† Saints
St. Augustine
Bishop, Confessor and Doctor of the Church
"Doctor of Grace"
"The great luminary of the West"
"If you want to receive the life of the Holy Spirit,
Preserve charity, love of truth and desire the unity
to reach eternity. "
"Late have I loved you, beauty so old and so new ... Late have I loved!
You were within me and I were ..., and out looking for you ... ".
"You made us, Lord, for you and our hearts
be dissatisfied until they rest in Thee ... ".
"The measure of love is love without measure ...".
St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430), is the largest of the Fathers of the Church and one of the most eminent doctors of the Western Church, was born in 354 in Tagaste (now Algeria).
His father, Patricius, a pagan of some wealthy social station, which after a long and virulent resistance to faith, towards the end of his life he converted to Christianity. Monica, his mother, a native of Africa, was a devout Christian, born to Christian parents. The widowed, was devoted entirely to the conversion of her son Augustine. The first thing taught his son Augustine went to pray, but after seeing him enjoy those holy lessons suffered seeing as I was turning away from the truth until his spirit was infected with the Manichean errors, and his heart, with the customs of the Rome dissolute. "Night and day praying and moaning with more tears than other mothers would shed beside the coffin of their children," he wrote later in his admirable Confessions Augustine. But God could not allow to be lost forever a son of so many tears. Monica died at Ostia, the port of Rome, the year of 387, assisted by his son.
Youth and studies
Augustine was educated as a rhetorician in the North African cities of Tagaste, Madaura and Carthage. Between 15 and 30 years lived with a Carthaginian woman whose name is unknown, with whom he had a son in 372, called Adeodatus, which in Latin means gift of God.
Intellectual Strife
Inspired by the treaty Hortensius of Cicero, Augustine became an ardent seeker of truth, which led him to study various philosophical. For nine years, 373 to 382, adhered to Manichaeism, Persian dualistic philosophy, widely held at the time of the Roman Empire. Its fundamental principle is the conflict between good and evil, Augustine and Manichaeism seemed a doctrine that seemed to explain the experience and gave appropriate responses on which to build a system of philosophy and ethics. Moreover, its moral code was very strict; Augustine later recalled in his Confessions: "Give me chastity and continence, but not now." Disillusioned by the impossibility of reconciling certain contradictory principles Manichaean, Augustine, and decides to abandon the doctrine of skepticism. In 383 he moved to Carthage to Rome, and a year later he goes to Milan as a teacher of rhetoric. There Neoplatonists moves in circles. They also met the bishop of the city, the great Ambrose, ecclesial figure most renowned for holiness and knowledge of the time in Italy. Ambrose received him with kindness and illustrated in the divine sciences. So, little by little, reborn in Augustine a new interest in Christianity. Her mind, so prodigious, and curiolsa inquita, discovers the truth that had eluded him so far, however, wavered in its commitment to weaknesses of the flesh, because he knew he feared would commit to reform his dissolute life, and leave behind many both tastes and pleasures that attract him. Often prayed, "Lord, give me chastity, but not now." But one day, by his own account, he heard a voice, like a child, telling him: Tolle et legge (take and read). But, realizing that he was all alone, he thought inspiration of heaven and divine exhortation to read the Scriptures. He opened it and read the first passage that appeared randomly: "... do not give your members as weapons of unrighteousness to sin, but rather Present yourselves to God as those who, dead have returned to life, and give your body to him as instruments justice. For sin shall not have dominion over you and because you are not under law but under grace "(Rom 13: 13-14). Augustine's when you decide, and without reservation, is delivered in soul and body to God, according to His law and explaining it to others. At 33 years of age receive holy baptism at Easter 387. His mother had moved to Italy to be near him, was filled with great joy.
Augustine, and turned, prepared to return with her mother to their homeland in Africa, and together they went to the port of Ostia to wait for the boat. But Monica had already received from God wanted most in life and could die in peace. It happened to be there in a house by the sea, at night, as the two chatted under a starry sky waiting joys in heaven, Monica excitedly exclaimed: "And to me that I can tie up more land? I've got my great desire to see you a Catholic Christian. All I wanted what I got from God. " A few days later I felt a fever and died. Asking his son died "to remember her at the altar of the Lord". He died in 387, at 55 years of age.
Bishop and theologian
Augustine returned to North Africa and was ordained a priest in 391 and consecrated bishop of Hippo (now Annaba, Algeria) in 395, at age 41, a position he held until his death. It was a period of political upheaval and theological barbarians threatened the Roman Empire even to sack Rome in 410, and the schism and heresy internally threatened the unity of the Church. Augustine enthusiastically undertook theological battle and brilliantly refuted arguments blaming pagans to Christianity by the ills affecting Rome. Manichean heresy fought and participated in two major religious conflicts, one against the Donatists, a sect which maintained that were invalid sacraments administered by priests into sin. The other, against the Pelagians beliefs, followers of an era British monk who denied the doctrine of original sin. During this conflict, which lasted for a long time, Augustine developed his doctrine on original sin and divine grace, divine sovereignty and predestination. His arguments about divine grace, he won the title by which it is also known, Doctor of Grace. The Augustinian doctrine was between the extremes of Pelagianism and Manichaeism. Against the doctrine of Pelagius held that man's spiritual disobedience had occurred in a state of sin that human nature was incapable of change. In his theology, men and women are saved by the gift of God's grace. Against Manichaeism vigorously defended the role of free will in union with grace.
Hippo Augustine died on August 28 of the year 430.
Works
The importance of St. Augustine among the Fathers and Doctors of the Church is comparable to that of St. Paul among the Apostles. As a prolific writer, apologist and brilliant stylist. His best known work is his autobiography Confessions (400), which recounts his early years and his conversion. In his great apologetic work The City of God (413-426), made a theological philosophy of history, and compares it with the city of God, the city of man. Of the twenty-two books of this work ten are devoted to arguing about pantheism. The remaining twelve books dealing with the origin, purpose and progress of the Church, which considered timely successor of paganism. His other writings include the Epistles, of which 270 are in the Benedictine edition, dated between 386 and 429, his treatises De libero discretion (389-395), De doctrina Christiana (397-428), De Baptism, Against Donatists (400-401), On the Trinity (400-416), De natura et gratia (415) Retractions (428) and homilies on various books of the Bible.
(Information compiled from various sources)
St. Augustine and the child
The history of St. Augustine with the child is known by many. It arises from long dedicated this great saint and theologian to reflect on the mystery of the Holy Trinity, of how three different people could be one God.
The story goes that while Augustine was walking along the beach one day, thinking about the mystery of the Trinity, he met a boy who had made a hole in the sand with a shell hole filled with seawater. The boy ran to the shore, shell filled with sea water and the water deposited in the hole he had made in the sand. Seeing this, St. Augustine stopped and asked the boy why he was doing, to which the little boy said he tried to drain all the water from the sea into the hole in the sand. Listening to him, Augustine told the boy that was impossible, to which the boy replied that if that was impossible, the more impossible it was still trying to decipher the mystery of the Holy Trinity.
Prayer
Renew, Lord, your Church the spirit instilled in St. Augustine for that, imbued with the same spirit, we thirst for Thee, the fountain of wisdom, I seek the only true love and follow in the footsteps of such a great saint. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Prayer for Vocations
Glorious Father Augustine, who opened a path of surrender to God
to discover the beauty of religious life, grant me to me, I think also called by Him, to clearly see my way, help me to be faithful to the divine vocation, that considers the full value, people fleeing and things that can rob me, that is very generous today to say yes on my total dedication. Amen.
St. Augustine! Pray for us! And by all Augustinians, Augustinian (www.emmerick.org nuns) and the Augustines and Augustine (who are named)
Complete Works of St. Augustine, Doctor of the Church (we recommend starting with "Confessions")
