Fr Benignus O’Rourke OSA is an Augustinian friar and the bestselling author of Finding Your Hidden Treasure. In this new book, which was published on St Augustine’s feast day, Fr O’Rourke gives us a superb translation of the Confessions, which is perhaps the most important spiritual autobiography ever written.
St Augustine is undoubtedly the greatest theologian and doctor of the Western Christian Church. His story is well known. Having lived a somewhat dissolute and licentious life, and being totally obsessed with his career and advancement, he reached a crucial moment in his life where his reflections and his mother’s constant prayers helped him to change his life and turn to God.
At one point he uttered the famous, all too human line, which many of us, I’m sure, can identify with: “Lord, make me chaste, but not yet.”
The Bible
However, one day Augustine heard what he thought was a child’s voice telling him to “take up and read” (Tolle, lege!) He took this to be a command from God and he opened the Bible and read from Paul’s Epistle to the Romans: “Let us live decently as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in discord and jealousy. Instead put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh to arouse its desires.”
He decided at that moment to change his life. He rushed to tell his mother of his conversion. She had been praying earnestly for this for years.
Augustine converted to Christianity at the age of 33. He had for many years been deeply interested in philosophy and had a first-class intellect.
Eloquent
In an excellent Foreword to the book, the Professor of Early Christian Studies at Villanova University, Martin Laird, writes: “Augustine’s Confessions, the unguarded baring of a soul in prayer and praise of God, is doubtless one of the most influential, eloquent and most translated books in the Christian West. A riveting, tell-all autobiography, in which a person is frankly honest and vulnerable before all, is rather commonplace in recent centuries. But in Augustine’s time (354 AD – 430 AD) autobiographies were singularly rare. Indeed, before Confessions there was not anything remotely comparable in depth, theological subtlety, or in its singular eloquence.”
There is so much in Confessions to reflect upon. It is a deeply moving and searingly honest book.
I was particularly moved by Augustine’s account of his beloved mother’s (St Monica) death. He expresses his profound grief and love for her so beautifully.
Self-analysis
Indeed, on my parents’ gravestone is written a line from Augustine: “Our hearts were made for Thee, O God, and they are restless until they rest in Thee.” There is so much searching, self-analysis and remorse in his writing and it is full of psychological insight.
Fr Benignus O’Rourke OSA is member of the community at Clare Priory, Suffolk, and the author of the best-selling Finding Your Hidden Treasure (Darton, Longman & Todd) praised in these pages on publication (February 23, 2011).
He tells us that translating Augustine’s Confessions over the years has been one of the greatest privileges of his life. He says that he has tried to capture the poetic intensity of Augustine’s writing, and he also wants it to appeal to young people. Well, he has certainly succeeded.
Haunting
The haunting, unforgettable words of Augustine’s search for God never cease to enthral and inspire: “Late have I loved, you O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you. You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you. In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created. You were with me, but I was not with you……. You called, you shouted and you broke through my deafness. You flashed, you shone and you dispelled my blindness…..”
Fr O’Rourke’s superb, meticulous translation of this masterpiece is a joy to read, one which will renew the appeal of St Augustine for generations to come.
