The weeks leading up to my confirmation were extremely difficult. I had suddenly developed crippling anxiety. It began at my local gym, where after full, back-intensive workout I found myself nearly fainting after bending at the water fountain. My vision became tunneled, I fell back into the wall behind me, and my heart began to race. I didn’t know what to do, and frankly, I was terrified. I immediately went back down for some water and began to walk laps around the track. My chest began to tighten, and I could not breathe.
Adrenaline rushed to my head and I felt my eyes dart to this place, then that one, and back again. My neck felt hot, and heat radiated to my shoulders and into my hands. I was walking on the track, seemingly normal, but internally, I was in a state of crisis.
This would begin a three week span of fear. Not a fear that comes from scary movies, or the dark – genuine fear. Thoughts that I was going to pass out and never wake up. It got extremely difficult to go anywhere. I would force myself to go to class, but just simply sitting in a room with thirty other people made my heart palpate deeply. When my day would end, I would rush to my car to end this cycle of faulty lungs and a beating chest. I would stare directly into the ground and count out my breathing simply to stop myself from nearly passing out. This went on for a while longer – around two weeks. I rushed to my car every day to avoid the catastrophe I had no proof would happen.
Finally, the week of my confirmation came. I did not want to force any type of expectation onto the moment, and thus, God. I felt that if I created a scenario where my anxiety would disappear, I would be stealing from God rather than entering a place to call home. No person would enter a house for the first time and begin demanding things. On that Tuesday before the Easter Vigil, I would order a copy of Confessions by St. Augustine of Hippo. I had an inkling that he would be my patron saint, but I was unsure – until I began to read. Augustine was someone similar to me – or rather I to him. He was introspective, and existential, and fueled by desire. Ultimately, that desire would consume him, and thus, he would pledge his life to our Lord, Jesus Christ. In the midst of my anxiety, and with reading this great book, I was confronted with a path: I could either allow this to consume me, or I could begin to understand it. I put a lot of my desire into becoming a great writer, a strong husband, and a devout Catholic. Each of those things I was not at the time. I had only just succeed in publishing my first piece, I was nowhere near a committed relationship, and I was not even confirmed yet. What I had done for the last five years was create restlessness. I spent hours and hours and hours writing manuscripts that were too self-indulgent, or leaned too much into things I didn’t fully understand – so they would be left unfinished. I would desire a family of my own, a woman to love, but the snare of lust was wrapped around my heart. I would search for truth, find it in the Catholic Church, and attempt to live out a life I knew nothing about. To summarize: I was trying to be everything I was not.
As a five-year process of re-creating myself drew toward completion, I did not see that the process was unfolding in real time, I just expected these things to come. I wanted the fruits of being devout without understanding what being devout meant. While reading Confessions, I confronted myself with this. I knew that I would undoubtedly fail at achieving my goals if I did not change. But my reluctance to change is what caused this anxiety in the first place. I desired worldly things so heavily. To hold something in my hand rather than being content with the things I already have. To have an image of someone that can place words on paper so elegantly that it feeds me for the remainder of my life. To hold someone closely and know they want the same thing.
After deep thought, lots of reading, and an enormous amount of prayer, I came to a conclusion: The only thing I truly desire is control. I realized this because of a single line written in St. Augustine’s autobiography. He writes, “our hearts have no rest until they rest in thee.” In my failure to understand my own desire, I had fueled a restlessness for which Christ was the only possible, albeit unexpected, cure. In reading that, I began to understand everything I was facing. The anxiety, the desire, the fear of failing. My desire was not wrong, nor was it un-holy; but it was way in which I chased it – the way I would cling to it like it was the only thing that could save me. “If I can just get a second piece published,” is what I would tell myself. “If only she would notice when I looked at her,” is what I would say while at campus. “Only if I could receive the Eucharist,” I would cry out. I saw these things as salvation itself. I would have no rest until I truly rested in Christ – something that I claimed to already do.
Two days before my confirmation I thought long and hard about how I would fix these desires and align them with God’s divine providence. How I could shift them to fit a narrative that God would find fitting; but by doing that, I would be falling right back into the trap of control. What I decided to do, on the day of my confirmation, was to release every desire I had. I no longer wanted to be a writer, a husband, a father, or a good Catholic. I wanted God to place what was supposed to be on my heart inside me. My filthy and defiled hands and spirit could not mend the life I wished, so I allowed the mending hands of God to fix what I had built. He would either destroy it, or enhance it.
On April 3rd, 2026, around 9 P.M, at St. Ann’s Catholic Church, in a small town in Missouri, I was baptized and confirmed into Christ’s church. The moment itself was fast, but looking back on it with some kind of retrospect, it felt like an eternity. Standing in line, waiting for the calming waters of Christ’s mercy to be poured over my head; kneeling with my sponsor’s hand firmly on my left shoulder; the rubbing of anointed oil on my forehead, which had a soothing smell. One that you don’t forget for a lifetime. Father Kevin Drew confirmed me into the Church, and with his calm hands, I am now called Rocky Augustine.
While receiving the sacraments, I felt nothing. I approached confirmation with complete humility. A removal of pride that before would have expected supreme writing ability, or a woman to enter my life, or to instantly be beatified – but I had nothing. After saying my vows and having hands laid on me, I would return to my seat. Once the confirmations had ended, it was time for Father Drew to prepare Holy Communion. As I heard the words, “Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sins of the world; blessed are those called to the supper of the Lamb,” spoken, I knew that with the culmination of my journey into confirmation, another, larger journey was just beginning.
I eagerly awaited my first communion. Kneeling in my pew, I was frantically wiping my face, swallowing my spit, and popping my fingers. I was in the second row, and with the vast amount of visitors, I would be second in line to receive. I stood up, shuffled my way toward the aisle, and began my march. I knelt down, and watched as Father Drew fed the people to my right. He stood in front of me and said, “Corpus Christi.” He placed the consecrated host on my tongue, and I had received the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ for the first time. I raised myself up, made the sign of the cross, and gnawed. I didn’t know what to think at first. I didn’t know what it was supposed to taste like, feel like, or really how to react. I returned to my seat and began to think. The service ended, but I remained kneeling. I prayed to God to place me on the path that he thought was right, that would not cause me turmoil, but only allow me to avoid creating desires that did not allow me to trust and rest within him. That if it be his will, I continue to write, chase the vocation of marriage, and learn to be devout while doing those things. I prayed to him to use me in ways I couldn’t imagine, ways that I couldn’t conceive so that I would not be able to place my own worldly desire within it. In that moment, as I made the sign of the cross to finish my prayer, I felt peace. No despair, anxiety, or anger – simply peace. My shoulders felt light, my ears empty of noise. I stood up and realized that I was afforded the rest I didn’t know I desperately needed.
I returned home that night with that same peaceful feeling. I wrote in my journal, “I thank you God for the rest. The moment within this place in time that I can allow my shoulders to fall, my feet to feel light, and my mind to be silent. I know this will not last forever, and I am thankful for that – because I know that you will place me where I am needed, and for that Lord, I am thankful.” I have no desire to know where I am going, what I will be doing, or who I will be doing it with. What I desire is to understand the Lord, his beautiful plan, and what I need to do to fulfill it. I rest in knowing the Lord will place my feet where he needs them to be.
