church requires your help, do not accede to the request with eager
pride, nor refuse it with slothful complacence; rather obey God with a meek heart... and do not
prefer your peaceful retirement to the needs of the Church” (ep., 48,2).

Defending Augustine’s genuine interest in the active apostolate, Jose Rodriguez says: “The
servant of God who has completely bound himself over to God’s will, can no longer be guided by
his pleasure or interests. Those who belong to Christ, who died for all, are more important. This
conviction takes deep root in Augustine’s heart and is of capable importance in understanding his
dedication, body, and soul, to apostolic activity” (op. cit., p. 35).