Lived: 354 to 4:30
Few have done more to shape Christian theology and thought than Saint Augustine. Born to be a Pagan father and devoutly Christian mother, Augustine struggled throughout his earthly life to find the one true path. The Wilder he lived, the less contentment he found.
His mother, Monica, prayed diligently for her son’s salvation. In answer to her prayers, God gave her a stunning prophetic dream. In it, a man of light asked her why she was so sad. When she replied that her tears were for the soul I had lost, he told her to take heart for, if she looked carefully, she would see that where she was, there also was I, Augustine wrote in his confessions. And when she looked, she saw me standing beside her on the same rule.
Nine years later, her dream would come true when Augustine met the light for himself. What I saw was something quite, quite different from any light we have known on earth, Augustine said. I realized that I was far away from you. It was as though I were in a land where all is different from your own and I heard your voice calling from on high, saying, I am the food of full-grown men. Grow and you shall feed on me. But you shall not change me into your own substance, as you do with the food of your body. Instead, you shall be changed into me. And, far off, I heard your voice saying, I am the God who is. I heard your voice, as we hear voices that speak to our hearts, and at once, I had no cause to doubt.
Augustine said faith is to believe what you do not see; The reward of this space is to see what you believe.