Sublime

Augustine is our contemporary. He has directly and indirectly shaped the way we understand our pursuits, the call to authenticity.

It is the converted, baptized, ordained Augustine who confesses, “Onus mihi, oneri mihi sum”: “I am a burden to myself.”

For Augustine, we are made for joy. Joy is another name for the rest we find when we give ourselves over to the One who, for the joy that was set before him, gave himself for us. We find joy when we look for the satisfaction of our hungers in the Triune God who will never leave us or forsake us, when we find our enjoyment in an immortal God whose l

Augustine represents the Christianity Camus doesn’t believe, which might make him more Augustinian than he realizes—and might make us more Augustinian than we imagined. An Augustinianism sans grace might nonetheless be a gateway.

Augustine is our contemporary. He has directly and indirectly shaped the way we understand our pursuits, the call to authenticity.

That’s why, Augustine suggests, you can be prodigal without moving an inch. What we’re mapping here is the geography of desire. It took running from Carthage to Rome to Milan for Augustine to realize that his exile was inward: