On the Feast of Holy Father Augustine
“Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you! (Confessions)
In the Dominican Order, we adhere to the Rule of Life derived from St. Augustine. It was the rule St. Dominic followed before establishing his community; one that was simple and flexible, and uniquely combined the contemplative life with the ministry of active preaching. But the legislation itself is not the only reason we refer to Augustine as the Father. His tireless pursuit of the truth, albeit at times in the wrong places, makes him our inspiration and our intercessor.
St. Augustine, whose remarkable life story has inspired for centuries, was searching for the truth in the wrong places, yet he did so with an open mind and heart. He did not idly wait, leaving conversion for “later”: he studied, asked, and listened. When God spoke, he was ready to receive Him. He believed that his life had meaning and purpose, and that finding them would bring him peace and happiness.
Once Augustine recognized that only Christ can be a source of true love and satisfy the human heart, he became an unwavering defender of faith, “dividing his time between prayer, study and preaching. All he wanted was to be at the service of the truth” (Benedict XVI). He moved from not knowing who God truly is to an unshaken conviction that He is the realization of all his hopes, the only possible aim of his life. This journey makes him the model of Dominican life and preaching today. St. Dominic found Augustine’s restless search for the truth to be the inspiration for his own path to holiness, which, in turn, he pointed out to the generation of brothers and sisters of the Order of Preachers.
“Let announcing for the Lord be like living for the Lord... with the example of your life and with the word of your exhortation drag in your race as many as you can." — St. Augustine, Sermons
