On This Feast of St. Augustine, We Pray

Prayer of John Paul II to Saint Augustine

O great Augustine, our father and teacher, who knows the shining paths of God and also the crooked paths of men, we admire the marvels that divine Grace
 has worked in you, making you a passionate witness 
to truth and goodness 
at the service of your neighbor.

At the start of a new millennium marked by the Cross of Christ, teach us to read history
 in the light of divine Providence, which guides events to the final encounter with the Father. Guide us towards goals of peace, kindling in our hearts your own desire for the values upon which we, 
with the strength that comes from God, can build the "city of Man".

May the profound teaching that you drew, with loving and patient study, from the ever-living sources of Scripture
 enlighten all who are tempted today
 by alienating mirages.

May you obtain for them the courage to set out on the way towards that "inner man" in whom the One, who alone can restore peace
 to our restless hearts, awaits.

So many of our contemporaries seem to have 
lost the hope of reaching,
 amidst the many conflicting ideologies, the truth that they continue to yearn for 
in depths of their hearts.

Teach them never to give up their quest 
in the certainty that, in the end, their efforts will be rewarded 
by the fulfilling encounter with that supreme Truth, who is the Source 
of every created truth.

Lastly, O St. Augustine, 
communicate to us too a spark of that burning love for the Church, the Catholic mother of the Saints,
which sustained and gave life 
to the efforts of your own long ministry.

Enable us, as we walk together under the guidance of our legitimate Pastors, to reach the glory of the heavenly Homeland
 where, with all the Blesseds, we can join in singing the new and eternal Alleluia.

Amen.

Prayer written by Blessed John Paul II for the 1,650^th Anniversary of the Birth of St. Augustine