Blessed Augustine of Hippo

It is not difficult to find something completely relevant to contemporary life in the text of Augustine; oftentimes, alarmingly relevant.  Today, on the feast day of Saint Augustine, I offer the following from the Confessions (text from Oxford University Press, www.oup.com, Henry Chadwick translation):

"In this immense jungle full of traps and dangers, see how many I have cut out and expelled from my heart, as you have granted me to do, God of my salvation (Ps 17:47; 37:23).  Nevertheless, when so many things of this kind surround our daily life on every side with a buzz of distraction..." From Confessions, Book X (Memory), 56.

Illustration of Augustine from a 6th century fresco, Lateran, Rome - Wikimedia Commons.

Consider how this "buzz of distraction" encircles our lives and let us ask the God of our salvation to grant that we may cut out and expel from our hearts these traps and dangers.