nos fecisti ad te

Nos fecisti ad te et inquietum est cor nostrum donec requiescat in te. “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” (Confessions, 1.1) Indeed, the opening sentence of Confessions, Augustine’s autobiography, pretty much summed up his whole life. He had tried various ways to find fulfilment in his life. He tried sex (‘cauldron of unholy loves’); he tried Manichaeism; he glorified rhetoric. Nevertheless, he was still restless, until he went to Milan and listened to Ambrose, the bishop there who impressed him so much with (his rhetoric in) his preaching and at last fulfilled his quest. At last, now his heart could rest. Fecisti nos ad te, Deus. You have made us for yourself.