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From the life of St. Augustine we can draw so many examples. But let me just zero in on one aspect of his life: St. Augustine never was content with going half way, he always went “all the way.” Nowadays, to go “all the way” has a different connotation.
Mothers would get shocked if their daughters were to tell them they went all the way. We might say that St. Augustine also “went all the way” because going by his own accounts in his autobiography, his one basic defect and problem was lust. He admitted to being “a slave of lust.”
Based on Freudian thinking, we may analyze that St. Augustine had a very strong libido. And this had to be overcome, to be faced, and to be cured. St. Augustine acknowledged that “the one basic problem preventing me from being liberated from my lust, the one basic word that prevented me from being converted; that made me continue to be a lustful person is … “tomorrow.”
TOMORROW. I will go to confession tomorrow. I will quit my illicit affair tomorrow. I will stop my bad habit tomorrow. I will go to Mass tomorrow. I will pray tomorrow. I will do all these things tomorrow.
St. Augustine’s turning point in life came when he said: “Tomorrow … tomorrow … why not TODAY?” After he said this, he made a 180-degree turn, and then followed the Lord.
Maybe we have no problems with lust like St. Augustine. For some of us, however, the problem may be anger or gluttony or telling lies. For some of us the problem can be pride and excessive ambition. We are slaves of gluttony, of dishonesty, of pride. Some of us are slaves of lust. But our one, basic problem is that word: TOMORROW. I will eat less tomorrow, I will tell the truth tomorrow. I will pray tomorrow. I will not be lazy tomorrow.
Tomorrow, tomorrow, why not TODAY? Why not NOW? This is the wisdom of St. Augustine, and this is the wisdom of St. Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians. This, too, is the wisdom of the wise virgins. Tomorrow, tomorrow is the term of the fool. The cry of the wise is “why not NOW?”
WHY NOT TODAY?
Prov. 27:1
Only Jesus, Always Jesus
