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It was an adolescent prank—pears stolen from a neighbor's tree. But as Augustine looked back on the incident many years later, it seemed reprehensible to him. He had no need of the pears; they were thrown to the pigs. It was the thrill of committing theft with his friends that he had sought. "My feasting was only on the wickedness which I took pleasure in enjoying" (Confessions, Book II, 12).
St. Augustine wrote the story of his conversion more than sixteen hundred years ago, but this distance in time does not dilute the immediacy of his struggle—or of his ultimate victory. A brilliant and passionate young man who vigorously sought the truth, Augustine was lured by the temptations of the flesh and the vanities of the world. After an intense battle of the will, he discovered the truth of Christ and the power of the cross to overcome sin. The heart of his journey to God was captured famously in the opening to his book, the Confessions: “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you” (I,1).
Augustine lived under the rule of the Roman Empire. He was born in 354 in the African province of Numidia, now eastern Algeria. His…
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