God is love and since we are created in God’s image, we have an innate capacity to love. “My love is my weight” Augustine intriguingly and succinctly describes it (Conf 14.9). He meant that our love moves us toward that which we love. In other words, the primary love of our life is the principle that motivates the direction of our life. The direction or end to which it moves us determines the quality of our love (On Psalm 121.1)

When our love directs and moves us toward God (S 362 25.27), this love purifies our heart (Letter 147.22.51), frees us (On Psalm 121.1) and gives us hope (Letter 148.8). The problem is that we do not necessarily move toward where we should go. On the one hand we are created to move toward God, “Restless until we rest in him” (Confessions I.1), yet so easily we most likely lose ourselves along the way by loving wrongly. By loving in the wrong way we make ourselves less than we who are meant to be for “one becomes conformed to that which one loves” (On the Customs of the Church 1.21.39).

Augustinian spirituality is marked by the double dynamic of God’s desire for us, and our restless desire to seek God. What gets in the way is sin and its consequences. Augustine’s own experience shows that we can begin to find ourselves in God by turning inward seeking the One who can provide ultimate satisfaction. God is “more intimately present to me than my innermost being” (Confessions III.6,11).

Augustine acknowledges our dependence on Christ since he found himself unable to reconcile himself with God on his own. Augustine was humbled to accept the priestly mediation of Jesus Christ, who offers to heal him and teach him what he cannot heal and learn on his own (Confessions X.42.67-70).

He wrote: “I erred like a lost sheep, but I hope to be carried on the shoulders of my shepherd” (On Psalm 118, v.176). 

Discovering God for Augustine means more than discovering God with the intellect, and it involves delighting in God and God’s commands. This is a process of healing and transformation of our will. By faith we are transformed by the love of God in Christ. To be transformed and healed means that our hearts are enlarged and expanded with the very love of God (10th Homily on John’s Letters, 6). For Augustine the heart is the core of who we are. It is in the heart where we are touched by God and are deeply transformed (4th Homily on John’s Letters, 6). This transformation is grounded in truth: “the heart is illumined when it hears: God is truth” (Trinity 8,2). If love is not grounded in truth, it falls prey to the vagaries of life. The Christian life is allowing God to teach our heart to love securely in Him who is unchanging. As much as love and truth are important, the older he was, Augustine realized how important the ecclesial dimension of unity was as well. In one of his last sermons, preached in the last year of his life, Augustine spoke of what motivated him to do anything, and a desire to live in Christ with his people is revealed:

“What, after all, do I want? What do I desire? What am I longing for? Why am I speaking? Why am I sitting here? What do I live for, if not with this intention that we should all live together with Christ? That is my desire, that is my honor, that is my most treasured possession, that is my joy, my pride and glory…I don’t want to be saved without you” (S. 17.2).