Saint Augustine of Hippo

Finding the Pearl of Great Price

A Brief Background

Saint Augustine, born in 354 AD to a devout Christian mother, Saint Monica, and pagan father, Patricius, (who converted on his deathbed). Monica never stopped praying for his conversion even while he pursued a life of glory and wealth as a teacher and with a mistress.

Augustine was finally baptized in 387, after a long wrestling with the truth about God through his intellectual studies of philosophy. His mother died in 388, so she witnessed the fulfillment of her prayers for her son. (Monica is an incredible example of steadfastness, patience and prayer.)

Struggles with Sin

Initially, Augustine struggled with the change in lifestyle that would be necessary with his conversion. His great work, Confessions, speaks to his confession of sin, but also to his confession of the mercy, beauty and goodness of God.

In it he talks about the struggle he went through, saying,

By now those prizes gave me no pleasure in comparison with your gentleness and “the beauty of your house which I loved”.¹ But I was still firmly tied by woman…and now I had discovered the good pearl. To buy it I had to sell all that I had²; and I hesitated.³

The Pearl of Great Price

Augustine had found the pearl of great price, but he struggled with the challenge of changing the way he lived his life in order to align it with this pearl. Eventually, Augustine was able to rely on the strength of those who had gone before him to make the change necessary in order to follow Christ.

Again in Confessions he shares,

Are you incapable of doing what these men and women have done? Do you think them capable of achieving this by their own resources and not by the Lord their God? Why are you relying on yourself, only to find yourself unreliable? Cast yourself upon him, do not be afraid. He will not withdraw himself so that you fall. Make the leap without anxiety, he will catch you and heal you.⁴

Augustine became a priest and eventually the bishop of Hippo and has been recognized as one of the greatest theologians the church has ever known.⁵

Preparing Our Hearts

We can learn from Augustine’s example that the call to follow Christ is the pearl, and that pearl comes at the great price of denying our sinful habits. We can rely on God to heal us when we rely on him fully.

1

Ps 25:8

2

Matthew 13:46

3

Saint Augustine, Confessions, trans. Henry Chadwick, bk VIII, no 1, 2, pp 133-134

4

Ibid., bk VII no 27, pp 151

5

Ralph Martin, The Fulfillment of All Desire, ch 3, pp 27-39