Saint Augustine of Hippo (354-430)
Image Courtesy: Archbishop Jose Gomez
(Franciscan Media) Born in Tagaste (modern day Algeria) Augustine was the eldest of three siblings, a brother Nagivius and a sister Perpetua, his father Patritius (or Patricius) was a pagan with a bad temper and had a disdain for anything Christian (he would later in life become a Christian and was Baptized into the Church a year before his death) while his mother Saint Monica (Feast Day: 27 August) was a God-fearing Woman, that believed prayer would change lives and spent many years praying for her family.
Augustine a Christian by the age of 33, Priest by 36 and Bishop by the age of 41 many people know the biographical sketch of Augustine, one time follower of the Manichaeism heresy who later converted and became a Saint but to really get to know this man is a rewarding experience.
There quickly surfaces the intensity how Augustine lived his early years, abandoning his mother, his path in life away from God, later boarding a ship bound for Rome (an event that would serve God’s greater purpose) when Augustine left to become a teacher in the place he was destined to become Catholic and instruction of Bishop Saint Ambrose of Milan (Feast Day: 07 December) which turned his life around.
Augustine having earlier in his life being so deeply immersed in a cycle of pride, fathering a child out of wedlock and later disciple of Manichaeism heresy, it isn’t surprising that Augustine should have turned with a holy fierceness against the many demonic thrusts that were rampant in his day, which were truly decadent–politically, socially and morally.
Following Augustine’s conversion and Baptism soon after his mother Saint Monica died with the knowledge that all she had hoped for in this world had been fulfilled, Augustine returned to his hometown of Tagaste, “having now cast off from himself the cares of the world, he lived for God.”
Augustine would sell off his property donating the proceeds to the poor, founded a Monastery in Hippo where he would become a Priest in 391 according to Pope Benedict XVI and with a few companions began a Monastic life dividing his time in prayer, study and ministry. Four years later Fr. Augustine was Ordained a Bishop, following which he continued to deepen his study in Scripture, texts of the Christian tradition, ministered to the faithful, supported the poor and orphans, supervised the formation of the Clergy together with both the Men and Women Monasteries.
In more than 35 years of Augustine’s Episcopate, he exercised a vast influence in his guidance of the Catholic Church in Roman Africa and more generally in Christianity of his time, coping with religious tendencies and tenacious, disruptive heresies such as Manichaeism, Donatism and Pelaegianism which endangered the Christian faith, in the one God, rich in mercy.
Augustine entrusted himself to God everyday until the very end of his life which came on this date in 430 at the age of 76 as he calmly resigned his spirit to God. — Augustine, a man of tremendous gifts and vital personality, who had piloted the African Church through some of the worlds darkest years, never doubted the ultimate victory of that ‘most Glorious City of God.’
More here from EWTN
Related: For Today’s Bible Readings on the Memorial of St. Augustine, Visit: -USCCB