THE CONVERSION OF ST AUGUSTINE - 24 APRIL

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN APRIL

Saints celebrated on the 24th of April

THE CONVERSION OF ST AUGUSTINE 

⬅️ More information about Saint Augustine

I was suddenly asking myself these questions, weeping all the while with the most bitter sorrow in my heart, when all at once I heard a sing-song voice of a child in a nearby house. Whether it as the voice of a boy or a girl I cannot say, but again and again it repeated the refrain “Take and read, take and read” (Tolle lege, Tolle lege).

TOLLE, LEGE, TOLLE LEGE

At this I looked up, thinking hard whether there was any kind of game in which children used to chant words like these, but I could not remember ever hearing them before. I stemmed the flood of tears and stood up, telling myself that this could only be a divine command to open my book of scripture and read the first passage on which my eyes should fall. So I hurried back to the place where Alypius was sitting, for when I stood up to move away I had put down the book containing Paul’s epistles. 

I SEIZED IT AND OPENED IT

I seized it and opened it, and in silence I read the first passage on which my eyes fell: “Not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual excess and lust, not in quarrelling and jealousy. Rather, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the desires of the flesh (Romans 13:13-14).” 

ALL THE DARKNESS OF DOUBT WAS DISPELLED

I had no wish to read more and no need to do so. For in an instant, as I came to the end of the sentence, it was as though the light of confidence flooded into my heart and all the darkness of doubt was dispelled.

(From his Confessions)