St. Augustine’s description of how God stretches our heart

Many of us want to be filled with God’s love so that we can experience the peace that only God can give.

This may seem like a simple task, and we may even think that we are ready.

However, if we look closer at ourselves, we will realize that God needs to do some more work.

Pope Benedict XVI summarizes St. Augustine’s spiritual commentary on this topic in his encyclical, Spe salvi:

Saint Augustine, in a homily on the First Letter of John, describes very beautifully the intimate relationship between prayer and hope. He defines prayer as an exercise of desire. Man was created for greatness—for God himself; he was created to be filled by God. But his heart is too small for the greatness to which it is destined. It must be stretched. 

St. Augustine’s description is continued, focusing on what needs to happen:

“By delaying [his gift], God strengthens our desire; through desire he enlarges our soul and by expanding it he increases its capacity [for receiving him]”. Augustine refers to Saint Paul, who speaks of himself as straining forward to the things that are to come (cf. Phil 3:13).

Then Pope Benedict XVI relates the analogy St. Augustine uses to describe why our hearts need to be enlarged:

He then uses a very beautiful image to describe this process of enlargement and preparation of the human heart. “Suppose that God wishes to fill you with honey [a symbol of God’s tenderness and goodness]; but if you are full of vinegar, where will you put the honey?” The vessel, that is your heart, must first be enlarged and then cleansed, freed from the vinegar and its taste. This requires hard work and is painful, but in this way alone do we become suited to that for which we are destined. Even if Augustine speaks directly only of our capacity for God, it is nevertheless clear that through this effort by which we are freed from vinegar and the taste of vinegar, not only are we made free for God, but we also become open to others. 

This process of enlargement isn’t easy and looks different in every person.

Some of us will endure physical suffering to enlarge our heart, while others will be plunged into a spiritual darkness.

Whatever happens, it is allowed by God so that we will be open and ready to receive his love.

Read more:Why St. Augustine is called the “Doctor of Grace”

Read more:Augustine, Pelagia, and other sinners who became great saints