SAINT AUGUSTINE'S SCHOOL

SAINT AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO

School Patron

​

Saint Augustine of Hippo, our patron, inspires us with the thought that a heart a FIRE with the love and GRACE of God, can never be at rest until God’s will has been fully accomplished.

 

Who is Saint Augustine?

 

AURELIUS AUGUSTINUS was born

in Tagaste, North Africa

on November 13, 354 AD

to PATRICIUS

A businessman, a landowner and town councilor &

    MONICA

A devout Christian mother.

 

Augustine was a student of brilliant talents and violent passions. Having been gifted with a high level of intelligence, he easily surpassed his peers in studies.

 

Raised in the paganism of his father, Augustine managed to continuously delay his baptism despite the insistence of Monica, his mother. Being a devout Christian, Monica brought Augustine up in the Christian faith and inspired on her young son’s mind the name of Christ and interest in his teachings.

 

Augustine was no born saint. In his bool entitled CONFESSIONS, he admitted that, he not only avoided baptism, but that, he also led a very sinful life. Augustine’s youth was a constant source of sorrow for his mother. He left for further studies in Rome, but things did not improve much. Later, he would say: “If we live good lives, the times are also good. As we are, such are the times.”

 

He persisted in his irregular life; however, this took on a new twist for the better, when he transferred to Milan, professing rhetoric, and met Ambrose (now St. Ambrose), bishop of Milan, who influenced him a great deal.

​

​

Because Augustine was highly intelligent, he became gradually convinced of the truth of Christianity. He told that the faith of his childhood had     regained possession of his intellect, but that he could not as yet resolve to break the chains of evil habit.

He would pray, in all honesty,

                                   “Lord, make me holy and not yet.”

Indeed, for him, “Patience is the companion of wisdom.”

 

One day, however, stung to the heart by the account of some sudden conversions, he cried out, “The unlearned rise and storm heaven, and we, with all our learning, for lack of heart, lie wallowing here.” He then withdrew into a garden, where a long and terrible conflict ensued. Suddenly, a young fresh voice, unfamiliar to him, broke in upon his strife with the words, “TOLLE, LEGE” — take and read. He opened a copy of the Bible and read the passage beginning, “Walk honestly as in the day.”

 

It took time before Augustine mastered his will to fully commit himself to the Christian faith. At 33, he receives baptism, returned home and gave all to the poor. In one of his famous lines, he says: “I have learned to love you late, beauty at once so ancient and so new.”

 

After the death of his mother (St. Monica), Augustine abandoned a worldly political career, which was then opening up to him. In 388, he returned to Africa where he intended to live a monastic life.

He was ordained as priest in 391, at the age of 37.

Circumstances, however, led him to being

Consecrated as bishop of Hippo in 395, at the age of 41.

 

For thirty-five years, he was the center of ecclesiastical life in Africa, and the church’s mightiest champion against heresy. He participated in       councils, preached endlessly and wrote many treatises about the Christian faith. His writings have been everywhere accepted as one of the principal sources of devotional thought and theological speculation and were to profoundly shape and affect Christian theology.

 

He religiously practiced the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience in the community. He himself said: “Order your soul; reduce your wants; live in charity; associate in Christian community; obey the laws; trust in Providence.”

​

​

Augustine died at Hippo on August 28, 430. This beloved saint, Saint Augustine, is the greatest of the early Fathers of the Western Church.

​

 

Do you wish to rise? Begin by descending.

You plan a tower that will pierce the clouds?

Lay first the foundation of humility.

 

- Saint Augustine

​

​

​