The Confessions of St. Augustine

by Augustine of Hippo

He is within the inmost heart, yet the heart has wandered away from him. Return to your heart, O you transgressors, and hold fast to him who made you.

Let my bones be bathed in thy love,

People are curious to know the lives of others, but slow to correct their own.

Thus I carry on a daily war by fasting, constantly “bringing my body into subjection,” 334 after which my pains are banished by pleasure. For hunger and thirst are actual pain. They consume and destroy like fever does, unless the medicine of food is at hand to relieve us. And since this medicine at hand comes from the comfort we receive in thy gifts (by means of which land and water and air serve our infirmity), even our calamity is called pleasure.

It is not the uncleanness of meat that I fear, but the uncleanness of an incontinent appetite.

I am seeking the truth, O Father; I am not affirming it. O my God, direct and rule me.