Return to Your Heart
3 LSEURN TO.
'THOUGHTS FROM Sr AUGUSTINE.
ComPILED BY
, Ben O'Rourke OSA |
Prayers and reflections from the writings of | _ Augustine of Hippo : . :
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YOUR HEART 'THOUGHTS FROM ST AUGUSTINE
COMPILED BY Ben O'Rourke OSA
Prayers and reflections
from the writings of Augustine of Hippo
Published by Augustinian Press UK
Clare Priory Suffolk CO10 8NX
©1995 Augustinian Press UK
_ First published 1995
New Edition 2002 Reprinted 2003
ISBN 0 9542807 0 9
eC eC Oe EC CT
'God speaks to us in the great silence of the heart.'
The most important journey in life is the journey inwards, to the depths of our own being.
Augustine constantly calls us to return to our hearts. Only there, he says, will we find rest and peace for our unquiet souls. And if we journey to the centre of our being we shall find our true selves, and we shall find God. For He has made his home in us.
I hope that these thoughts from Augustine will help us on that journey inward, to the stillness within, where we shall find rest and peace in God.
Ben O'Rourke OSA Clare Priory, Suffolk May 2002
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_ 'In the silence we find God.'
Enter then into your heart and if you have faith you will find Christ there. There He speaks
CW ht ON Ce
to you.
I the preacher must raise my voice, but He instructs you more effectively in the silence.
I speak in sounding words. He speaks
within.
Con OO Oe ee. Om Ot ee er SESH SUR tas CHERER to see Christ. Our soul needs solitude.
In solitude, if we are attentive, God allows himself to be seen.
In the crowd we find noise.
In the silence we find God.
If only our minds could be held steady, they would be still for a while, and for that short moment we would glimpse the splendour of eternity which is forever still.
When we pray we have no need of spoken word. Sometimes the tongue is silent and the soul is sighing.
That means that God
is being prayed to inside,
in the room of your heart.
Let my soul rouse itself, Lord, from its weariness, lean on Your creation and soar up to You who made it all.
For in You we are remade
and find true strength.
The Word of God
Enter into yourself.
Leave behind all noise and confusion. Look within yourself and see whether there be some sweet hidden place within where you can be free from noise and argument, where you need not be carrying on your disputes, and planning to have your own stubborn way. Hear the word in quietness that you may understand it.
Imagine that God wants to fill you up with honey.
But if you are already full of vinegar, where will you put the honey? The heart must be emptied and washed out, made clean and scoured, hard work though it may be, so that it be made ready for something else, whatever it may be.
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The sound of Your secret melody I could not catch, no matter how hard I tried. My heart was deafened by the din of my mind.
We shall rest, and we shall see. We shall see, and we shall love. We shall love, and we shall praise.
God is delight and we rest in delight with Him,
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called home from the noise that is around us to the joys that are silent. Why do we rush about to the top of heaven and the bottom of earth
Se ee looking for Him who is here at home with us, if only we could be with Him?
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pier EDF C+ fe ee. 5 \ 'Let Christ speak to you within.' /
He bade me shut the door of our secret chamber and pray in secret, that is in the soundless secret places of our hearts.
For we pray to Him
in the silence
of our hearts.
Let Christ speak to you within,
in that place
where no human teacher may enter.
Put off trying to see what you cannot see till you are healed and can see.
When we confess to You, we are not revealing to You what lies in our hearts.
For Your gaze penetrates even a heart that is locked against You. Nor can a heart that is hardened resist Your touch. You unbind the heart when You choose, by Your compassion or by Your angel. No one can hide from the warmth of Your love.
You listen to all who pray to You. And You answer them all. You answer clearly, but not all hear You clearly.
All ask what they want, but do not always hear the answer they want. Your best servants are those who are not so much concerned to hear from You what they will, as to will what they hear from You.
I am pouring a torrent of words
into your ears. My words are meaningless
unless He who dwells within you
reveal their sense to you.
Your true teacher will always be
the Teacher within.
It is He who enables you
to understand
in the depths of your being
the truth of what is said to you.
Wheresoever you are, wheresoever you may be praying, He who hears you is within you, hidden within.
For He who hears you is not merely by your side, and you have no need to go wandering about, no need to be reaching out to God as though you would touch Him with your hands.
Wheresoever you are, wheresoever you may be praying, He who hears you is within you, hidden within.
Wait for the Lord.
Be firm.
Let your heart take courage and wait for the Lord. What does it mean, wait for the Lord?
It means that you may receive His gifts when He gives them, instead of demanding them when you want them. The time for giving has not yet come. He has waited for you, and so you must wait for Him.
Do not wish to ask anything of God except God. Love Him without seeking gain.
Desire Him alone.
This is to love God without seeking gain: to hope for God from God, to wish to be filled with God, to be satiated by Him.
'In your inner self Christ has made his bome.'
Come back with me to the heart. Get your heart ready to see God. The one to whom God speaks is within.
It is the inner person
in whom Christ resides.
He bids you return to Him, to that place within, where peace abides, peace that is never disturbed; to that place from which
Love never departs, unless you depart from it. Make your home in that place.
Surrender to Him what you have,
since all came from Him.
You alone are always present, even to those who have set themselves apart from You.
Let them turn back and look for You. They will find that You have not deserted them as they have deserted You.
Let them turn back and they will find You in their hearts.
Return to yourself / from the things that are without and then give yourself back to Him who made you.
Do not go outside yourself! Return to yourself!
Truth dwells within.
Those who try to find joy in things outside themselves find only frustration and emptiness. They waste themselves on the passing pleasures of the moment.
Their hearts are starved.
But it was in my inmost heart, it was there that You, Lord, had made me begin to love You and had made me glad at heart.
For the light was within while I looked on the world outside. I found no place outside where I might rest, no haven where I might feel myself satisfied and content. Nor would the things around me let me turn back where I might find contentment and satisfaction.
The Christian may sometimes envy
those who have renounced
the cares of the world for the supposed calm of the desert; but those who live in the world may at any time find the true desert within, where no one enters, where there is no one else but God.
Come Lord! Wake us up!
Call us back to You!
Set our hearts on fire and draw us to You. Breathe Your fragrance on us and let us taste the sweetness of Your presence.
Let us love You.
Let us run to You.
Why do you want to drift so far away from yourself? By wandering away you lose yourself. Turn back from your idle wandering.
Return to your Lord.
He is waiting. You have become a stranger to yourself. You do not recognise yourself. And you seek for Him who created you!
Come back to your heart.
In your inner self
Christ has made his home.
In your inner self you will be renewed in God's image. And in his image you will recognise your creator.
IS. "OPS oF 16 Sr ee ios
'I shall lead you and carry you on to the end.'
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Soul, surrender to Him now all your futile searching. What is withered in you will flower again. Your sickness will be healed. What is fading will be fresh again, and what is warped made whole and strong and sound. And all that is weak in you will not drag you to the grave.
But your wholeness will abide, will remain with you before God, who remains strong and abides for ever.
At the well where
Our Lord sat down to rest
great mysteries took place.
You made us so that we long for You, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.
I beg you, O Lord my God, to look upon me and listen to me. Have pity on me and heal me, for You see that I have become a problem to myself, and this is the sickness from which I suffer.
You were there before my eyes,
but I had deserted even my own self.
I was looking for You outside myself, and I did not find the God of my own heart.
Late have I loved You, Beauty ever old yet ever new!
Late have I loved You! You were within me, but I was outside. There I sought You, as I rushed about among the beautiful things You had made. You were with me, but I was not with You. The beautiful things of this world kept me far from You. You called. You cried. You burst through my deafness. You scattered my blindness.
I breathed Your fragrance and now I pine for You.
I tasted You, and I hunger and thirst for You. You touched me, and I burn with desire for Your peace.
For there is no good but You, who are with me before
I am with You.
You are the most hidden from us,
and yet the most present among us.
LO Oe Oe. Se
What crooked paths I trod! Whichever way my soul turned, it lay on a bed that was hard, for in You alone the soul can rest. You are there to free us from our misery, to set us on Your own path and to comfort us by saying,
'Run on, for I shall hold you up.
I shall lead you and carry you on
to the end.'
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Unknown to me You caressed my head. You closed my eyes lest they see the things that keep me from You.
I lost for a while the heavy burden of self and my madness was lulled to sleep. And when I awoke in You
I saw You with utterly
different eyes.
All the time I wanted
to stand and listen.
To listen to Your voice.
But I could not, because another voice, the voice of my own ego, dragged me away.
Let my whole self be steeped in love of You, and all my being cry, i '
'Lord, there is none like You.
You have broken
the chains that bound me.'
= See OS i Me Se ea
You saw me = and transformed my ugliness
into beauty.
Like a balm which soothes my pain, Your hidden touch healed my self love. And day by day You continued to heal me until the confusion and darkness were cleared from the eye of my soul.
'Let the shelter of Your wings give us hope.'
He is in the depths of our heart,
but our heart has forsaken Him.
Stay with Him, and you shall be safe.
Rest in Him and you will be at peace.
Tell me Lord, in Your mercy, what You are to me.
Say to my soul, 'Iam the one who saves you.' Say it that I may hear it. My heart waits to hear. Open my heart and say to it 'Iam the one who saves you.'
I will run to hear, run to clasp You to myself. Do not hide Your face from me.
let the shelter of Your wings give us hope. Protect us and uphold us. When You are our strength we are strong, but when our strength is our own we are weak.
Let us come home to You, O God,
for fear that we be lost.
Me SGESOL IOC Lee SOl Oe Ol IO
Unless the Lord helps us carry our burdens, we Shall sink beneath them, and unless He carries us, we shall fall to our death.
We are bound to earth by the chains of our own making.
Lord, break our chains!
God is nearer to us
than we are
to ourselves.
You care for each of us,
as if we were the only one
You had to care for.
Whisper words of truth in my heart,
for You alone speak truth.
I will leave outside
those who do not believe,
letting them stir up the dust in their own eyes, while I withdraw to my secret cell and sing to You hymns of love.
I shall not turn aside
until You gather all that I am into that holy place of peace, rescuing me from the world where I am broken and deformed and giving me new form and new strength.
For Christians who fear they are drowning in the world's business the worst thing they can do is panic. There can be no question of escape from the situation. We are many miles from land and there is no help near. The one thing we can do is to withdraw, as it were, into ourselves, to find the Christ within, who is as powerful to still the inner tempest as He was to subdue the waves on the Lake of Galilee.
I find no safe place for myself
save in You,
in whom all my scattered pieces
are gathered together.
Let my soul not tire of remembering Your kindness in rescuing me _ from my careless ways.
May I love You! .
Love You strongly, deeply. May I, with all my inner strength hold on to You! That You may keep me from all danger now and forever.
He departed from our sight when He left the world, so that we should turn to our hearts and find Him there. He departed, but He is here with us.
Leave it to your maker to ensure,
in ways you don't understand,
that all will be well with you.
St Augustine of ea
St Augustine of Hippo was born ¢ in 1354 in th country that is now Algeria. He had a restles and troubled early life. He searched everywhere _ for truth and happiness, but could not find them. When he was 33 he discovered tha he was searching for was to be sought within himself, in his own heart. There he found his" true self and he found God, who dwells withi
This discovery led Augustine « to aenion € ji and His gospel. For the rest of his life he love God passionately. He became a leader of the Christian Church as bishop, writer and preacher And ever since he has been regarded as one of the greatest figures in the Christian world ;
Though he always loved the life of soheud he believed that the search for God was best pu sued in the company of friends. So he founded ~ communities and wrote them a Rule of Life
Christ, is one of the most ee books in the history C a commentaries on the Ser.