St. Augustine lived a very sinful life before his conversion. Being a saint does not mean being a goody-two-shoes and never doing anything wrong merely following laws and regulations. That was the problem with the proud pharisees, who never thought of themselves as sinners, proud of their righteousness yet having no mercy or love in their hearts. Being a saint means that a wretched soul has been transformed by God through a death of one’s own self to sin and a complete detachment of things, the world and of life itself. It doesn’t happen overnight, but rather it is a lifelong struggle and transformation. Thus, it is through our weaknesses and passions that we are sanctified when we war against them with the help of God’s *sanctifying *grace, and getting up when we fall.
St. Paul himself expresses his own struggles to avoid sin:
*I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!*
