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SPIRITUAL EXERCISES IN AUGUSTINE’S CONFESSIONS

An experiential project

by Andrés G. Niño, Ph.D., OSA.

The Confessions, Augustine’s masterpiece, has influenced Christian spirituality for 1600 years. He wrote it to give testimony of his intimate pilgrimage in search of God. The narrative describes a progressive ascent; “an exercise” maintained by the inner restlessness that human beings experience in their search for truth and happiness. The times in which we live, marked by a massive servitude of cultural idols, a divisive and violent clash of ideologies, the burden of insatiable ambitions have submerged our human experience in a dense fog of inner restlessness and dispersion. More than ever there is an imperative to recover a coherent and transcendent vision of life, beginning with our own personal predicament.

On such critical matter Augustine emerges as spiritual master with a voice that resonates convincingly in our own time. His clear, direct language and his deep knowledge of the human condition establish a strong empathic link with the readers that facilitate the assimilation of his spiritual teachings. The classic Confessions, with its capacity to reflect the truth and transform human experience, is a point of encounter for all of us where we can learn something about ourselves and about God as we respond to the call of his ‘hidden providence’. The spiritual exercises embedded in the work optimally focus our attention and give us an opportunity for personal and communal transformation.

This project of Spiritual Exercises with Augustine’s Confessions draws from observations made by a number of scholars. Here we present our work in a didactic and succinct format that allows Augustine’s text to serve as the main guide for an experiential engagement with Augustine’s spiritual pilgrimage. The purpose has been to renew his invitation to the readers of all times “to approach, to see and to understand this way” that is Christ. The powerful image of a community around his text becomes a recurrent event and experience.

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