St. Augustine of Hippo: A Life Transformed Through Prayer and Contemplation

Introduction

The North African bishop who would become one of Christianity’s most influential theologians began his spiritual journey in tears and ended it in ceaseless conversation with God. St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD) exemplified the scriptural command to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17), developing a rich interior life that combined rigorous meditation on Scripture with contemplative union with the Divine.

The Garden Prayer: A Conversion Through Tears

Augustine desired to know God in truth and wanted to give himself over to Him, but felt very distressed about the lifestyle he had chosen. In a Milanese garden, he threw himself down under a fig tree and cried out in anguish to God asking: “How long, Lord? Will you be angry forever?” he cried out, echoing the psalmist’s anguish (Psalm 79:5).

In that moment of desperate seeking, Augustine heard a child’s voice singing “Take up and read, take up and read.” Opening Scripture, his eyes fell upon Romans 13:13-14:

Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.

This moment of Augustine’s encounter of God gave Augustine the great understanding of the connection between prayer and God’s word and voice. Augustine recorded this moment in his Confessions:

You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.

The Foundation: Scripture as Living Encounter

For Augustine, to meditate on the word is to immerse oneself in God’s official word to us so that our souls become the very language of God’s word. Augustine saw the Holy Scriptures not just as books but as God’s voice speaking to us and to others through the fulfillment of the words of Jesus:

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me

John 10:27

Augustine spent countless hours meditating on the Psalms, which became his primary prayer book. He saw David’s words as Christ’s own prayers, teaching believers how to speak with the Father. In his Expositions on the Psalms, Augustine wrote that, through the Psalms, we are praying the same prayer in union with Jesus, who serves both to make intercession for us and, as the Head of the Body, praying in us.

Augustine used the method of lectio divina (the art of sacred reading) to allow the word of God to enter into his heart. He would read a passage from the Holy Scriptures; then reflect on that same passage, praying it back to God; and finally, enter into the silence of meditation. “Let your scriptures be my chaste delight,” he prayed, recognizing that God’s Word was spiritual nourishment (Matthew 4:4).

The Ascent of the Soul: Contemplative Vision

Augustine’s most profound mystical experiences centered on contemplating God’s eternal nature. Early in his Confessions, Augustine references an experience with mother Monica at Ostia, shortly before her death:

We were asking what the eternal life of the saints would be like... and while we spoke and panted after heavenly wisdom, we touched it slightly with the whole effort of our heart. We sighed and left behind 'the first fruits of the Spirit' (Romans 8:23) bound there, and returned to the sound of our own tongue.

The development of a closer relationship with God starts through drawing nearer to God and cleansing oneself of the sin of the past (James 4:8). Augustine taught that contemplation required progression through stages: from considering created things, to the rational soul, to the unchanging truth of God Himself. Like Moses ascending Sinai or Paul being caught up to the third heaven (2 Corinthians 12:2-4), believers could experience foretastes of divine glory.

Yet Augustine was adamant that a believer’s encounter with God’s glory is the gift of God’s grace, not of their own effort. He taught all believers that,

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God

Matthew 5:8

The Practice: Interior Prayer and Divine Indwelling

The Trinity has greatly affected Augustine’s view of how we pray. Because God sends the Holy Spirit to live within each believer, those led by His Spirit will pray correctly to God the Father (Romans 8:26-27); thus prayer is the Spirit talking to God the Father through us and connecting us to Jesus.

There is also an internal aspect to prayer that was of utmost importance for Augustine—he taught that God lives in our innermost being, closer than we are to ourselves. Augustine told of his own experience of being outside of God and seeking fulfillment through external experiences and pleasures: “You were within, and I was outside,” he confessed, describing his years of seeking fulfillment in external pleasures. “You were with me, but I was not with you.”

Augustine encouraged us to “Return to your heart.” What he meant was that we are not searching for ourselves, we are looking for God within us. This is what Jesus taught:

go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret

Matthew 6:6

The “room” is the place where we find God when we go into a spiritual place.

The Longing Heart: Desire as Prayer

Augustine also made a unique contribution to the understanding of prayer: “The desire of your heart is your prayer,” he taught. “If your desire continues uninterrupted, your prayer continues uninterrupted.”

This is the explanation of how we are able to pray constantly. Our heart’s desire for God. Even while engaged in daily activities, the heart’s continuous yearning for God—like the psalmist’s panting for living water (Psalm 42:1-2)—rises as perpetual prayer. Augustine wrote:

Your desire is your prayer; and if your desire is without ceasing, your prayer will also be without ceasing.

Our desire for God is the reason we exist; we were created to worship God as the direction from which we came, just as the arrow on a compass points toward north. The greatest commandment is to love God with all of our heart (Matthew 22:37) and Paul’s instruction is to set our minds on heavenly things (Colossians 3:2).

Contemplation of the Trinity

Augustine’s mature mysticism centered on contemplating the Holy Trinity. In his monumental work De Trinitate, he explored how the human soul—created in God’s image (Genesis 1:27)—reflects Trinitarian structure through memory, understanding, and will.

The contemplation of these things is not the who of who God is, but rather it derives from how God has created each of us. By seeing how we are like God, he wrote:

We look for a trinity in the soul, so that in some way, as in an enigma, we may see God who is Trinity, through this mirror of our nature made to His image

1 Corinthians 13:12

Such meditation required disciplined focus. Augustine would withdraw regularly for silent contemplation, following Christ’s example of seeking solitary places for prayer (Mark 1:35). In silence, the soul could hear God’s “still small voice” (1 Kings 19:12) that speaks beneath life’s clamor.

Union with God Through Love

Augustine expected love to guide an individual’s every action and to be the ultimate goal of the life of prayer and contemplation. “Love, and do what you will,” Augustine famously declared, recognizing that genuine love for God would guide all actions righteously.

Through love for God we will be fulfilling the prayer of Jesus to God that we would be one with Him and His Father (John 17:21-23). This union will not occur through a union of essence: that would violate the law of pantheism, but through the coming together of our will to the will of God. Jesus prayed at Gethsemane, saying, “Not my will, but yours, be done” (Luke 22:42), as an example of this union.

Practical Wisdom for the Prayer Life

Augustine provided many insights during his time in ministry to help Christians grow in their prayer life:

Humility as foundation: We are dependent on God’s grace and forgiveness for all things, including prayer; as the tax collector did:

God, be merciful to me, a sinner

Luke 18:13

Persistence in seeking: As it is illustrated in the parable of the widow in Luke 18:1-8, we must continue to knock until God answers our prayers.

Communal worship: Worshipping together not only fulfills the Lord’s promise given in Matthew 18:20: “where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them,” but that also emphasizes to the world our togetherness.

Fixed prayer times: Praying at established times throughout our day encourages a rhythm of prayer and reminds us of how we are to pray like Daniel (Daniel 6:10).

Attention to the heart: Our prayers should reflect our sincere desires rather than our eloquence, remembering that God knows our heart (1 Samuel 16:7) and prefers our true simple expressions to our elaborate pretenses.

The Bishop’s Daily Practice

As Bishop of Hippo, Augustine maintained a disciplined life of prayer even with crushing demands of pastoral duties overwhelming him. Augustine rose early every morning for prayer and meditation, often for several hours of communion with God before dawn, prayed the canonical hours with his monastic community, interceded for his flock throughout the day, and returned to engage in contemplative prayer moments of quiet throughout his day in prayer.

Augustine used the preparation of his sermons as a time of coming to God in prayer and contemplation. Augustine would read the Scriptures, praying with his initial prayers, for additional illumination from the Holy Spirit (John 16:13), and then according to the Spirit’s leading and enabling, he preached in full faith as the apostles did at Pentecost (Acts 2:4).

Augustine’s prayer life remained vibrant to the very day he died, well into his old age in declining health from sickness. As he continued nearing the day of his physical death, Augustine had the penitential Psalms written on the walls of his room so that he could reflect upon them during the final days of his life while waiting to die. He died with a copy of Scripture on his lips and the prayer of David in his heart.

The Eternal Rest

The purpose of every Christian’s spiritual journey is to remain focused on the ultimate promise of entering into Eternal Sabbath as promised in Hebrews 4:9-10:

There remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.

Augustine ends his Confessions not with an autobiography but with a greater meditation on the Creation and Rest of God and concludes with:

We shall rest and we shall see, we shall see and we shall love, we shall love and we shall praise. Behold what shall be in the end without end. For what other thing is our end but to reach that kingdom of which there is no end?

Lessons for Today’s Christian

Augustine’s prayer life serves as an example of what it means to be a devout Christian who saturates his/her life in devotion to Christ, grounded in the Scriptures and focused on His ministry:

First, cultivate a hunger for the Word of God. Allow the Scriptures to inform our theology and our prayers and make the language of the Bible the native language of our communication with God.

Second, learn how to practice internal prayer. Make regular opportunities to withdraw from the external world and meet God within the secret heart where God dwells through His Spirit.

Third, let your love for God be a daily prayer. Maintain your longing for God during your daily activities, allowing your longings to rise as incense and be offered before the throne of God (Revelation 5:8).

Fourth, pursue opportunities for contemplation. Take time to meditate silently on God’s nature, God’s works, and the Word of God, and let the Holy Spirit help you see glimpses of God in His Glory.

Finally, know that prayer is a tool for your spiritual transformation. For Augustine, mysticism was not just abstract; it also produced the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23).

Conclusion

The North African bishop’s life of prayer was firmly based on Scripture, focused on Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit, and directed to glorifying the Father. The life of the North African bishop is evidence that true Christianity has great mystical depth without losing its biblical foundations. Augustine’s prayer life was entirely rooted in the Scriptures, centered on Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit, and existed to glorify God the Father.

Augustine is calling Christians today to that same life of communion with the Triune God; echoing his eternal prayer:

O God, you are ever the same. Let me know myself and let me know you.

Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you

James 4:8

Augustine’s life proves this promise true.