The Church of Sant’Agostino

Saint Augustine

A man of deep feeling and faith, profound intelligence and untiring pastoral care, Saint Augustine is considered one of the great Fathers of the Latin Church. He was the author of numerous works, so many that his first biographer, Possidius, was amazed that one man was able to write so many things in his life. His theological, mystical, and philosophical writings helped lay the foundations of Christian thought and are still today a point of reference for many scholars. In particular, the Confessions, his most famous work, are a splendid spiritual autobiography written in praise of God.
The indelible mark Saint Augustine left on western culture and on the entire world has made him known, at least by fame, even to those who know have not heard about Christianity or are not familiar with it.
Saint Augustine was born in Africa, at Thagaste, on 13 November 354 into a family of small landowners. Even though he received a religious education from his mother, Monica, a passionate woman and a fervent Christian, he led a “wretched and abominable youth,” marked by a long moral crisis and dominated by a restless search for pleasure. Only after reading Cicero’s Hortensius did he discover a passion for philosophy, initiating his path to conversion. Not finding satisfaction in reading the Holy Scriptures, Augustine sought truth in Manichaeism, an Eastern religion founded in the third century AD by Mani, which was based on the fundamental principle of duality, that is to say the opposition between the two divine principles of good and evil.
Very soon he understood that the truth he was so avidly seeking did not lie in Manichaeism, which was strongly anti-Catholic. After moving to Rome, where a very serious illness brought him to the threshold of death, he went to Milan to take a position as professor of rhetoric. His time in Milan was crucial for his conversion, for there he was able to hear the preaching of Saint Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, and above all to spend time with the elderly priest, Saint Simplicianus, who had prepared Ambrose himself for the bishopric. The encounter with Ambrose would be important for his journey to faith, because it was through his words and teachings that Augustine opened up to the light of Christian faith, as the only path to truth. After being baptized by Ambrose himself, he decided to return to Africa, consecrate himself totally to God, and live in a monastic community. Even though wanting to live a life completely made up of prayer, penance, and study, once he reached Hippo he was forced to accept the priesthood by the will of the people, which was considered to be the will of God. His activity brought forth rich fruit: he moved his monastery to Hippo and laid the foundation for a renewal of the customs of the clergy by writing his Rule, adopted as a model in the thirteenth century by the Order of Augustinian hermits. In 396 he was appointed Bishop of Hippo, becoming a point of reference for the entire Church of Africa. He devoted himself constantly to preaching, preparation of the clergy, organization of monastic life, and defense of the faith against heresy until his death from grave illness in 430, at the age of 76, during a siege by the Vandals. His body was taken to Cagliari by Bishop Fulgentius of Ruspe, around 508-517, together with relics of other African bishops. Around 725 his body was moved again to Pavia and placed in the church of San Pietro in Ciel d’Oro, not far from the sites of his conversion, by the Longobard king Liutprand, who had redeemed it from the Saracens in Sardinia.