With Lent almost over, and less than one week to go until we celebrate the Easter Triduum I have been meditating upon the life and works of Saint Augustine.

Saint Augustine was born in Africa 354 AD, to Saint Monica, and he lived a life of debauchery and sin before finding the Catholic faith later in life – and man did he find the faith! St Augustine and his theological writings are considered to be some of the most important in the development of Western Christianity.

Saint Augustine’s writings are timeless, and if you haven’t read anything he wrote then you need to get yourself a copy of Confessions ASAP!

With Lent almost over, it seemed appropriate to quote one of his writings, and to share one of my favourite stories about St. Augustine.

One of my favourite writings:

Late have I loved you, O Beauty, so ancient and so new, late have I loved you! And behold, you were within me and I was outside, and there I sought for you, and in my deformity I rushed headlong into the well-formed things that you have made.

You were with me, and I was not with you. Those outer beauties held me far from you, yet if they had not been in you, they would not have existed at all. You called, and cried out to me and broke open my deafness; you shone forth upon me and you scattered my blindness.

You breathed fragrance, and I drew in my breath and I now pant for you. I tasted, and I hunger and thirst; you touched me, and I burned for your peace.

One of my favourite stories:

Several weeks before his death, Saint Augustine ordered four penitential psalms to be written out and hung on his bedroom wall. He had this done so that he could read them over and over again while weeping over his sins in the final weeks of his life.

What a powerful example for us as we head into Holy Week.

Saint Augustine; pray for us.

Saint Augustine and his mother Saint Monica