“The conversion process of Saint Augustine is above all an affective itinerary, ordering loves and to love whom should be loved, since the human being has been created to God and the heart of man will be restless until he rests in God”, thus ends Enrique Eguiarte his considerations on the weight of affectivity in conversion of the Bishop of Hippo.
Enrique Eguiarte Bendímez, an Augustinian Recollect, is a passionate lover of Saint Augustine, whom he assiduously studies seeking to connect the Augustinian doctrine with concerns and values or counter-values of today’s world. In this vocational week and on this date, in which the Catholic Church celebrates the Conversion of Saint Augustine, we have come to him to offer us his reflections on the importance of the world affective in the conversion process of the saint.
Conversion as a process and paradigm
Benedict XVI defined Saint Augustine as “one of the greatest converts of the history of the Church” (Benedict XVI, Homily, April 22, 2007) and who lived the conversion not only as “an event that happened at a certain time, but (as) a path” (Benedict XVI, Homily, April 22, 2007); certainly a path that encompasses all the moments of his life and in which Saint Augustine will make various changes to better respond to God.
His conversion has moved many people closer to God. By way of surprisingly, the words that Saint Augustine expresses within the Confessions, where he points out that one of his purposes in writing the work was to encourage sinners to get closer to God, to put aside their own sin to experience the infinite mercy of the Father who loves you:
“Because the confessions of my past ills —that you have already forgiven and covered, to make me happy in you, changing my soul with your faith and your sacrament—, when they are read and hearing, excite the heart so that it does not fall asleep in despair and say: “I cannot; but that it may awake in the love of Your mercy and the sweetness of Your grace, by which he that is weak is strong, if by it he is made conscious of his own weakness.”(Confessions 10, 4).
Conversión, prompted by grace and motivated by love
Saint Augustine within his work reflects on his own conversion process and puts manifested the essential role that grace plays in every conversion process. No it is man who converts to God on his own initiative; it is God who converts and changes the heart of man by providing him with grace so that he can die to the sin and allow the Holy Spirit to forge in him the image of the new man created through image of Christ. For this reason Saint Augustine, when commenting on the text of Deuteronomy 4:23, points out that God is a voracious fire, because fire burns like the love of the things of the world to ignite those who turn to him in his love:
“I am a devouring fire, he who affirms in the Gospel that he has come to bring fire to the world, that is, the word of God which is he. He himself expounded the ancient Scriptures to his disciples after he had risen, beginning with Moses and all the prophets. Then the disciples confessed that they had received that fire, saying: Didn’t our hearts burn on the way, when he explained the Scriptures to us? he is the devourer fire. Divine love consumes the old life and renews man so that God, as a devouring fire, makes us love him, and as jealous he loves us. Do not fear, then, the fire that is God; rather fear the fire that he has prepared for heretics” (Contra Adeimantus 13, 3).
It is a process presided over by grace, but for Saint Augustine it must have a only foundation and it is precisely love. Saint Augustine realizes that the heart of man cannot be without loving. He has been created by God in love and is called to reach his own fullness only in love. Already in the third book of the Confessions Saint Augustine highlights, when portraying some pages of his youth, the basic need to every human being who is none other than to love and be loved:
“To love and to be loved was sweet to me, and all the more when I succeeded in enjoying the person I loved.” (Confessions 3, 1).
Certainly, at the time of his life that is recorded in book III of the Confessions Saint Augustine was still entangled in human love affairs that drove him away of the love of God. He, very soon, will discover that it is necessary to leave the love of creatures to love the creator of all things that is God and to put an order of love in the own life:
“What a shame, to love things because they are good and become attached to them, and not love the Good that makes them good!” (The Trinity 8, 3, 5).
Conversion, restoration of the “ordo amoris”
In fact, for Saint Augustine, conversion would mean carrying out in one’s own heart a ordo amoris, an ordering of love. This is how Saint Augustine interprets the text of the Song of Songs 2, 4, which in the version that Saint Augustine used and said “order in me the love”. It is a question, therefore, of ordering one’s own love.
“Order love in me. You don’t want to change the order; do not disturb or entangle what God ordered. Order in me love. Love me as me, love God as to God; do not offend God because of me or offend me because of another, or to another, whoever he is, because of me. Order love in me” (Sermon 37, 23).
The lack of conversion leads the human being to live a disorder of love and to love more what that he should be loved less and not love more what should be loved with all his being, that is God:
“This will be the one whose love is ordered in such a way that he neither loves what should not be loved, nor stop loving what should be loved, neither love more what should be loved less, nor love with equality what demands more or less love, nor love, finally, less or more what equally must be loved” (Christian Doctrine 1, 27, 28).
It is important to order love, because Saint Augustine knows that love transforms the lover in the beloved, that is why he affirms in his commentary on the first letter of Saint John:
“Each one is such as his love is. Do you love the land? You will be land. Do you love God? I will sayt you will be God? I dare not say it as my own; let us hear the Scripture: “I said: You are all gods and children of the Most High.” (Treatises on the first letter of Saint John, treated 2,14).
The choice of love, key to conversion
In fact, every human being must choose between two loves. The life of every person It is realized in love, and in order to live it is necessary to make a choice. This is how Saint Augustine presents it at the nerve center of his masterpiece the City of God. It is necessary to choose between loving God or loving yourself. They are two loves that have built two cities. Love of God to the point of contempt for oneself, and love of oneself to the point of contempt for God (cf. The City of God 14, 28).
When this last sentence of Saint Augustine is mentioned, some people remain surprised by the words of the Bishop of Hippo, who speaks of “contempt for one himself”, and they think that Saint Augustine exaggerates or goes too far. However, the only thing thart Saint Augustine does in his text on the City of God is to echo the words of the gospel where Jesus tells us that one of the conditions to be his disciple is deny ourselves. Once we have done this we can give the following steps that the gospel presents: take up our cross and follow him (Mt 16, 24).
This is precisely what Saint Augustine also speaks of, a contempt for himself same that implies a denying ourselves, a dying to ourselves so that the love of God occupy the first place in our lives, in such a way that the love of God becomes the north and what drives our whole life.
For this reason, the order of love is one of the conditions for conversion, according to Saint Agustine. Only when the human being has removed from his heart the love of other idols or realities that are not God, is when you can place God there and live a process conversion authentic. For this reason Saint Augustine stresses, first of all, the need to empty and cleanse one’s heart. So that the love of God can be at the center of the life of a person, he needs to empty himself of the false loves that filled his heart. It is necessary to purify the heart:
“Do you want to have the charity of the Father so that you may be joint heirs with the Son? don’t love the world. Exclude from you the bad love of the world so that you fill yourself with the love of God. You are a glass, but you are still full; Throw away what you have so you can receive what you don’t have.” (Treatises on the first letter of Saint John, treaty 2, 9).
Subsequently he needs to let the love of God fill his own heart, whether that the love of God is a gift and that love is poured out by the power of the Holy Spirit (Rm 5, 5), which is the very love of God. And this love of God forges within the image of Christ:
“Christ is formed in him who takes the form of Christ, and takes the form of Christ who is united to Christ with spiritual love” (Exposition of the letter to the Galatians, 38).
Once the person in the conversion process has placed God at the center, he can take a second step, which is ordered love for his own person. Saint Augustine is aware that whoever does not love himself will hardly be able to love his brother.
“First examine if you already know how to love yourself; When this is, I’ll let you love the neighbor as yourself. But if you still don’t know how to love yourself, I’m afraid you’ll deceive your neighbor as you deceive yourself. In fact, if you love evil, you don’t love yourself” (Sermon 128, 5).
For this reason, it is necessary for the person to love himself in an orderly manner. That is, in God and by God. This is where Saint Augustine places the fundamental reality of life of every human being: being conscious and experiencing the love of God. Therefore in book IV of The Trinity, Saint Augustine makes a parenthesis to say that it is essential to be able to convince human beings of how much they have been loved by God. and not only this, but that they know how much God has loved them and what he was like when he loved them, so that do not be filled with pride. The magnitude of God’s love should amaze all person, who must love him/herself contemplating the infinite love with which it has been loved by God. And secondly, it is a humble and sincere love, since it can contemplate the gratuitousness of God’s love and one’s own baseness and smallness when it was loved by God.
“First of all, we should be convinced of the great love that God has for us, so as not to leave us to ignite in despair without daring to climb up to it. He agreed to be put in evidence what we were when he loved us, so as not to feel the tumor of pride for our merits, because this would separate us even more from God and make us faint in our pretended strength” (The Trinity 4, 1, 2).
Two certainties in the process of conversion
Saint Augustine in his own personal itinerary, after having placed the love of God in the center, he arrives at the two certainties that will sustain his entire life and will give him strength to the continuous conversion process of it. The first certainty is that he is loved by God without limits, as we have previously pointed out. The second certainty is that he has received in his heart the love of God and therefore he is capable of loving God not infinitely, since he is a contingent being, but unlimitedly. That is why he says in the Confessions:
“Not with a doubtful conscience, but certain, I love you, Lord. you wounded my heart with your word and I loved you” (Confessions 10, 8).
However, this certainty is ratified by the voice of creation. All creatures by through the perfections they have received from God and above all because of her beauty they shout to the man who should love God. That is why Saint Augustine says, echoing the text of Saint Paul in the letter to the Romans 1,20:
“But also heaven and earth and everything that is contained in them, behold, they tell me from everywhere that I love you; nor do they cease to tell it to all, in order that they be inexcusable. However, you will sympathize more highly with whom you sympathize and will lend more your mercy with whom you were merciful: otherwise, heaven and earth they would sing your praises to the deaf” (Confessions 10, 8).
Ordered love requires love of neighbor
But the ordo amoris with which one’s own conversion manifests itself does not end in a God’s bilateral relationship with man, but must extend to all other people. For this reason, in the Augustinian ordo amoris, the third circle is formed by the love of neighbor.
Once a person has learned to love himself in an orderly way in God, he is capable of to love and to give oneself to one’s neighbor, seeing in him the presence of Christ himself. In fact, for Saint Augustine, as it appears in all the documents of the New Testament, the best proof of the authenticity of love for God is love for one’s neighbor. that’s why saint Augustine lapidarily declares in his commentary to the first letter of Saint John:
“You can tell me: I don’t see God; but can you tell me: do I not see the man? He loves the brother. If you love the brother you see, at the same time you will see God, because you will see the same charity, and God dwells within” (Treatises on the First Letter of Saint John, treated 5, 7).
When we love our brother, we make the love of God and the conversion of the person comes to the fullness of it. For this reason, Saint Augustine would place as the banner and motto of those who the phrase collected in his commentary to the first letter of saint has been converted out of love John: “love and do what you want” (Treatises on the first letter of Saint John, treatise 7, 8).
Certainly it is a love that is not the false love of the world or a simple feeling or state of mind, much less a passion that is confused with the true love. It is about the love that led Christ to give his life for men.
When you love like Christ, you can love and do what you want, because it will not be hurt the loved one. That is why Saint Augustine points out that only in this way does love becomes the essential motive of all the works of the human being, of his words and his silences, his actions and what he has to suffer. But what is essential, as the Saint Augustine himself, is to know if the person has the root of love.
Conclusion
The conversion is shown in the root change. Of the love of the things of this world
Go to the love of God. If you have the root of God’s love, you can only produce good fruits. If a person says that he has the root of love and that he has converted to
God ordering the love of him according to God, but it does not have good fruits, he must check the root of it, for it is very possible that the root of it is not love, but selfishness.
The conversion process of Saint Augustine is above all an affective itinerary, ordering loves and to love who should be loved, since the human being has been created to God and the heart of man will be restless until he rests in God (cf. Confessions 1, 1).
