Book IX

How Sweet to Want No More

O Lord, I am Your servant; I am Your servant, and the son of Your handmaid. You have broken my bonds. I will offer to You the sacrifice of praise. Let my heart and my tongue praise You; yes, let all my bones say, "O Lord, who is like You?" Let them speak, and answer me, and say to my soul, "I am your salvation."

Who am I, and what am I? What evil has not been either my deeds, or if not my deeds, my words, or if not my words, my will? But You, O Lord, are good and merciful, and Your right hand reached down into the depth of my death, and from the bottom of my heart emptied that abyss of corruption. And this was Your whole gift: to not will what I had willed, and to will what You willed.

But where through all those years, and out of what low and deep recess, was my free will called forth in a moment, so that I might submit my neck to Your easy yoke, and my shoulders to Your light burden, O Christ Jesus, my Helper and my Redeemer? How sweet it suddenly became to me, to be without the sweetness of those toys! What I had feared to lose was now a joy to let go. For You cast them out from me — You, the true and highest sweetness. You cast them out, and in their place entered Yourself — sweeter than all pleasure, though not to flesh and blood; brighter than all light, but more hidden than all depths; higher than all honor, but not to those who are high in their own eyes.¹

Now was my soul free from the gnawing cares of ambition and gain, and wallowing in filth, and scratching the itch of lust. And my newborn tongue spoke freely to You — my brightness, and my riches, and my health, the Lord my God.

Cassiciacum

I resolved to withdraw quietly — not dramatically tear away — the service of my tongue from the marketplace of rhetoric. The vintage vacation was near, and I decided to endure the few remaining days, then take my leave in the regular way; having been purchased by You, I would not return for sale. Our purpose was known to You, but not to the public.

You had pierced our hearts with Your love, and we carried Your words fixed in our very depths; and the examples of Your servants — whom from dark You had made bright, and from dead, alive — being heaped together in our thoughts, kindled and burned up our sluggishness, so that we would not sink into the pit again.

Baptism

By letters I informed Your bishop, the holy Ambrose, of my former errors and present desires, asking his advice on which of Your Scriptures I should read, to become fitter for receiving so great a grace. He recommended the Prophet Isaiah — I believe, because he above the rest most clearly foreshows the Gospel and the calling of the Gentiles. But I, not understanding the first lesson in him, and imagining the whole to be like it, laid it aside to be taken up again when better practiced in our Lord's own words.

When the time came to give in my name for baptism, we left the country and returned to Milan. It pleased Alypius also to be born again in You. We joined with us the boy Adeodatus, born of my flesh, of my sin. Excellently had You made him. He was not quite fifteen, and in intelligence surpassed many grave and learned men. I confess to You Your gifts, O Lord my God — for I had no part in that boy but the sin. That we brought him up in Your discipline was Your doing, no one else's.

There is a book of ours called The Teacher; it is a dialogue between him and me. You know that all the ideas attributed to my partner in that conversation were his, in his sixteenth year. Much besides, and yet more remarkable, I found in him. That talent struck awe into me. And who but You could be the maker of such wonders? Soon You took his life from the earth; and I now remember him without anxiety, fearing nothing for his childhood or youth or his whole self.²

We were baptized, and anxiety for our past life vanished from us. Nor was I satisfied in those days with the wondrous sweetness of considering the depth of Your purposes concerning the salvation of humanity. How I wept at Your hymns and songs, touched to the quick by the voices of Your sweet-tuned Church! The voices flowed into my ears, and the truth distilled into my heart, and the feelings of my devotion overflowed, and tears ran down, and I was happy in them.

Homeward — As Far as Ostia

We were together, about to dwell together in our devoted purpose. We were returning together to Africa; and being as far as Ostia, my mother departed this life.

Much I pass over, as I hasten onward. But I will not pass over whatever my soul brings forth concerning that Your handmaid, who brought me forth — both in the flesh, that I might be born to this temporal light, and in heart, that I might be born to Light eternal. Not her gifts, but Yours in her, would I speak of; for neither did she make nor educate herself. You created her.

She was brought up modestly and soberly, and made subject by You to her parents rather than by her parents to You. When she was of marriageable age, she was given to a husband and served him as her lord, and did her best to win him to You — preaching You to him by her character, by which You made her lovingly admirable to her husband. She endured the wrongs of his unfaithfulness without ever quarreling with him about it. For she looked for Your mercy upon him, that by believing in You he might be made pure. He was hot-tempered as well as affectionate; but she had learned not to resist an angry husband — not in deed, not even in word. Only when he was calm and in a mood to listen would she explain herself, if he had acted hastily. Many wives with milder husbands bore marks of their husbands' blows on their faces; and when they blamed their husbands' behavior in private conversation, Monica would blame their tongues — telling them that from the moment they heard the marriage contract read aloud, they should have regarded it as a document making them servants; and being mindful of their condition, they ought not to set themselves up against their lords. And when they marveled that she had never been struck, she told them her method.

Patricius, her husband, she at last won to You at the very end of his earthly life; and after his conversion she no longer had to mourn in him what she had endured before he believed. She was also the servant of Your servants. Whoever among them knew her greatly praised and honored and loved You in her; for they perceived Your presence in her heart, witnessed by the fruits of her holy life. She had been the wife of one husband, had honored her parents, had governed her house in godliness, and was well reported of for good works. She had brought up children, laboring in birth with them as often as she saw them straying from You.

The Window at Ostia

The day was now approaching on which she was to depart this life — which day You knew, though we did not. It happened, as I believe by Your secret arrangement, that she and I stood alone, leaning in a certain window which looked into the garden of the house where we were staying, at Ostia on the Tiber, where, removed from the crowds after the weariness of a long journey, we were gathering strength for the sea voyage. We were conversing alone, very sweetly; and "forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are before" (Philippians 3:13), we were asking each other, in the presence of the Truth — which You are — what the eternal life of the saints would be like, "which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man" (1 Corinthians 2:9). But we opened wide the mouth of our heart, thirsting after those heavenly streams of Your fountain, the fountain of life which is with You — that being sprinkled from it according to our capacity, we might in some way ponder so high a mystery.

And when our conversation had brought us to the point where the very highest delight of the bodily senses, in the very brightest material light, seemed in comparison with the sweetness of that eternal life not only unworthy of comparison but not even worth mentioning — we, raising ourselves up with a more burning love toward the Selfsame, did step by step pass through all bodily things, and even the heaven itself from which sun and moon and stars shine upon the earth. And we were still ascending, by inward thought and speech and wonder at Your works; and we came to our own minds, and went beyond them, that we might arrive at that region of never-failing abundance where You feed Israel forever with the food of truth, and where life is the Wisdom by whom all these things are made — and all that have been and all that shall be — and Wisdom herself is not made, but is as she has been and so shall ever be; or rather, to "have been" and "to be hereafter" are not in her, but only "to be," since she is eternal.

And while we were talking and thirsting after her, we slightly touched her with the whole effort of our heart; and we sighed, and there left bound the first fruits of the Spirit, and returned to the sound of our own mouths, where a word has beginning and end.³

We were saying, then: If to anyone the tumult of the flesh were hushed, hushed the images of earth and waters and air, hushed the very heavens, and the soul itself hushed to itself, and by not thinking on self were to surpass self — hushed all dreams and imagined revelations, every tongue and every sign, and whatsoever exists only in passing; since if anyone could hear, all these say, "We did not make ourselves, but He made us who abides forever" — if then, having said this, they too should fall silent, having lifted our ears to Him who made them, and He alone should speak, not through them but through Himself, that we might hear His Word — not through any tongue of flesh, nor angel's voice, nor sound of thunder, nor dark riddle — but might hear Him, whom in these things we love, might hear His Very Self without these (as we two now reached out, and in swift thought touched the Eternal Wisdom which abides over all) — could this be continued, and other visions far inferior be withdrawn, and this one alone ravish, and absorb, and wrap up its beholder in inward joys, so that life might be forever like that one moment of understanding for which we sighed — would not this be: "Enter into the joy of your Lord"?

What Do I Here Any Longer?

Such things we were speaking — and even if not in this very manner or these same words — yet, Lord, You know that on that day when we were talking of these things, and this world with all its delights became contemptible to us as we spoke, my mother said:

"Son, for my own part I have no further delight in anything in this life. What I do here any longer, and why I am here, I do not know, now that my hopes in this world are accomplished. One thing there was for which I desired to linger a while in this life — that I might see you a Catholic Christian before I died. My God has done this for me more abundantly than I could have wished — for I now see you despising earthly happiness and become His servant. What do I here?"⁴

The Death of Monica

What I answered, I do not remember. For scarcely five days later, or not much more, she fell sick with a fever. And in that sickness she one day fell into a faint and was for a while withdrawn from these visible things. We hurried to her side; but she soon came to herself, and looking at me and my brother standing by her, she said to us searchingly: "Where was I?" And then, looking steadily at us, stricken with grief: "Here," she said, "shall you bury your mother."

I held my peace and restrained my weeping; but my brother said something, wishing as the happier thing that she might die in her own land and not in a foreign country. At this, she fixed him with an anxious look, checking him with her eyes for still thinking of such things, and then looking at me she said: "See what he says." And soon after, to us both: "Lay this body anywhere; let not the care for it trouble you at all. This only I ask: that you remember me at the Lord's altar, wherever you may be."

Having spoken this wish in what words she could, she fell silent, struggling with her growing illness.

On the ninth day of her sickness, and the fifty-sixth year of her age, and the thirty-third of mine, that devout and holy soul was freed from the body.

Augustine's Grief

I closed her eyes; and a mighty sorrow flowed into my heart, which was overflowing into tears. But at the same time, by the hard command of my mind, my eyes drank their fountain wholly dry — and woe was me in that struggle! But when she breathed her last, the boy Adeodatus burst into a loud cry; then, checked by us all, he was silent. In the same way, something childish in me, which was breaking out in weeping through the voice of my heart, was checked and silenced. For we did not think it fitting to mark that funeral with tearful mourning and groaning; for by such things people usually express grief for the dead as though they were utterly lost — whereas she was neither lost in her death, nor altogether dead.

What then was it that grievously pained me within, but a fresh wound made by the sudden tearing away of that most sweet and dear habit of living together? I was glad of her testimony, when in that last sickness, mingling her endearments with my acts of care, she called me "dutiful," and mentioned with great feeling of love that she had never heard any harsh or bitter word from my mouth against her. But, O my God who made us, what comparison is there between the honor I paid to her and her slavery on my behalf? Being then left without so great a comfort, my soul was wounded, and that life torn apart which had been made one — of hers and mine together.⁵

And little by little I recovered my former thoughts of Your handmaid — her holy devotion to You, her holy tenderness and care for us, of which I was so suddenly deprived. And I gave way to the tears I had held back, to overflow as much as they wished; laying my heart upon them, and it found rest in them — for it was in Your ears, not in those of any person who would have scornfully judged my weeping.

And now, Lord, I confess it to You in writing. Let whoever reads it interpret it as he will; and if he finds it sinful that I wept for my mother for a small part of an hour — the mother who was now dead to my eyes, who had for many years wept for me that I might live in Your eyes — let him not mock me, but rather, if he is a man of large charity, let him himself weep for my sins before You, the Father of all the brethren of Your Christ.

Prayer for Monica

I therefore, O my Praise and my Life, God of my heart, laying aside for a while her good deeds — for which I give You joyful thanks — do now pray to You for the sins of my mother. Hear me, I beg You, by the Medicine of our wounds, who hung upon the tree, and now sitting at Your right hand makes intercession for us. I know that she acted mercifully, and from her heart forgave those who were indebted to her. Do You also forgive her debts, whatever she contracted in so many years since the water of salvation. Forgive her, Lord, forgive, I beg You. Enter not into judgment with her. Let Your mercy triumph over Your justice.

She, when the day of her death was at hand, cared nothing about having her body wound up elaborately, or embalmed with spices, or buried in a fine monument, or carried to her own land. These things she did not ask of us; but desired only to have her name remembered at Your altar, which she had served without missing a single day — knowing that from it the holy Sacrifice is dispensed, by which the record of debt that was against us is blotted out.

May she rest in peace with her husband, before whom and after whom she was married to no other; whom she served, bearing fruit to You with patience, that she might win him also for You. And inspire, O Lord my God, inspire Your servants — my brothers, Your sons, my masters, whom with voice and heart and pen I serve — that as many as read these Confessions may at Your altar remember Monica, Your handmaid, with Patricius, her husband, by whose bodies You brought me into this life, I know not how. May they with loving devotion remember my parents in this passing light, my brethren under You our Father in our Catholic Mother, and my fellow-citizens in that eternal Jerusalem which Your pilgrim people long for, from their going out to their return — that so my mother's last request of me may, through my Confessions more than through my prayers, be more abundantly fulfilled through the prayers of many.

Footnotes

¹ "How sweet it suddenly became to me, to be without the sweetness of those toys! What I had feared to lose was now a joy to let go." The morning after the storm. Augustine expected the renunciation to be painful. It was sweet. The things he had clutched for decades fell from his hands — and his hands, empty, were finally free to hold God. This is the joy that follows surrender.

² Adeodatus — "given by God" — Augustine's son by his unnamed concubine. Baptized alongside his father. Dead before he was twenty. Augustine tells us in one sentence: "Soon You took his life from the earth." He does not linger on it. The grief is contained in what he does not say.

³ "We slightly touched her with the whole effort of our heart; and we sighed." The Vision at Ostia. Mother and son, leaning on a window together, ascending through all creation by the force of their shared longing — until for one instant they touch Eternal Wisdom. Then they sigh, and fall back, and return to ordinary human speech. This is the high point of the entire Confessions. They touched eternity. They could not hold it. But they touched it — together.

⁴ "What do I here?" — Monica's last meaningful words. She has everything she prayed for. Her son is baptized, converted, consecrated. She has no more reason to live. Five days later, she is dead. The woman who wept for decades, who followed Augustine across the sea, who stood at the harbor in the dark praying for a son who had lied to her — this woman has nothing left to want. She is finished. She is free.

⁵ "My soul was wounded, and that life torn apart which had been made one — of hers and mine together." Augustine lost his friend in Book IV and wrote: "one soul in two bodies." Now he loses his mother and writes: one life, torn apart. The grief is the same. But Augustine is a different man now. He has God — solid, real, no longer a phantom. And so the grief, though deep, does not destroy him. He weeps. And his weeping rests in God's ears.