 Welcome to the Spiritual Masters, a podcast from Tan Books and Tan Direction in which we look at the greatest and holiest writers from Catholic history. Join us as we explore the life and times in which they lived, an overview and study of their greatest works, and how we as Catholics can look to these masters as models for our own holiness on our journey to heaven. All right, welcome back. Our last episode on the great Saint Augustine and our ongoing series at Tan Books called the Spiritual Masters. This has been a lot of fun, Paul. It has. I enjoy you and I enjoy Saint Augustine. I've learned a lot in just preparing to do this. No one I was going to get to sit here and talk to you about Saint Augustine was very exciting. In fact, I don't mind telling the listeners, you sent me this this biography by Peter Brown and you there it is on the camera. You said, hey, this is kind of the definitive one, you know, there's there's others, but this is a good one to read. And so I got it in the mail, took a picture of it, and I emailed it to you and said, it begins. And I read that sucker in a week, you know, and I was I was impressed with myself getting through it. I traveled a lot this past week and so on the plane and hotel, I got through it. And the thing is, I read it twice because every line is underlined. So read it and say, oh, I got underlined that. And so I read it twice. If it makes you feel any better, it was my one of my grad school textbooks. I had a whole course Augustine. We had to read it in a week, too. Yeah, yeah. So it was worth it. And just after finishing that book and then also now we since we, as I mentioned earlier, we have Anthony Esslin's translation of Augustine's Confessions coming out soon. So recently I listened to another translation of Confessions. So, you know, recently I've been kind of steeped in Augustine and I hadn't ever really been before. And then I get to sit and talk to you about it. But it doesn't do me any good, Paul, if I just learn about Augustine, I got to live like him, you know. So given this our last episode, let's let's begin this one with a prayer. I begin some episodes of prayer. So I'm not I forget all the time. But let's begin with a prayer this time so that we finish this the right way. All right, go ahead, please. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Saint Augustine, we know that you're in glory now, seeing face to face the Lord that you love so much. We want the same thing. We yearn, we long to be face to face and to be in that great final Sabbath as you talk, as you call it in heaven. Pray for us now. Thank you for offering us a model about how we can get there. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Five million words he wrote, something like that. Probably we know more probably about this one man than any early Christian. But he's not a saint because he's smart. You know, he's not a saint because he's eloquent. Why is he a saint, Paul? Wow. I would say in the end, because when Jesus says, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, that's the first and greatest commandment. That's what he did. He had his failures, he had his flaws for sure. He had his back, you know, backstory that wasn't so good in any way. But judging from his readings and from the way he loved his flock, that's the second great commandment that is yourself. He was passionate in his love for God. And the Lord that the passage I read, you know, from the Confessions earlier, it just caused me to weep. That says it all. It's everything. He's pure and hard in that way because that's the one thing he will. And no matter how he might fall or stray a little bit or something, he always came back to that. I love you, Lord. Give everything to me. What do you think his legacy will, I mean, he has a tremendous legacy now. In 500 years from now, are we still going to be talking about Saint Augustine or will he be kind of pushed off as too ancient and out of date? Oh, man. If we're still around, if we're still around, surely people will still be talking. I mean, how could you get any more different from his period than we are already? If anything, we might in 500 years be somehow more similar. That's true. Yeah, definitely go full parallels to the life. Full circle, man. I think our future is more like the past. Yeah, could be. But one good thing is that he write a sermon on artificial intelligence. Dang it. How bad he's got something that could be surely his thing about signs and some of that stuff could be applied. We need one right now with all the stuff going on. Yeah. But yeah, I think and also the other good thing is that even if we have some kind of great catastrophe or so many books and everything digital is lost, there's so many copies of Augustine around. He won't be like some of the ancient writers where we only know about him because somebody mentioned him somewhere else. He's got quite a following, of course. Yeah. Well, I think the reason he's gonna be read in 500 years is because he's talking about things that are so fundamental to human nature. It's just so fundamental. It doesn't change. It does not change. That's my point is if we're, you know, cyborgs in the future, if we have any remnant of humanity left, then Augustine applies because he was the ultimate as I can tell the ultimate tapping into what does it really mean to be human in relation to that thing up there we call God. And what do you do? How does that, how do they relate to each other and this relationship of good and evil? How does this relate to, I mean, if you're a human and trying to figure out what is my deal with God, then saying Augustine applies. Yeah, you'll go there. Reminds me something that way. And, you know, he was influenced by the aesthetic tradition that if you read the sayings of the desert fathers and mothers from, you know, before his period and through, I've always thought they were doctors of the soul too. They studied so carefully the inner movements, the soul, not as completely or systematically or comprehensively as he for sure. But, but that's why you read them. And again, it's that's my story. That's my soul you're talking about. You may not be like him in every way. You may not share his temperament of his passion, being passionate about everything, but you will find yourself in there. Tough question here. Do you? I know in a way he's like totally unique. But is there any other authors, any other saints throughout history that kind of remind you are there, are there little Augustines, are there baby Augustines, for lack of a better phrase? Anybody that comes to mind and say, you know what, he kind of does something similar. St. Bernard? Hmm. Oh, Bernard Bernard of Clairvaux, 1000 AD. I've been reading a biography on him. We publish a book on him, publishing more on him. Yes, that's a great answer. I love Bernard of Clairvaux. Or even Francis Assisi, who's not did not have the bind part, you know, but his passionate love for God, for Christ, particularly that would, you know, lead to the stigmata that it's, it was basically his love that branded him, you might say. Yeah. So at least in that regard, I think you could compare Francis to him some ways. God makes me want to read Bernard of Clairvaux to all the more. I mean, I love Francis. He's, I named my first son, you know, middle name Francis. You're his confirmation sponsor, by the way, my first son. Let the audience know how close we are. Aiden Francis Gallagher is my oldest son. But I can see that, that passion, but he was unique in that he connected this passion with the intellect. And Bernard did that too. Bernard did it too. You're absolutely right. He sure did. He sure did. And, and Augustine was hugely influential in his time. And so was Bernard was even maybe more so influential, you know, counselor to kings and popes, you know. So that's, that's a great example. Now, how you can tell our audience to read his works. That's one thing. But how do you advise our audience to start living like Augustine? You, you have to look for God the way Augustine looked for God or try to look for God the way Augustine would forgot. You can't settle down in some kind of comfortable, you know, chair in your heart and say, okay, well, I'm a Christian and, you know, I go to church, they, I'm fine. You've, you've got to, if you don't have it, you've got to ask God for a hunger for a thirst. You know, the passage I read before talked about that hunger for God, a thirst for God, a longing for God, because he is our home. That's who he is. God himself is the home that we all look for, that we never quite get in this world. And if you do that, I believe God will answer that prayer. And, and you'll find yourself like him seeking truth because you're seeking God and that truth will transform you. And those around you. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's been a great journey. I think my prayer selfishly is that I can become more like Saint Augustine and my prayer for the audience and Tan customers for my friends like you is that we can all become a little bit more like Saint Augustine. But I think you're right, Paul. I think it's, it's looking around and seeing the presence of God everywhere from the bad things we do, like taking a pair. You know, you know, why, why are we doing something bad? Are we, are we just trying to experience evil or is there something else in our friendships? He was so attached to friends. He needed friendships, you know, it's an introverted person. And once it's because he loved contemplation, but he needed friendships, finding them there, finding them in our family, our relationships like as he did with Monica and his son. And then, you know, finding them in every page of Scripture. I think I want to be intellect like me, you know, a pseudo intellect. It needs to put a lot of the other stuff down that I read and just turn to Scripture and stop telling myself this is kind of point, oh, I know that Bible story. Oh, I know that Bible story. What I'm getting most from this is Saint Augustine, he was happy to turn away from a lot of the other things and focus his mind on Scripture. And you can kind of meet God there in a unique way. So that's one of my big, that's one of my big takeaways. But I thank you for this time. It's been wonderful and we'll continue praying for each other. Yes, sir. Maybe we'll have you back on another Spiritual Masters miniseries. There's plenty of saints that you know and love plenty to talk about, you know, just as we did here with Augustine. So hopefully we'll be able to have you back. But thank you for everything you've shared with us, Paul. Thank you. Thank you, Connor. God bless you and your search for God and all of our listeners too. All right, we're done. Amen. Thank you, Paul. This has been an episode of The Spiritual Masters, a podcast brought to you by TAN. To follow the show, learn about more inspiring holy men and women and to support the Spiritual Masters and other great free content from TAN. Visit spiritualmasterspodcast.com to subscribe and use coupon code MASTERS25 to get 25% off your next order, including works by Saint Augustine and countless more Spiritual Masters to strengthen your faith and interior life. And thanks for listening.