Great art Thou O Lord, and greatly to be praised: great is Thy power and infinite is Thy wisdom. " So begins chapter one of "The Confessions of Saint Augustine of Hippo" . A man of such influence that, as Time Magazine has observed, in each of the 16 centuries since his conversion, he has continued to exert a major intellectual, spiritual and cultural force.
" However, it is not just because of a sheer gift of intellect that the writer has been so well regarded. His life journey, although in due course triumphant, mirrors that of many who stumble along life's way, hoping to find meaning to their existence. Ultimately, we love Augustine because we see ourselves in him.
We relate to his struggles, his quest for purpose and understanding, and through his writings we discover along with him, the answers that he finally discovered. . .
. . .
in God. Augustine was born on November 13, 354 A. D.
to a middle class family, in Thagaste, a small town in North Africa, in the land that is now Algeria. His father, Patricius Augustinus was a pagan but his mother, Monica, was a devout Christian who persistently urged her faith on her children. Augustine had two siblings, a brother named Navigius and a sister, whom we know from tradition, as Perpetua.
Although his father lacked wealth, he was active in local government. He wanted his children to have a better life, and he was quite demanding of them. He wanted Augustine to become a man of culture.
But Augustine had a rebellious spirit which caused some estrangement between father and son. Determined, as she was pious, Monica, was relentless in her hope that Augustine would one day dedicate himself to God, even though her pleadings often fell on deaf ears. If Augustine would not listen to her, Monica would go to the One she was certain would not refuse her: God.
Augustine would later reflect on the love his mother showed through her unceasing and persistent prayers. lt was an example of virtue that would remain with him the rest of his life. Although he would eventually become known as an intellectual, the young Augustine detested his lessons.
Certain subjects he found to be too difficult and others, simply senseless. Finding games more interesting than his education, he was thrashed repeatedly in school. Augustine mused over this later in life: To secure a better education, Augustine was sent away at the age of twelve to Madaura, an old city about twelve miles away and pagan to the core.
There, he made friendships that would last a lifetime and for the first time, he fell in love with learning, especially the writings of the celebrated Roman poet, Virgil. Four years later, when he was sixteen, the tuition money ran out, and Augustine was forced to return home. For a year, his parents struggled to find the means of furthering his education.
Augustine, however, reveled in a prolonged time of liberty. he writes later in his confessions of his lust which Not surprisingly, his parents differed in their reaction to the change in their son's life. While his mother continuously admonished him, his father, womanizer that he was, seemed amused by Augustine's antics and fleshly interests.
While marriage was an option, neither of his parents wanted a hurried union. But being unchaste was not his only sin. Augustine went back home for a year.
The family had run out of money. So he had to stop his education and he moved back home. He ran with a rough crowd, back home, young boys and they would stay out late at night and get into trouble.
And one night they were out late and they stole pears from a neighbor's tree. They had no interest in eating the pears. The pears didn't taste good, they didn't look good, they weren't attractive in any way.
But they loaded up on these pears and then they went and threw them at pigs. To some this may seem like mere juvenile antics, but as Augustine wrote about it later in life, he considered it a sin most foul. Augustine spent several chapters in his confessions going over this event in his mind, meditating on it, and trying to figure out what was his motivation as they stole the pears, as they threw them at pigs.
And he concludes that they did it just for the delight of doing evil. His conclusion is that there is a certain depravity in a human being, that we are wounded by the effects of original sin and so we are weakened in our will and we have a tendency to take delight in things that are wrong. .
. Over time doing these evil actions becomes habitual, . .
. we have a tendency to do them, and we become vicious in this way. .
. This is a life-long struggle Augustine would conclude. All our life on earth is a trial, and it's a struggle to do good against the undertone of evil that is in ourselves, in our weakened wills.
Soon thereafter, his father Patricius took ill and died. But not before converting to Christianity. Monica's prayers and witness won over her husband in the end.
With no money to his name, it seemed Augustine's education had come to an end. But a certain Romanianus, a wealthy citizen of Thagaste, had taken notice of the young man's promise and his talent in literature. Thanks to this man's patronage, Augustine soon was bound for Carthage to further his studies.
lt was everything a young man from the country could dream of. The city was pagan. The goddess Tanit was worshipped.
Augustine wrote: While his interest in studies did not wane, the lures of Carthage overwhelmed the young man. His father dead and his mother far away, Augustine threw himself into the delights of the city. Recalling his mother's warnings, he wrote: Ignoring his mother's warnings, Augustine took on a mistress, something not uncommon in his day, and fathered a son: Adeodatus.
lt must be noted however that Augustine and his mistress were faithful to one another. It's possible that marriage would have been forbidden for them by law due to differences in social standing. lt was illegal at the time for people to marry outside their social class.
Regardless, his mother Monica did not look upon the union with much favor. Though the temptations of the flesh remained, he also became attracted to his studies. He studied rhetoric, mathematics, music and philosophy.
"My unquiet mind was altogether intent to seek learning" . At this time he discovered the teaching of the Roman philosopher, Cicero who extolled the virtues of wisdom and began to ponder how he might acquire it. But what was wisdom?
And what avenue could he take to pursue it? Through his teachers Augustine was exposed to many new ideas. Augustine was a religious seeker.
He was sincere in his desire to know the truth and he was open to anything. . .
so when Cicero awakened in him the desire for wisdom, he went looking for that wisdom in the place that seemed most natural to him, he went looking in the Holy Scriptures, he went looking in the Bible. But there was a problem; he expected it to be as beautiful as Cicero in the way that Cicero was beautiful. He expected it to have this learned eloquence, this gorgeous Latinity and it didn't have it, and it didn't have it.
The scriptures he was using at that time were translated into a rough Latin, a vulgar Latin so to speak, and they were filled with stories that were, that seemed kind of scandalous to him. The stories of the patriarchs taking concubines and multiple wives and committing adultery, Augustine was scandalized by these things, these rude stories of bad behavior in the ancient world and these were supposed to be our models in the faith? Unimpressed, the young seeker discarded the Holy Scriptures and sought for something more appealing.
At the time, there was plenty to choose from. The religious situation in the Roman world was complicated. Christianity had been legal for more than a half century and was thriving.
lt was the dominant religion in the empire but it was not the only religion in the empire. The temples of the old religion were still standing. They were no longer state subsidized but they were still standing and still in operation in most places.
Also, there were new and exotic religions coming form the Far East. Religions like Manicheism were arriving in Rome and enticing the locals with an exotic flavor. So the religious marketplace was pretty crowded, it was pretty noisy.
And there were many voices clamoring for the attention of a young seeker like Augustine. Founded by the Persian, Mani, Manicheism was an eastern religion that exalted reason, science and philosophy covered with a Christian veneer. Claiming to be an Apostle of Christ, he taught that Christ had not been born, had never become a man and had never died.
Mani hated the established Church and entered the scene with new so-called "truths" that lured seekers. Augustine was seduced into believing them. .
. . he was edified by the behavior of many of the Manichees he met because.
. . They were serious about living an ascetical life, a disciplined life, a moral life and that appealed to him because he wanted that kind of discipline.
. . Also they were seeking wisdom.
. . in classes that were held by these perfect men, these elect, the elite in the group and there's something really appealing about the promise of secret knowledge.
You know we're going to give you a secret. . .
something that nobody else knows and it's going to unlock all the mysteries of the universe. They made a promise like that, it was an ambitious promise. Having joined the Manichees, Augustine, now about 25 years old, returned to Thagaste to teach rhetoric taking his mistress and son with him.
His mother was horrified to hear of his Manichean affiliation and although her heart ached for her son, she did not allow him to set foot in her house. Not one to be put off, Augustine simply went to visit his patron, Romanianus, and lodged with him. Staying with Romanianus, Augustine was given every privilege and took advantage of them all.
Pursuing his ambitions, he won fame for his speeches. Encouraged by his success, he felt sure he was on the right path until, something happened that stopped him in his tracks. A close friend and one whom Augustine had converted to the Manichean religion, suddenly became very ill.
As he lay unconscious, his family feared his impending death, and they asked a priest to baptize him. Confused and stunned Augustine decided that he would question his good friend about his abandonment of the Mani faith. He never had the opportunity however, as two weeks later he received the news that his friend had died.
The death of so close a friend greatly affected Augustine and he sought consolation in his new faith. After all. .
. He plied his Manichee teachers with questions, most of which they were unable to answer to his satisfaction. "No matter," they explained.
While we may not be able to, Faustus. . .
he will put all your inquiries to rest! " Faustus was the leading Manichean of his day, so it was with great anticipation that Augustine approached him during one of the acclaimed teacher's visits. .
. . and he kept hearing this name of Faustus and it was always promised to him that, just save up your questions because Faustus will have an answer for all of these.
. . So, when he met him he was deflated, he was unimpressed because Faustus was not a learned man, he was a lot less educated than Augustine already was as a very young man, he wasn't well-read, he wasn't even very intelligent.
As a matter of fact, he asked the young Augustine if he would tutor him in literature so that he could learn a little bit more. Unimpressed and disillusioned, Augustine's interest in the Manicheans diminished. He later wrote: .
. . He continued to identify himself with the movement, but there was a great degree of disillusionment and even from that moment on a certain level of reserve, a certain degree of skepticism about what they were presenting to him.
The seeds of doubt had been planted and they were coming to flower in his soul over time. Soon after Augustine fell away from the faith, his mother began to pray in earnest. .
. and she sought spiritual direction from many churchmen. She went to one Bishop who himself had been a hero among the Manichees in his own youth.
But the Bishop refused to speak with Augustine: Because Monica prayed and she prayed intensely. She prayed with tears and that Bishop knew it. That Bishop was able to prophesy that Augustine would be saved.
For nearly three years, Augustine taught rhetoric in Carthage. Disgusted with the lack of discipline he saw in his students, he longed to get away. Soon, he came up with a plan.
Augustine went to Carthage to catch a ship to Rome. He intended to leave his past behind. He would be unfettered.
He would be free to pursue his ambitions, to pursue his desires. But there was a problem. His mother had followed him to Carthage.
She intended to go with him wherever he went. That was a problem. So he did something tremendously deceitful.
He installed her at a church, because he knew she would have a desire to pray in the Shrine of St. Cyprian, the great African martyr. There she spent the night in prayer.
Augustine told her, You wait here and Iím going to go and say farewell to a friend and then Iíll come back and pick you up and we'll go to Rome. " Instead, he boarded a ship and he left. Rome meant so much to Augustine.
He was proud of his heritage, he was a patriot and Rome was more than a city, it was a symbol of that cultural heritage, it was the city of Virgil, it was the city of Cicero. So much of what he had learned, what he had studied, what he had poured over, what he had inherited from his ancestors. lt must have been a great joy for him to get the job offer that came in when he had an opportunity to move on to Rome, to set up a school of his own, a school of rhetoric, and to take on students in that illustrious city.
. . .
He was still young enough to be an idealist. He thought things would be different across the sea, students would be different across the sea. They wouldn't be like the students in Carthage who were ill-behaved and ill-disposed to learn anything.
ln Rome the students would be disciplined. He found out in Rome that students were students. They were the same as they were in Carthage.
They were little interested in their studies. They were willing to take advantage of him though. They would attend the lectures; they would take advantage of the lectures.
They would boast that they had attended the lectures of a prestigious teacher but then the day that the tuition bill came due they wouldn't show up and they stopped showing up from that point. Augustine ended up being left with the bill, so to speak. Augustine had looked to Rome as the answer to all his problems.
Instead it turned into a great disillusionment. Nearly broke, weak in health and without a religious compass he felt lost. lt was precisely at this moment however, when the opportunity of a lifetime presented itself in the form of a new patron.
His patron here in Rome was Symmachus, a man from the senatorial family. A very important figure, Symmachus had a cultural agenda of his own. He wanted to return Rome to its former glory and to do that he thought Rome had to return to the traditional ways, the traditional religion, the worship of the gods of Ancient Rome.
Symmachus was advocating a return to state-sponsorship of the old Roman religion, he wanted to return the Altar of Victory and the sacrifices performed there and he thought this would be good for the welfare of the people. . .
. He was looking for allies and Augustine was a promising ally, a brilliant young intellectual, very eloquent, the best rhetorician of his age; and he would be in the employ of Symmachus. The seat of government at the time was in Milan.
The young emperor, 12 year old Valentinian ll ruled the empire through his mother, the empress Justina. Symmachus offered Augustine the chair of Rhetoric, in Milan: both a prestigious and influential position. lt was everything Augustine had ever dreamed of and he jumped at the opportunity.
As an orator, and as a teacher of rhetoric, Augustine had skills that were highly valued by the Roman people. He wielded a lot of influence-- especially in a place like Milan. He was the mouthpiece of the government.
He was the propaganda machine. He was the public relations industry that was getting the word out. If you wanted to tell the virtues of the emperor, Augustine was the man who would do it.
If you wanted to have him declaim on a military victory in a distant land, Augustine was going to do it. lt was a pivotal position in the city of Milan at that time. Back in Thagaste, Monica worried over her son.
She was aware of his proclivities and weaknesses and prayed for him fervently. . .
. Once she was widowed, Monica doted on him even more. She followed him wherever he went, and she intended to follow him to Rome.
She didn't succeed at that, of course, Augustine managed to leave her behind in Carthage and flee on his own to Rome. But that wasn't going to stick and eventually she found her way to his side in Milan. ln his new position, Augustine prospered both in influence and affluence.
Soon his mother joined him, delighted to be near her son and equally elated to be near the famous Bishop Ambrose. Ambrose was Bishop of Milan and held in high esteem by the people. Born into a respected and wealthy family Ambrose had been elected Governor, a position he held with integrity.
When a conflict arose between the Church and the Arian sect, Ambrose rushed to the scene to quell any disturbance. Noting he was probably the best person to rule over them, some people in the crowd began shouting " Ambrose, bishop! " Nearly the entire assembly took up the chant.
Refusing the title, Ambrose fled to a friend's house until his host received a letter from the Emperor praising the appointment. Ambrose' friend quickly turned him in and within a week Ambrose was baptized and confirmed as Bishop- a position he then took to believe was God's will. With the same dignity and sincerity with which he had governed the city, Bishop Ambrose took up his new responsibility.
He soon adopted an ascetic lifestyle and gave his wealth to the poor. Well educated and entirely devoted to the cause of the Church, Bishop Ambrose became known for his powerful sermons, something that Augustine envied. Prodded by his mother to inquire of Bishop Ambrose, Augustine relented.
While he resented his mother's continued interest in Christianity, he appreciated using his own position and his mother's inquiries to get to know the good Bishop better. . .
. So she used Augustine as a go-between bringing her religious questions before Ambrose, and Augustine would listen for Ambrose's answer, so that he could deliver it to his mother. He was edified by Ambrose's answers because they were very thoughtful.
Ambrose had thought these things through. Ambrose was grounded in philosophy the way Augustine was, but he had a wisdom about him and a peace, a serenity, that Augustine lacked. And he wanted it.
He wanted what Ambrose had. Augustine found in Bishop Ambrose just what Faustus lacked. Bishop Ambrose was both an intellectual and a Christian.
He was fascinated but not yet ready to embrace the good bishop's faith. When he got to Milan, he found himself in the midst of a new philosophical movement, this new kind of Platonism. .
. . Rediscovering Plato for a new world, a new age and they were very excited about it and this movement included many, many great minds.
Neo-Platonism was a revival of the ancient philosophy of Plato. Many intellectuals of Augustine's time found it attractive because it was open to religious ideas and experience. Milan was a great center of Neo-Platonist thinking and some of it philosophers were Christians.
Ambrose used the language and categories of Neo-Platonism in his own theology and preaching and this had a profound influence on Augustine. So when Augustine arrived in Milan he very naturally gravitated toward the company of this movement and he was very excited by what was going on. and he was attracted by the figure of Ambrose, who was able to work with such great ideas, and yet, was so confident in his Christianity, was so at peace with himself.
Just imagine a figure like that, a slightly older man, maybe fourteen years older than Augustine, to come into your life. If there was one person in the entire Roman Empire who could spar with Augustine, it would be Ambrose. .
. . And so he gets to know Ambrose, very cautiously, very hesitantly, but he draws closer to Ambrose.
While Monica was pleased with Augustine's interest in Bishop Ambrose and his teachings, she was equally aware that her son was rising up the social ladder. lt was time for him to take on a legitimate wife. Augustine's concubine was of a lower social standing.
There was no possibility of a marriage. lt was legally impossible. So his concubine was sent back to Africa and Monica began to arrange a marriage for him, with a family that was more of their standing.
. . .
it seemed brutal to Augustine at the time, but necessary. He understood why it had to be done. The concubine had a certain nobility, and a certain dignity that was inspiring.
ln a sense, she was more mature than Augustine at that point. She said that she was leaving, that she would always love him, and that she would never love another man. According to tradition, she went to North Africa and she lived as a celibate.
She found herself a community and lived as a servant of God from that point on. She became a role model for Augustine, and it took the broken heart, in a sense, to heal his heart forever. Brokenhearted yet submissive to the change, Augustine's attention was soon diverted by a very difficult situation.
The empire was ruled, at least nominally, by the boy emperor Valentinian ll. The real power behind the throne though was his mother, Justina. Justina ascribed to the Arian heresy.
Arians did not believe that Christ was co-eternal or co-equal with the God, the Father. The religion had spread even to the seat of Rome. Jerome wrote, "The world awoke to find itself Arian.
" There was a great struggle between the Arians and the Church. The Empress Justina wanted the Arians to dominate Milan - the seat of government. So she took a step to ensure this - a move she hoped would give her the upper hand.
The basilica in Milan belonged to the Church of Milan, whose bishop was Ambrose. Justina the queen mother, however, wanted it for her own purposes. For her own heresy really, the Arian heresy.
She intended to install her own bishop, her own priests in that basilica. The authorities first made the request of Bishop Ambrose. Not surprisingly, he declined and stood firm.
And so did the Empress. So Justina intended to close in on the basilica and take possession by military might. Ambrose created an act of civil disobedience.
He had his congregation occupy the basilica. They went in and they sang hymns. They chanted the psalms.
They remained there and listened to him exhort them, and preach to them, and teach them. Also in the basilica was St. Monica, the mother of St.
Augustine, and you can imagine her doing what she could to encourage the people there. lt was an act of courage. lt was an act of bravery because at any moment the soldiers outside could have received the order to close in and take no prisoners.
Bishop Ambrose was ready for that. ln a letter to a friend, he wrote: Well, it was a standoff. .
. the soldiers outside with Justina and the congregation inside with Ambrose. Iím sure Augustine was conflicted here because Iím sure that he saw that this maybe endangered him professionally and Iím sure he had friends on all sides of the dispute His mother was there in the church.
Ambrose was there in the church, so he had certain sympathies in that direction. but Iím sure there was a degree of fear too. I mean he could lose his mother and that's a very real fear, it's a very real threat at that time and if ever there was a man who loved his mother it was Augustine.
Barricaded inside the church, along with a large portion of Milan's populace, Bishop Ambrose stood his ground. He was a man ready to die for his convictions and it was precisely that conviction which stemmed the tide. The emperor called off the troops, and they backed away.
It's interesting; the emperor said to the troops, You would hand me over to Ambrose for judgment before you would hand Ambrose over to me. " So obviously, Ambrose had won the sympathy, even of the troops. So the standoff won.
lt was an act of civil disobedience, it could have gone very badly, like a lot of acts of civil disobedience, it could have ended in a lot of bloodshed, but it didn't . . .
. The soldiers did not move in. They backed off and the basilica returned to its rightful owners - the Church of Milan with Ambrose as its Bishop.
No doubt the situation impressed Augustine and he began to see Christianity in a new light. He sought Bishop Ambrose' help and received it. Remember when Augustine first was awakened to the possibility of wisdom, he felt that desire of wisdom he went first to the Bible and he wanted to find wisdom there and felt that he didn't .
Well Ambrose showed him that he just didn't look hard enough and he wasn't looking in the right way or for the right things and he showed him a way of reading the Old Testament and it made it possible for Augustine to engage the Scriptures as he had not been able to do before. Entranced by what he feels is God working in his heart, Augustine gets closer to the Christian faith. lt is interesting to note that in his writings, Augustine at one point declares himself a Catechumen- or convert to the Christian faith.
Augustine goes on to write, that when he informed his mother of this she did not "leap for joy" as he had expected. Monica replied that she had the assurance from God that before she died she would see him a full believer- not a partial one. While Augustine was on the path to conversion, he was not yet truly converted.
Augustine was at the pinnacle of his career as a professor of rhetoric in Milan, capital city, a place where he could wield a lot of influence not only on his field but on world events, when he makes the decision that he is going to retire from it all, get away from the rat race, and he is going to the countryside with a group of his friends. Having the use of a villa, they decide to dedicate themselves to the pursuit of truth through philosophy. Yet even in that setting something seems to be amiss.
Well things are going well, but I wouldn't say that everything is fine. Augustine describes himself still as soul sick, soul sick. He has everything, he's living in the peace of the countryside, he's got a nice house, a peaceful place where they can have conversations and they're pursuing philosophy, which is his great overriding interest in life.
So he has all of these things yet he's still soul sick. Augustine receives the visit of an officer from the Imperial Household, a fellow African and converted Christian, named Ponticianus. Having sat down prior to playing dominoes, Ponticianus notices a book on the table.
Ponticianus tells a story of two men he knew, men in the imperial service also, so men of accomplishment and both were engaged to be married. And they were out for a walk one day and they walked into a house occupied by celibate men who had given their lives to prayer and study of the sacred scripture. So they wandered into the house and they picked up a book there and they started reading it and it was the life of Saint Anthony by Saint Anthanasius of Egypt.
They started reading it and they found out about Anthony, who was a land owner and an heir, one day heard the gospel preached and had the impulse to give it all up and go out to the desert to live entirely for God, to live a life of prayer, to live a life of study and he acted on the impulse and he gave his life and that was the course of his entire life from then on and he lived to be over a hundred years old and he lived his life in solitude with God. They were so inspired by this they broke their engagements and both of them went off and joined a monastery. So Ponticianus tells this story and Augustine's there and he hears it and when the visitor leaves, Augustine begins to weep and he said, With all we have, with the education we have, with the opportunities we have.
These men in the Imperial service, they had so much less than we had, so much less philosophy, their minds weren't as refined as Augustine's was and as his companions minds were and yet, these men were going into the Kingdom ahead of Augustine, who was not even baptized at that point, and he began to weep. He said that up to that point his prayer to God had been "Give me chastity and continence but not yet. " He didn't want to give up the pleasures of the flesh.
And the finality of that held him back. He wanted chastity, he wanted continence because he wanted that relationship with God, but not yet. He kept deferring it, and deferring it, and yet he never knew satisfaction.
He never knew happiness. He never knew joy. He was soul sick because he was holding onto these trifles, these inanities, as he called them, these things that kept calling back to him from his memory.
Augustine often talks about the power of memory, how when we enjoy an elicit pleasure it remains in the memory and continues to give us a kind of pleasure, holding us back, holding onto us, keeping us from the thing that we really want in life and making us miserable. And there in that garden setting, that paradise out in the country with philosophers in conversation, having everything he had dreamed of, he was soul sick and he knew he had to change. It's important that we understand just how agitated he was.
He describes himself as tearing out his hair. He describes himself as hitting himself on the head. He knew that the storm was breaking inside him.
He needed to get away. He was about to start sobbing and he was embarrassed by that. So he went out and ran into the garden.
He said he put himself at a good distance from Alypius so that his sobs would not be heard. There, he threw himself down underneath a fig tree and he was crying when he heard a child's voice come from a distance, come from one of the nearby houses. And it said, "Tolle, Iege.
Tolle Iege" (Take up and read. Take up and read). And Augustine thought to himself, ls this a nursery rhyme?
ls this a child's game. . .
a jump-rope rhyme as we would use today? " And he racked his memory and he couldn't think of anything to correspond with to it and he thought this must be a sign from God. And he ran to the house.
He knew what he had to do. He went in where Alypius was sitting and there lay the letters of Saint Paul. He picked up the book and he opened and he read.
. . And at that moment, Augustine surrendered himself to God.
To his greater joy, Alypius joined Augustine in full commitment without any hesitation. Joyfully they went to Monica. And they carried on with great joy, anticipating their day of baptism.
By the late 4th century the church had a very established process of initiation. Becoming a Christian was not simply a quick choice by show of hands. Christians faced persecution and as such, the convert or catechumens needed to have a clear understanding of doctrine and what becoming a Christ-follower would demand.
Instructed by teachers, the catechumen would journey through the basics of the Christian faith, retracing the story of the fall and redemption. Although he had knowledge of many of these things Augustine took the form of a student once again and humbled himself to learn. His son Adeodatus, by now nearly 1 5 years old, joined him in conversion.
The instruction period could last up to six months. On the night of Easter vigil, leading up to the time of baptism, the bishop would read many readings from the Old Testament that told the entire history of Salvation in outline, the story of Abraham and Isaac, the story of Moses taking the people through the Red Sea, readings from the prophets leading up to the time of Christ and the Paschal Mystery, the mystery of Christ's passion and of his Passover and how those mysteries fulfilled all of those things that had been anticipated in the Old Testament. The bishop would open up these mysteries to the congregation and the people would be taken into the baptistery.
Augustine was baptized completely naked, he had to take off his clothing and go down into the waters and there the bishop would plunge you into the water three times in the name of the Father, and of the Son and the Holy Spirit and he would be baptized with that timeless formula, that formula going back to the beginning just as people are baptized today. And be brought up out of the waters and be given a new garment, a white garment, to symbolize this pure life that he was now living, this life of Christ, life in God. There's the purity of the garment to symbolize the taking away of all the sins of his past life, just imagine the joy Augustine must have known at that moment.
With his mother present, Augustine, his son, Adeodatus, and his close friend, Alypius were all baptized by Bishop Ambrose. Once can only imagine what a cherished moment this was for Monica, who had so fervently and faithfully prayed for the conversion of her son. Soon thereafter, a decision is made to return to North Africa.
Augustine and his companions began their journey home to Africa. They traveled down the boot of Italy and they made their way to Rome's port - Ostia by the Sea, Ostia on the Tiber. Here they hoped to catch a ship that would lead them home to Carthage.
There, they planned to establish a Christian community of servants of God. This is the ruin of the 4th century Christian basilica in the town of Ostia. This would have been the center of the Christian community of the church.
There was a school of catechumens here. We can be fairly certain that our group of Africans, Augustine, and Monica, their family and friends worshipped in this place. While waiting here in Ostia, Augustine and Monica and their companions took up residence in a comfortable house with a courtyard garden.
And Augustine tells us of a conversation he had with his mother as they were leaning out a window, looking at that beautiful garden. And they began to consider, what would be the life of the saints in heaven? They considered all the pleasures of the earth.
The decided that the joy of the saints was so great that none of these pleasure could compare. And they began to consider the heavens themselves. And then they went beyond the heavens, they said, to their own souls.
And they contemplated their own souls. And they went beyond that till they found themselves in the unmediated presence of God's Wisdom. .
. As a young man, Augustine had set himself the goal of pursuing wisdom when he had read Cicero's Hortensius. Here he was for a brief moment, a fleeting moment, in the presence of Divine wisdom and his mother was there too.
We call this the Ecstasy at Ostia because they were taken outside themselves - taken into God. Just a few days after their heavenly conversation, Monica suddenly fell ill. She took to her bed with a fever.
She lost consciousness and her sons rushed to her bedside. She came to and said, "Where was I? " and then she turned to them and saw them grieving and she said "You will bury your mother here.
" And Navigius must have started babbling and trying to console her saying, "No Mother, we'll take you back to Africa and you can die there and we will bury you with your husband. " That had been her wish. She said, "Listen to him talk.
How silly. " She was detached even from that wish of being buried with her husband. And she explained to them that she would die there and that it would not be a problem, that when the time came for our Lord to call her home, He would know where to find her.
"Nothing is far from God," she said. She was ready. She had made it clear that she was ready.
Her life's purpose had been fulfilled as she saw Augustine come to live the Christian life. When she breathed her last, it was Augustine, her eldest son who closed her eyes. He sang one of her favorite hymns, .
. . he sang a song that had been written by Ambrose.
And that comforted him and brought back his old feelings for his mother. lt brought him to a certain peace and that's where he remained. .
. grieving, but in peace. Augustine set out from these waters on the long voyage back to Africa.
He was starting something new in his life - a new community - something new for God, something new for the church. His ambitions had led him out of Africa. His vocation was leading him home.
Soon after his arrival, Augustine is beset with another heartbreak when his teenage son succumbs to sickness. Having found comfort in God however, he soon gets to work, setting up a Christian community where he hopes to have time to meditate and grow in God's word. After so long a search and so wearied a personal struggle, it is the culmination of everything he has ever longed for.
But God had other plans. Augustine didn't want that kind of complication in his life but one day he was attending a liturgy in Hippo and the people in the congregation knew that they were in need of priests and the bishop was preaching about this and the people decided they wanted Augustine to be one of their priests. So, and as sometimes happened in those days, they went and they took him, literally in hand, and dragged him up to the bishop and they presented him to the bishop as a man to be ordained to the priesthood for their church and the bishop accepted him as a candidate and ordained him.
So Augustine became first a priest of the diocese of Hippo, later Coadjutor bishop of Hippo, and finally bishop in this great port city in North Africa. Faced with the constant need of his ever-growing flock and the dangers of ever-growing sects and heresies, Augustine rises to the occasion as a faithful shepherd. With time, he pens over 1 ,000 documents that both help the body of believers to grow in faith as well as to keep their foundation pure from false teaching.
But Augustine did not confine himself to writing, using his God-given gift for rhetoric he debated and triumphed in debate with the Manichean, Fortunatus - a challenge he felt compelled to take up in order to repair the damage done by false teaching. Soon after that, Augustine faced an even greater threat- the collapse of the world, as he knew it. Barbarian hordes invaded mighty Rome in AD 410 and would eventually lay siege to Hippo years later.
lt was in a sense, the end of the civilized world as they knew it. Many of the people surmised that the gods were sending punishment because of the acceptance of Christianity and their insistence in belief of one God. ln response, Augustine penned one of his greatest works: The City of God.
So in the city of God, Augustine tried to look on what was permanent. What was permanent in this world? And he looked back to the beginning of history.
And he traced human history in all of the cultures, going down to his own day, to look at the progress of the "City of God" and the "City of Man" and what's enduring in the "City of God" on Earth? How do you recognize the "City of God" ? What characteristics does it have?
How do the citizens behave in the "City of God" ? That's what Augustine wanted to know, what he wanted to put out there for people. But as with many a prophet, some take heed and others do not.
Soon, the unthinkable happens and Rome falls. The people of the empire could not imagine a time when all those monuments, when all that grandeur, would be reduced to rubble and ruin. They could not imagine a time when they would walk down the streets and see columns standing in the middle of nowhere with no building to hold up.
They could not imagine such a time. ln the last years of Augustine's life, barbarian Vandals invaded North Africa and laid siege to Hippo itself. Poseidius, Augustine's biographer wrote that Augustine: .
. . lived to see cities overthrown and destroyed, churches denuded of priests and ministers, virgins and monks dispersed, some dying of torture, others by the sword, others captured and losing innocence of soul and body, and faith itself, in cruel slavery; he saw hymns and divine praises ceasing in the churches, the buildings themselves often burned down.
. . " Faced with such depredations, Augustine in his 78th year increased the time he spent in prayer and then on August 28, 420 AD he died in the presence of his friends.
Having no earthly possessions, Augustine left no will. His true legacy however, was the vast corpus of his writings: a treasure that would endure through the centuries. His work is at the foundation of Western Civilization.
His teaching belongs to the whole Church. Truly, his has been a voice for all generations.
