Hard Bondage

                                                                                                                                                                     Vol. XXIV, No. 9, October 2011

Out of my perverse will came lust, and the service of lust ended in habit, and habit, not resisted, became necessity. By these links, which is why I call it “a chain,” hard bondage held me in slavery. My new will, which had begun to spring up in me freely to worship You and enjoy You, O my God, the only certain Joy, was not yet able to overcome my former willfulness, made strong by long indulgence. Therefore, my two wills – the old and the new, the carnal and the spiritual – raged in conflict within me. They tore my soul apart by their dispute.

    Confessions of Saint Augustine, revised & updated by Dr. Tom Gill, Bridge-Logos, Gainesville, FL, 2003, p. 198.