August 28, 2009

My Journey to God

Letter to a Bishop on his Feast Day

Dear St. Augustine,

I read there was a time in your life
spent in worldliness and self-indulgence.
How you must have been besieged
by the ever elusive golden ring,
and missed out on true joy’s offerings
until you completely emptied yourself
of the glamour of sin and the illusion
of material things. How your mother
fervently prayed, and through
God’s enduring love and grace
your conversion came.

Wise doctor of the Church,
you filled your search for God
and declared this one immutable truth—
“You have made us for yourself, O Lord,
and our hearts are restless
until they rest in you.”

Happy feast day, St. Augustine!

By Cathy Lamperski Dearing

(Cathy Lamperski Dearing is a member of St. Barnabas Parish in Indianapolis. St. Augustine of Hippo is a fifth-century doctor of the Church and is perhaps best known for Confessions, an autobiographical account of his conversion to Christianity.)

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