I began a recent Easter Saturday in the depths. I was in a Washington DC hotel room late in the morning, wrestling a 240-pound bodybuilder -- voluntarily and knowing that beforehand of course. The results were predictable, and not undesired.
About a half-hour after it was over, I was sitting in the hotel's bar, sipping a soda, picking half-heartedly at the savory party-mix bowl the bartender had put out. I was sore all over, though not really hurt; and my face had some markings, though nothing major or permanent. And like St. Augustine under the fig tree, I was weeping bitterly (though silently, because I was in a public place).
I texted a buddy, to whom I've never come "out," that I was in a lot of pain, not specifying the kind. And telling him that I was "dead to the sin that has torn at me all my life" (as explicit as I wanted to be with him), and asked him point blank "tell me why I should go to the Easter Vigil."
He responded: "read St. Augustine's Confessions, book 8, chapter 12." I was pretty sure what passage that was -- I've read the whole of the book at least three times, including once as late-night bedside reading. But I was able, thanks to the miracle of smart phones and Internet access, to look it up and yeah ... it was St. Augustine recounting his conversion, weeping under the fig tree.
Here is St. Augustine, the whole chapter after the jump (this post does get back to me, but I want St. Augustine's whole chapter in front of everybody)
