Saint Augustine responds
Answer... Enrique A. Eguiarte B.
Enrique A. Eguiarte B. (1960) is an Augustinian Recollect who holds a licentiate in Latin American Literature (1991) and Modern Languages (1996) from the Ibero-American University of Mexico City. He earned his doctoral degree in Letters and Philosophy from the University of Navarra, Spain, in 1999 and his doctorate in Theology and Patristics from the Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum (2010) of…
Dear Fray Juan Carlos:
Receive my heartfelt greetings.
Not all the signs of the Augustinian family have their basis in the texts of the works of St. Augustine. Some of them belong to the traditions that are proper of the Order. However the two most important symbols, the heart pierced with an arrow and the book, possibly have basis in the texts of Augustine. There are two texts that explain the pierced heart found in the seal of the Augustinians and that of the Augustinian Recollects. In his Confessions (Bk. 9:3), Augustine says: “Your word pierced our heart like an arrow, and we bore within us your words, transfixing our inmost parts (…) burned it away (…) enkindle in us that all the hostile blasts from deceitful tongues would only inflame us more fiercely and not put out that fire.”
In the same book (Confessions 10, 8) he says: “Not with doubtful but sure knowledge do I love you, O Lord. By your Word you have transfixed my heart, and I have loved you.”
The book together with the heart refers to knowledge that should be accompanied by love, thus, the theme: “Love and Knowledge”, the same theme Augustine speaks about in his commentary on the gospel according to John (Io.ev.tr. 27, 5): “Add love to knowledge, and knowledge will be useful; not because of the knowledge itself, but because of love.”
He also says in his sermon (s. 354, 6): “Love knowledge then, but have love first. Knowledge by itself inflates, but ‘love builds’, so, do not let knowledge puff up.”