In
the beginning of his letter to the Church in Corinth, we hear Paul thank God
for the grace he has bestowed on the Christian community in Corinth, with the
testimony to Christ was confirmed within them. Then,
we hear the psalmist proclaim: “I will praise your name for ever, Lord.” I
mention these, because rather than coming from the lips of St Paul and our
psalmist, I can hear them coming out of the mouth of St Augustine, the saint we
celebrate today. Just
yesterday, we celebrated Augustine’s mother Monica, who always accompanied her
son with her prayers and love as she wished for his conversion to the Christian
faith. Little did Monica know that Augustine would become one of the great theologians
of our Catholic faith. Augustine was named one of the first four Doctors of the Church as declared in
1298. Besides Augustine, this group included St Gregory the Great, St Jerome, and St
Ambrose. In
fact, it was St Ambrose who took Augustine under his wing while Augustine was a
student in Milan and while he was searching for meaning in other non-Christian
philosophies. Augustine desired to devote his life to living as a monk after he returned home
to North Africa, but he was persuaded to become the Bishop of Hippo, a major
city of the Roman Empire in North Africa.
He held the post as bishop until his death in 430. Augustine’s works address almost every major issue in theology. One of his works that has had a great
influence on many is the Confessions, which addressed his life as a
pagan and his baptism and conversion to Christianity. In
fact, the popularity and influence of Augustine’s Confessions is said to
have given birth to the autobiography in the West. One
of Augustine’s well-known quotes from the Confessions is this: “Man is
one of your creatures, Lord, and his instinct is to praise you…. The thought of
you stirs him so deeply that he cannot be content unless he praises you,
because you made us for yourself and our hearts find no peace until they rest
in you.” AMEN.
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