Tuesday, August 28, 2007 Diaz: Who is St. Augustine? By Cris Diaz
TODAY (August 28), Cagayan de Oro City celebrates the feast of its Patron Saint, Aurelius Augustinus, popularly known as St. Augustine of Hippo or St. Augustine was killed by Vandals and sired a son out of wed locked.
Augustine was born on November 12, 354 in present day Algeria. He is the eldest of the three children of St. Monica, a devout Christian who married the adulterous Patricius, a pagan.
Monica vowed in complete obedience and submission to Patricius' adulterous life without uttering a complaint. Although ill tempered, Patricius never ever beat Monica. Monica's saintly patience moved Patricius that he allowed Monica to convert him to Christianity.
Prior to his father's conversion to Christianity, Augustine himself lived a disturbed childhood.
Although raised by his mother as a Christian, Augustine was known in his early days as "heretic," someone who adheres to a belief contrary to the teachings of religious authorities. He was educated in Africa.
While in Milan, the largest city in Italy, Augustine had a concubine. His mother who followed him there arranged him marriage.
But he waited for two years to let his fiancée come of age. While waiting formal marriage, Augustine engaged another woman.
Augustine's conversion to Christianity was inspired by the life of St. Anthony of the Desert, leader of Christian monks in the Egyptian desert in the Third and Fourth Century.
At age 33, just before his mother Monica's death, Augustine, along with his son Adeodatus, was baptized as Christians. St. Ambrose baptized them.
On becoming a Christian convert, Augustine abandoned his career and quit his teaching post in Milan. He also gave up his intention to get marry. By then he devoted himself serving God and practiced priesthood, which included celibacy.
While strolling in a garden in Milan, Augustine heard a voice of an unseen child telling him to "take up and read" (the Bible). Augustine opened the Bible and read in random where he came upon "Epistle to the Romans" 13:13 which reads: ""Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying."
That incident has strengthened Augustine's Christian faith leading him to become one of the most important figures of Western Christianity.
When Augustine returned to Africa in 388, he sold all his properties and gave the money to the poor. Augustine, however, kept their ancestral house which he converted into a monastery and a foundation for his friends.
It was on his way, back to Africa that his mother Monica died. His son followed soon. In 399, Augustine was ordained as priest of Hippo.
In 430, the Vandals, an East Germanic Tribe, killed Augustine when they attacked and laid the town of Hippo under siege. The Vandals destroyed everything in the city except Augustine's cathedral and library. Augustine's body was later moved to Pavia, Italy where his remains are reportedly buried.
Pope Boniface VIII canonized Augustine in 1303 as "Doctor of the Church." St. Augustine's feast day is August 28, the day when he was killed circa 430.
He is the patron saint of printers, theologians, sore eyes, brewers and countless of cities and dioceses.
(Cris Diaz was awarded "Best in Column Writing" by the Rotary Club of Metro Cagayan de Oro, 2000. email column_ph@yahoo.com)
