God Is Closer to Me than I am to Myself
Paola Muller - This Advent, when viewed through the lens of Augustine, poses a radical question: do I know how to open myself to the God who is waiting for me? He is not looking for a stage, but a home. He asks not for performance, but for openness. And we do not find Him only "outside," but first and foremost within ourselves.
There is a Christmas that takes place under the starry sky, amid the noise of everyday life and the hustle and bustle of events. Yet, there is also a Christmas that is born in silence, in the most intimate part of the human being. St. Augustine belongs to this second geography of mystery. For him, Christmas is not merely an event that happened "once and for all" in history, but an event that begs to occur again, today, in the human heart. Christ was born in Bethlehem, yes, but He also desires to be born in the soul.
This is the great Augustinian insight: the Incarnation is not only an external fact but an internal event. "Interior intimo meo et superior summo meo" (Confessions III, 6.11): more inward than my innermost self and higher than my highest self. No formula better describes the Christian paradox of a God who draws so near that He becomes the dwelling place of man. One cannot truly understand Christmas unless one accepts that God did not simply want to dwell among us, but also within us.
In a civilization that rewards outward appearance, visibility, and performance—where even indignation becomes a communication strategy (with "rage bait" cited as a defining word of the year by the Oxford English Dictionary)—Augustine reminds us that the center of Christianity is not a distant event, but a present occurrence. It is not a memory to be celebrated, but a birth to be welcomed. Now.
From this perspective, Advent is not simply a chronological waiting period, but a time of inner preparation. It is an invitation to clear the way—to return to oneself. It is to prepare the heart for a hospitality that is not sentimental, but radical. God does not knock on the door of the world; He knocks on the door of the conscience. And the desire that expands in waiting is not a void, but the very space where God takes shape.
Augustine knows well the effort required for this return. His personal experience—narrated in the Confessions—is the story of a life lived "outside," scattered in the search for meaning, beauty, and truth in objects, relationships, and success. "You were within me, and I was outside" (Confessions X, 27.38), he acknowledges, capturing in a single sentence the entire tragedy of modern man: living externally while ignoring the infinite that dwells within.
For Augustine, the soul is not simply a psychological dimension; it is the locus of Truth. It is the very dwelling place of God. This is not because man possesses God, but because God, by grace, has chosen to dwell in man. Faith does not arise primarily from without—from teaching or precept—but from an encounter that takes place in the depths of the subject.
"Do not go outward; return to yourself: truth dwells in the inner man" (True Religion I, 39.72). This famous invitation sounds almost like a provocation today. Everything pushes us outward: communicating, performing, reacting. Silence is frightening. Contemplation seems useless. Yet, for Augustine, without interiority, there is no authentic life.
This is not about escaping from the world, nor is it about narcissistic withdrawal. Augustinian interiority is not closure, but depth. It is not isolation, but the condition for true encounter. Only those who dwell within themselves can encounter the other as a person and not as an object. Only those who have an inner dwelling place can truly welcome God.
For this reason, in the monastic tradition, habitus secum—dwelling with oneself—becomes a criterion of spiritual maturity. It is not easy to remain with oneself. It is easier to kill time, to escape, to distract oneself. But without this return, man remains a stranger to himself.
The great audacity of Christianity, as interpreted by Augustine, is this: God does not save man from the outside, but from the inside. The Incarnation is not a spectacular intervention that solves problems from above; it is a movement of intimacy. God makes Himself small in order to dwell in the narrow space of the human heart. God enters history by entering the heart.
This is why Augustine can say: "Have you been baptized? Christ is born in your heart" (Discourse 370.4). The birth of Jesus does not end in the manger of Bethlehem. It requires the continued growth of faith and the maturation of the inner man.
Here we see the profound connection between the Incarnation and the spiritual life. Believing does not mean adhering to a distant story, but allowing a present event to happen: God taking shape in my conscience, in my desire, in my freedom.
In Augustinian thought, this inner birth of God is never automatic. In his early years, Augustine insists on the role of human will: man must want to return to himself. Later, he will strongly emphasize the primacy of grace: it is God who takes the initiative, who reveals Himself, who calls.
But one thing never changes: the soul remains the place of encounter. God does not impose Himself from the outside; He gives Himself from within. Grace does not violate freedom but makes it capable of welcoming. God is born in the soul not as an intrusive guest, but as a presence that enlightens, heals, and brings peace.
Augustine's thought seems surprisingly relevant today. We live in a time that is poor in silence and rich in noise, overloaded with voices yet poor in words. We are constantly informed about what is happening far away, but we often ignore what is moving in the depths of our own hearts. The interior life is in crisis, sometimes replaced by forms of psychological introspection which, although useful, do not grasp the spiritual core of man.
Augustine reminds us that interiority is not a luxury for the few, but an anthropological necessity. It is the place where man discovers that he is more than what he appears to be—that he is inhabited by a Presence that precedes and grounds him. Without this return to interiority, even social and ecclesial commitment risks becoming hollow—activism without a soul.
It is not true that God is encountered only "outside": in the poor, in the word, in the suffering. All this is true, but the encounter always takes place within a conscience, within a freedom. Without interiority, there is no encounter.
This Advent, read with Augustine, poses a simple and radical question: is there room in me? God does not seek stages, but a home. He does not ask for performances, but for openness. He is not born where everything is perfect, but where someone accepts the silence and lets Him dwell within.
In a world that is outwardly saturated, Augustine invites us to guard the center. To not be late for our appointment with ourselves. Because it is there, in the heart, that the essential happens: "You dwell within me" (Confessions X, 27.38). And it is there that, even today, God continues to be born.
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