St. Augustine of Hippo

Augustine's life is the story of a restless heart conquered by grace. Brilliant and ambitious, he spent his youth divided by sensual desire, intellectual pride, Manicheism, and the pursuit of public success. His mother Monica prayed and wept for him, while the preaching of St. Ambrose in Milan gradually loosened the hold of his old errors. Intellectual light alone could not heal his will. The witness of converted Christians and the life of St. Antony pressed the struggle toward its crisis.

In the garden, Augustine heard a childlike voice say, “Take up and read.” He opened the epistle of St. Paul and found the command that broke his last resistance. Ambrose baptized him, and the converted sinner began a life wholly turned toward God. Augustine was later ordained a priest and became bishop of Hippo, where he poured himself out in preaching, writing, governing, caring for the poor, forming clergy in common life, and guiding ordinary Christians with practical pastoral wisdom.

His larger battles served the same conversion. Augustine defended the Church against Donatism and Pelagianism and answered pagan attacks after the sack of Rome in The City of God. Yet the great teacher never ceased to be the penitent who had confessed his sins openly. His genius became fruitful because mercy had first remade the man.