Can we imagine enemies as friends, or an addict who’s finally free? What about your husband, your wife, your own hard heart? Can you imagine these surprisingly new? What about us? Can we imagine ourselves beautifully better, different? Can we conceive it? Is it even sensible to try, to ask these questions of hope?
For Saint Augustine, that great doctor of the Church and light of theology and civilization, his journey to the faith, his conversion to Christianity, his path to baptism was very painful.