The 4th-century bishop Saint Augustine’s Confessions describe his spiritual journey from his restless childhood to finding peace in Christ.
Everyone may gain from doing a comparable personal analysis of their own life narrative, according to Pope Francis.
The pope remarked, “Rereading one’s life… permits us to perceive the minor marvels that the good Lord performs for us every day,” in a speech during his Wednesday general audience on October 19.
“Our life is the most priceless “book” that is given to us; sadly, many people do not read it, or worse, they read it too late, just before they pass away. And yet, exactly in that book, one discovers what one has been fruitlessly looking for everywhere, he said.
“Saint Augustine, a great seeker of the truth, had grasped this only by going through his life again and seeing the quiet, subdued, yet incisive steps of the Lord’s presence.”
The Doctor of the Church wrote the following in Book 10 of his Confessions, which the pope highlighted:
“Late have I adored you, O Beauty ever old, ever fresh. I was outside when you were inside of me, and it was there that I looked for you. I dove into the gorgeous things you produced in my unloveliness. Although I wasn’t with you, you were with me.
The pope noted that Saint Augustine’s comments constitute a call to “cultivate an internal existence in order to discover what you are seeking for.”
Reflecting on one’s own narrative, according to Pope Francis, also entails realizing the “toxic components” that were present in the past and learning how to avoid making the same errors again.
“Discernment is the narrative interpretation of the happy and sad, comfort and sorrow, that we go through in the course of our lives. We must learn to comprehend the language of the heart since it is the heart that, in discernment, talks to us about God.
To better understand how God works in a person’s life, the pope advised looking into the lives of the saints.
God is discrete in his approach, he said. “God prefers to be silent and unseen. He doesn’t intrude; it is similar to how we breathe in that we cannot survive without it even if we cannot see it.
The pope’s sixth general audience, which had the topic of personal discernment as its focus, drew pilgrims from Haiti, Indonesia, Croatia, Poland, Ireland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Canada, the United States, Switzerland, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to St. Peter’s Square.
Pope Francis requested prayers for “martyred Ukraine” after the audience. Additionally, he made a prayer intention for those who had endured catastrophic floods in Nigeria, where, according to local authorities, the natural calamity claimed the lives of more than 600 people.
The pope also emphasized to the congregation that October is Our Lady of the Rosary Month.
Pope Francis stated, “I would want to ask you to turn with childish faith to the Mother of God, gaining from her example and intercession the strength to carry ahead.”