Fr. Jean-François Petit, "Devenir plus humain avec Saint Augustin," Paris, Salvator, 2015, 183 p.

The author, an Assumptionist priest, is a specialist in the thought of St. Augustine. In this tome, he tries to show the meaning of the essential values of earthly existence by plumbing the depths of Augustine's voluminous writings. Although he is a citizen of an other age, Petit considers Augustine's thought ever relevant. In essence he argues that to be complete and authentic a human being necessarily includes a spiritual dimension, one that reveals a being moving toward the Absolute. Petit's audience is as much lay-people as it is members of the clergy and religious communities.

Jean-François Petit offers a movement with 12 points describing attitudes to be developed if one is to become truly human. I will not try to describe each of the 12 point but will try rather to get to the essentials of what is required. First, one must nourish a desire to be enlightened and to admit that it is in the Word  of God that the truth that one is looking for is to be found. The goal is to make choices that will allow one to know oneself better and to recognize in what divine happiness consists. For Augustine, inspired by Isaiah, one must understand in order to believe and believe in order to understand; therefore it is faith that leads us to understand the Word.

Moreover, it is important that we realize that it is in our relations with others and in ordinary life that our humanity is measured, especially in our work that Petit presents as at the heart of human achievement, because it takes place in a network of relations and solidarity. In this context, he invites his readers not to lose heart in the face of trying circumstances. He affirms that hope exists at man's deepest core and constitutes his consolation.

Finally, he recalls that God created us to love and that, in this regard, Jesus must be our principal source of inspiration. In Augustine's mind, love unites us to one another in a movement of the soul. Citing deeply beautiful texts Fr. Petit invites us simply to move from the Word to actions.

by Ginette Noël

(this article was originally published in French in the "Nouvelles de Montmartre")