Our human desire for God, with the Augustine scholar James K.A. Smith

The Spiritual Life with Fr. James Martin, S.J.

America Media

Spirituality, Religion & Spirituality, Christianity

4.9 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 7 April 2026

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

James Martin, S.J., is joined by James K.A. Smith on the “The Spiritual Life” podcast. Jamie is a leading scholar of St. Augustine, and a professor of philosophy at Calvin University. He’s written several books—including Desiring the Kingdom, You Are What You Love, On the Road with Saint Augustine, and his latest, Make Your Home in This Luminous Dark: Mysticism, Art, and the Path of Unknowing. Together, they chart the contours of St. Augustine’s life, spirituality, and theological patrimony in the Church, along with Jamie’s own spiritual life. Timecodes: 0:00 Adopting a refugee spirituality 1:40 Introducing James K.A. Smith and Augustinian spirituality 6:39 Jamie meets God through his wife’s family 11:00 How St. Augustine became a spiritual lifeline for Jamie 13:30 A thumbnail sketch of St. Augustine’s life 19:10 “Everybody’s got a hungry heart” 30:40 Praying with the German mystic Meister Eckhart 33:46 Tracking your desires in the spiritual life 36:10 The relationship between Pope Leo XIV, the Augustianians, and Augustine45:15 Audience Question: How can we reconcile the "two churches" of today: a church that follows Jesus and a more "worldy church"? Do you have a spiritual question for Fr. Jim? You can write to us at: thespirituallife@americamedia.org Become a subscriber today at Americamagazine.org/subscribe Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Jamie Lang and Sophie Haboo have arrived on Disney Plus.
0:04.0	We're having a baby.
0:06.0	We're having a baby.
0:07.0	I've always wanted to be mom.
0:09.0	And we're bringing you on our journey through everything.
0:12.0	I have no idea what we're doing.
0:13.0	Thank you. I have more of an idea.
0:15.0	I think of it like a Tamagocchi.
0:17.0	At the end of all of this...
0:20.0	We're going to have a little baby.
0:21.6	Raising Chelsea, a Hulu original series streaming exclusively on Disney Plus.
0:26.6	18 plus subscription required T's and T supply.
0:30.6	In fact, I think the best way to understand the way Augustine uses this language of pilgrimage and journey
0:39.3	is actually to understand it more as what I call a refugee spirituality.
0:44.3	I think he thinks all of us are migrants who are looking for a country we've never been to.
0:54.9	And yet somehow our hearts are made for that home.
1:00.8	And so it makes him very attuned, I think, to the vulnerability of the Christian life, to the
1:06.9	risks of the life in which we find ourselves.
1:09.9	There's a kind of spiritual realism that
1:14.7	I find very gracious.
1:18.0	Like it's a way of knowing that God has patience with me and that I shouldn't have any
1:24.7	illusions about how difficult the road will be, but I'm accompanied
	...

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