St. Augustine's Confessions and My Quest for Greatness in the Confessional

Eight years ago, I was a twenty-three-year-old college student who had abandoned her Catholic faith for the sinfully self-gratifying lifestyle that seduces so many of us in our youth.  Eight years ago, the I-know-everything-there-is-to-know-about-life jig that so many of us dance in late adolescence was beginning to become tiresome with the onslaught of early adulthood.  Eight years ago, I began to come out of the shadows and realize that my method of pursuing happiness was based on lies instead of truth.  Eight years ago, a professor of mine encouraged me to read St. Augustine’s Confessions.

That’s when everything changed.

Upon reading Confessions for the very first time, I found a kindred spirit in St. Augustine.  Though I am under no illusion that my intellect could in any way rival his, I seemed to have similar personality traits and idiosyncrasies. I, like Augustine, had spent the majority of my time on this earth chasing the respect and adulation of others, instead of righty-ordering myself towards God.  As Augustine spoke of the noxious pride that poisoned his reasoning and directed his affections towards fleshly desires, I couldn’t help but see my own situation reflected back to me through his words.  For a young woman who thought she knew everything, Augustine made me realize how little I actually knew about the world – and myself.

Three months after I had begun reading Confessions, I made my own confession to a priest in the parish where I grew up but had not attended since I made my Confirmation.  This was the first time I had visited the confessional in many years and was certain that the litany of my past sins would scandalize my priest.  I entered the confessional and cried incessantly as I recanted the evil deeds I had committed while I was away from God.  After I had sufficiently racked my brain, searching every wretched corner of my memory for any vestiges of mortal sins that I may have left out, I waited for the priest to respond. And he did.

He said, “That’s it?”

That’s it?!  This did not go as I had envisioned at all!  Here I was, this lowly, shameful sinner, who had most certainly lived in recurrent mortal sin for nearly five years. My priest in no way reprimanded me or exacerbated my shame, as I had erroneously anticipated he would do.  It seemed to be just “business as usual” for him.  At the time, this perceived indifference upset me much more than a chastisement would have. 

There’s that pride again, rearing its ugly head. Had I not learned anything from my dear friend Augustine?  It wasn’t enough for me to desire to be the greatest at everything else in my life – I had to be the greatest sinner, too!

As I progressed in my faith life, my admiration for Augustine went beyond that initial kinship over our similar depravities.  In Confessions, this man of superb intellect humbles himself repeatedly before almighty God, reiterating time and time again that all he has was given to him from the Lord.  His quest for greatness truly began with his desire for humility.

It admittedly took me years to understand why the priest acted as he did in that moment.  It took me some time to realize that the priest said, “That’s it?” because I was not the first, and certainly wouldn’t be the last, to confess what I had confessed that day.  Despite my best efforts, I had not contributed anything new to the field of sinning. Most of all, I needed to realize that God's mercy is so powerful and so great that no matter what I've done, those words of absolution given by His priest in the confessional are true.  God's mercy is so great, so all-encompassing, so beautiful, that even I, a miserable sinner, when approaching him with a contrite heart through His beautiful sacrament of Reconciliation, receives forgiveness.

I took another hard look at myself, and realized that in order to truly achieve great heights in the spiritual life – the only greatness that really matters – I needed to humble myself before Our Lord, just as Augustine had.  I needed to trust in His mercy.

The first step on my lifelong quest for true greatness was admitting one thing to myself:

“Sorry Alyson, you’re not the greatest sinner.”

Finally, I found one title that I did not desire to acquire.