He further says that his book is aimed at helping people to arrive at self-acceptance, and to know their rightful place in creation so as to live fulfilled lives.
The book also addresses the issue of the divided will and the challenges that people encounter as they make life choices. This, according to the Cameroonian Priest, is the struggle that St. Augustine experienced when he talks about being “divided in himself.”
Fr. Bohtila says that many times, people are divided and that in making choices, many are “prompted by egoistic motives and distorted emotions.”
“We have distorted desires. And so that one blurs our reasoning faculty and our intellectual faculty,” he says, and adds, “We need to be clear in our rationality, in what we are choosing. But now because we are moved by emotions, passions, sometimes our choices are wrong. And those wrong choices don’t help us to grow.”
In the third chapter, the Priest author talks about the healing power of the grace of God. It is this power that St. Augustine of Hippo discovers when he realizes that “he has been moving out of himself and leaving all the good inside.”
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Fr. Bohtila says that the world, especially today, needs the message of St. Augustine of Hippo who is honored as a great doctor of the Church.
The Saint is described as one of the Latin Fathers of the Church “and perhaps the most significant Christian thinker after St. Paul.”
The contribution of St. Augustine of Hippo to Christian teaching has been said to have created a theological system of great power and lasting influence.
His numerous written works, the most important of which are Confessions and The City of God are said to have helped lay the foundation for much of medieval and modern Christian thought.
Fr. Bohtila says that he has always looked up to St. Augustine of Hippo and started writing the book that is pegged on the Saint while he undertook his research in Rome.
“I think that the human heart today, despite all the things that we possess even in the advancement of material things in technology, that human being keeps searching for happiness somewhere,” the Priest says.
He adds, “The more we possess things, the more we want more things, which means that the human heart is not satisfied by the things we possess. This is what St. Augustine implies when he says that our hearts will remain restless, until they come to rest in God.”
Fr. Bohtila says that the fundamental relationship stressed upon in the book that will be going for Sh.500 (US$5.00) is to come back to oneself and to realize that the true meaning of life is found within.