Take up and Read

In Book Eight of Confessions, St. Augustine recounts how, in a state of deep inner turmoil, he “heard from a nearby house a voice, as of a boy or girl, I know not which, chanting repeatedly, ‘Take up and read. Take up and read.’” The words didn’t match any child’s game he knew. “So, halting my torrent of tears, I got up, interpreting it as a command from God to open the Scriptures and read the first passage my eyes fell upon.” He turned to Romans 13:13-14, and in that moment, his heart…