Legaspi: St. Augustine

ONE of the doctors of the Church is St. Augustine and his feast day is celebrated August 28. He is also the father of religious monasticism and has developed a spiritual lifestyle that is being followed by many major and minor religious congregations all over the world. Many schools adopted the philosophy of St. Augustine.

In Bacolod, we have Colegio de San Agustin, La Consolacion College, which embrace the philosophy of “Virtus et Scientia”, and the University of Negros Occidental – Recoletos which embraces the “Caritas et Scientia”.

Let us have a look at the life of At. Augustine. He was born in Thagaste in Numidia (now Algeria) in 354 to Patricius and St. Monica (Feast day 27). His real name was Aurelius Augustinus. St. Monica, who was a Christian, unceasingly prayed for the conversions of Patricius and Augustine. St. Augustine lived a secular life like all other children in their place. He studied the classics and joined his friends in doing what teenagers did during their time. In 371, he felt very in love with a girl whose name was never mentioned in any of his books and any biographies written for him. After a year, their affair bore them a son, Adeodatus and in the same year, Patricius died a Christian.

St. Augustine became a “hearer” of Manichaeism. This was a gnostic religious system based on a fundamental concept of the duality of light and darkness. Goodness was thought to be manifested in what belongs to the realm of light: knowledge, spirit, and soul. Evil, or darkness, was viewed as connected to ignorance, matter, and the body. Redemption was to be achieved through special, intuitive knowledge and through moral practices that included abstinence from meat, wine, and sex for those who were fully initiated. While with the group, Augustine read Cicero’s Hortensius and this opened his mind to the beauty of Christian philosophy.

In 384, the prayers of his mother were answered that St. Augustine became a catechumen of the Catholic Church and was converted after listening to the beautiful homilies of St. Ambrose. In 386, Augustine began to feel his heartburn in his breast with the power that the call to a life of renunciation was exerting on him. It was in this year that he heard the voice of an unseen child telling him “Tolle et lege” (pick-up and read). He opened the Bible and the word of God through St. Paul pierced his restless heart.

In 387, St. Monica died and St. Augustine grieved severely for the loss of his mother. In the last part of his “confessions”, he asked that his parents be included in prayers with devout affections. In 388, he established his first monastery in Thagaste with his friends. In 390, his grief over the death of his son, Adeodatus, forced him to go to Hippo and there he found another community. Because of his piety and great faith in God, he was ordained priest in Hippo. His God-given wisdom, he lectured on “Creed and faith to the bishops. He also fought against the doctrines of Donatism. In 395, he was made assistant Bishop of Valerius of Hippo. In 396, upon the death of Valerius, he was ordained Bishop of Hippo.

In 410, a heresy was born and this was authored by Pelagius, a monk. With Donatism and Pelagianism, St. Augustine fought hard and soon in separate document, Rome declared these two as heresies. On August 28, 430, Augustine died after suffering a fever for several days. Bound as a father to his family, the bishop of Hippo stood firm until the end while his entire world and life’s work were destroyed in the violence around him.

Though Hippo was partly burned, the library of Augustine was preserved from destruction. It contained much of what he felt and believed and has been handed down to us as our priceless inheritance. It comprised some 100 books, 240 letters, and more than 500 sermons. Among the famous works of St. Augustine were “The Confessions”, “De Trinitate” and “De Doctrina Cristiana”.

St. Augustine, pray for us.

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