Does this sound like anyone you know?

Does this sound like anyone you know?

A young man resistant to the Catholic faith. He doesn’t ever seem to get it. What’s the point?

His devout mother pushing for Baptism and Confirmation, praying unceasingly for her fallen-away son. A sensible father who wants a great education for his son, even if it comes at the expense of his son’s faith upbringing. The priority, his dad says, is to give the boy every chance at wealth and influence.

The young man grows up studying science, learning about the vastness of the universe, and growing to understand himself as a sexual being.

College comes. He goes away to study philosophy and be enlightened. What little faith he has diminishes further as he discovers the many ways reason trumps the existence of God. Religion, he comes to believe, is a useless relic that serves to pollute minds, start wars, and divide people.

As a young adult, he finds himself a woman he thinks he loves. He moves in with her. They have a son. It is a civil marriage if not a sacramental one. They live together but don’t share much other than physical intimacy. The relationship eventually ends. Not long after he starts a new romance. Same pattern. Same result.

He jokes often with friends that his prayer to God is this: “Grant me chastity, but not yet.”

The true love of his life is his career. An articulate, powerful speaker, he uses his rhetorical abilities to quickly rise up the professional ladder. He is an excellent student and after undergraduate studies are complete, he earns a PhD within a few years. Armed with a number of fine mentors, the man is discussed as a possible candidate for political office if his career arc continues.

In fact, he rises to a top academic position by his mid-thirties. But he is unfulfilled. His mother’s pleas take root. Anguish over his lifestyle sets in. He swears off women. He is confused. He doesn’t know what he believes anymore. It is a full-blown mid-life crisis.

And in the depths of his struggle, St. Augustine of Hippo finds God. He finds what he is missing in the Bible, in the Church, in the sacraments. He is finally baptized, much to his mother’s delight, after she has been praying for this his entire life. He leaves his career, pledges a life of chastity, and is ordained a priest four years after his conversion. He writes some of the most influential works in Church history. He serves as a bishop for over 40 years. He speaks about his struggles with a chaste life while still having a strong sex drive, but he remains faithful. He becomes a living model for teachers of the faith, lost causes, sons for whom mothers pray endlessly, and seemingly hopeless individuals.

He is an ordinary man who discovered an extraordinary love for God only after battling with his inner thoughts and reeling and stepping back from his life to ask the fundamental questions of human existence. We need God, he realized. And that led him to pen his most famous line: “Our hearts are restless until they rest in you, O Lord.” Only a man who struggled so deeply could say it so profoundly.

Does this sound like anyone you know? Maybe there’s a bit of St. Augustine in each one of us.