Saint Augustine
Saint Augustine’s story is one of discovery through prayer. His mother was also a saint—Saint Monica. Monica had a difficult marriage and family life. After overcoming a struggle with alcohol early in her marriage, she devoted herself to Christ and to her family, becoming a model of charity. Her prayers, persistence, and unwavering charity played a central role in Augustine’s conversion.
Augustine was born in Tagaste, present-day Souk Ahras, Algeria, North Africa. He was the oldest of Monica’s three children who included a younger brother and sister. His father, Patricius (Patrick), was not wealthy but had civic responsibilities in his city, which was part of the Roman Empire. Patricius was a pagan, known for his violent temper and immoral lifestyle. He converted shortly before his death due to his wife’s prayers and witness.
Patricius refused to allow his children to receive baptism, despite their mother’s pleas. Nevertheless, Monica ensured their catechetical formation from an early age, as well as an education in the classics. Monica’s faith instilled within Augustine an awareness of Christ his Savior, but that awareness never fully penetrated his young mind. Instead, he became a troublemaker. He later recounted in his Confessions, “I loved my own undoing. I loved my error—not that for which I erred but the error itself…seeking nothing from the shameful deed but shame itself. It was a love of sin.”
Augustine excelled in his studies in his hometown, so his proud father decided to send him to the thriving nearby city of Carthage to continue his education, once he could find someone to pay for it. This took several months, and Augustine’s idleness during that time only led him into greater mischief. A wealthy citizen of Tagaste offered to sponsor Augustine’s education after Patricius died. By the time Augustine had arrived in Carthage, he was ripe for a life of sin. Many of the other students lived immorally, the theaters stirred up his passions, and he became intoxicated by his literary successes.
Shortly after his arrival, Augustine moved in with a young woman and fathered a child out of wedlock. When he was nineteen, he read a book that would begin to change his life: Cicero’s Hortensius. Although that book is now lost to history, it extolled the virtue of wisdom. Reading it awakened a hunger for truth within Augustine, which he began to pursue earnestly.
Unfortunately, at this time he started doubting his Christian faith, primarily due to his struggles with the Old Testament, which he perceived as violent and confusing. He was exposed to the religious philosophy of Manichaeism, which claimed to have discovered secret knowledge and supported Augustine’s view that the Bible had contradictions. Manichaeism viewed reality as a struggle between light and darkness, good and evil, and regarded the created world as part of the dark side, aiming to trap us in darkness. This new religion influenced Augustine, and he explored its teachings in the hope of discovering the wisdom they promised. Several years later, he abandoned them altogether, especially after meeting their leader, Faustus, who proved disappointing and lacking true wisdom.
When Augustine completed his studies in Carthage around the age of nineteen, he returned home to Tagaste with his girlfriend and son and began teaching grammar at a local school. When he told his mother he was considering becoming a Manichaean, she threw him out of her house, later reconciling with him due to divine inspiration she received. Augustine was so successful as a teacher that he was invited back to Carthage a few years later to teach rhetoric. After several successful years, he received an invitation to Rome, which was a great honor. When he informed his mother, she insisted on accompanying him. However, Augustine tricked her and left for Rome without her. In Rome, he became disillusioned with students who cheated him out of tuition fees. After a few years, he accepted a position in Milan. It was in Milan, when Augustine was thirty years old, that his mother finally caught up with him and witnessed his conversion.
Still searching for the truth, Augustine met the future saint, Bishop Ambrose of Milan. Ambrose was a great thinker and preacher. He also paid attention to Augustine, listening to him, offering him friendship, and answering his many questions. Ambrose introduced him to the proper reading of the Bible, especially helping him with his difficulties with the Old Testament. When Ambrose came into conflict with Empress Justina, who was trying to take his cathedral and impose Arianism, Ambrose stood his ground with great courage and defiance. She ultimately backed down, and Augustine was greatly impressed.
One day while sitting in a garden, Augustine heard a child’s voice say to him, “Take and read.” Although he didn’t know where the voice came from, he picked up the Bible next to him and randomly opened to Romans 13:13-14, which read, “…let us conduct ourselves properly as in the day, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in promiscuity and licentiousness, not in rivalry and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the desires of the flesh.” This passage affected him so deeply that he resolved to convert without delay.
Augustine spent time with good Catholic friends and engaged in lengthy discussions, which helped him immensely. His mother’s presence was also a great support. Although she was uneducated, her wisdom and insight into the truth were undeniable, and she always held her own with her well-educated son. All of this, coupled with Monica’s tearful prayers, led the thirty-two-year-old Augustine to finally convert. Augustine and his son were baptized by Bishop Ambrose during the Easter Vigil in 387. Shortly after, Monica fell ill just outside of Rome and died. Augustine later recounted her passing in the Confessions, one of the most beautiful depictions of a mother and son’s love ever written.
Upon returning to Tagaste, Augustine formed a religious community with his friends. His reputation within the Christian community grew quickly, and their hometown genius who had become a Catholic became a source of hope for many. By acclamation of the people, Augustine became a priest in 391 and was consecrated as bishop of Hippo in 396. During his forty-three years as a Christian, Augustine became one of the greatest theologians, if not the greatest, in the history of the Church. His pastoral work, regular sermons, and attentiveness to the people’s needs profoundly impacted their lives.
Augustine’s voluminous writings remain among the most read and quoted texts today. His works include apologetics, sermons, letters, scriptural commentaries, a monastic rule, and philosophical and theological treatises. His greatest work, Confessions, is autobiographical, deeply personal, and humble, tracing his conversion with profound theological insights. In City of God, he refutes claims that Rome’s fall was due to a rejection of pagan gods and instead contrasts the city of man with the city of God, calling society to its true ideals.
In his final year, Augustine witnessed the destruction of Hippo as barbarians invaded. Though they could destroy buildings, they could not erase his lasting impact. His influence extends far beyond the Church; he has profoundly shaped Western thought.
Augustine’s Letter to Proba
Anicia Faltonia Proba was a wealthy and influential noblewoman from the esteemed Anicii family, one of Rome’s great senatorial dynasties. She was married to Sextus Petronius Probus, a powerful Roman official who served as praetorian prefect under multiple emperors.
By 395, she was widowed. As a devout Christian noblewoman, she used her wealth and influence to support the Church and corresponded with leading Christian figures, including Saint Augustine and Saint John Chrysostom.
Following the Sack of Rome in 410, Proba fled to Africa with her daughter-in-law and granddaughter. In North Africa, she suffered persecution under Heraclian, the Roman governor, who imprisoned her family and released them only after receiving a large ransom. Having taken refuge in Augustine’s diocese, she sought his spiritual guidance, particularly on how to pray. By the time Augustine responded (c. 412–413), Proba had devoted herself to a life of Christian piety and generosity. This request led to his famous response, Letter 130, in which he provides one of the Church’s most profound teachings on prayer.
Saint Thomas Aquinas
Among the greatest intellectuals in the history of the Church, Saint Thomas Aquinas rises far above the rest. He is not only a Doctor of the Church but is given the titles Angelic Doctor, Common Doctor, and Universal Doctor. It is difficult to understate the impact that Saint Thomas has had on the Church’s doctrine and intellectual understanding of the faith.
Thomas was born in a grand castle in central Italy near the town of Aquino. His father was a nobleman, a knight in the army of the Emperor Frederick II. Thomas began his studies when he was only five at the famous Benedictine monastery, Monte Cassino, where his uncle was abbot. Thomas’s parents hoped he would one day become the abbot himself.
When he was fourteen, because of military conflicts, Thomas moved from Monte Cassino to the newly founded University of Naples to continue his studies. It was there that he came in contact with the Dominicans who influenced him greatly and who made plans for Thomas to join their newly founded order. Thomas’ intellect shone forth as he openly engaged in discussions, and his reputation for brilliance became widely known.
At the age of nineteen, the year after his father died, Thomas joined the Dominicans. This news angered his family who were steeped in the social system of feudalism at that time, which valued ownership of land and military service. The Benedictines were among the honored orders within the feudal system, not the Dominicans who were poor mendicant preachers. Thomas’ family wanted him to become the Abbot of Monte Cassino since it was more fitting for the nobility.
To remedy this, his mother had Thomas abducted and locked in a family castle where he remained imprisoned for about a year. During that time, his mother, siblings, and many others did all they could to try to convince Thomas to become a Benedictine, but Thomas refused. One day, his family even sent a prostitute to his cell to tempt him, but he chased her away with a burning log. Eventually, his mother permitted him to escape the castle at night as a way of saving the family from further disgrace.
Now twenty years old, Thomas rejoined the Dominicans and was sent to Paris where he became a student of the intellectual giant Brother Albert, now known as Saint Albert the Great. Brother Thomas especially became fond of Aristotle’s philosophy, which would become the foundation of much of his future writings, a first in the history of the Church. He continued to study under Brother Albert for several years.
Thomas also became much more reserved in class as he grew in the virtue of humility, rarely speaking up, debating, or revealing his keen intellect. His quiet nature led many of the students to conclude that he was unintelligent, and they gave him the nickname “Dumb Ox.”
One day, however, his teacher, Brother Albert, decided it was time for everyone to realize how brilliant Brother Thomas was, so he gave him a difficult question to answer and asked him to return the next day to present his answer to the class. After Thomas did so, his fellow students were in awe and Brother Albert said of him, “You call him the Dumb Ox, but in his teaching he will one day produce such a bellowing that it will be heard throughout the world.”
In 1252, at the age of twenty-six, Brother Thomas was given the title “Master in Theology” by the pope. For the next twenty-two years, Brother Thomas wrote numerous books, sermons, commentaries on Scripture, and even composed some of our Church’s most beautiful hymns, including “Pange Lingua.” He continued as a teacher, preacher, and papal theologian in Paris, Naples, Orvieto, and Rome.
Among his many works, Saint Thomas is best known for the Summa Theologica, or “Summary of Theology,” which he never completed. One tradition states that when he was celebrating Mass in 1273, he had a vision. He later told his scribe, Brother Reginald, that he could no longer write. When Brother Reginald asked him why, he responded, “Reginald, I cannot, because all that I have written seems like straw to me.” Brother Thomas died the next year after a series of illnesses.
Saint Thomas was not only brilliant, he was also a man of deep faith, who loved God, never stopped contemplating the truths of faith, and courageously introduced new methods by which God became better known and understood. His life of prayer produced a wellspring of supernatural truth that was then organized by his intellect and articulated in ways never seen before.
Thomas’ humility and sincerity come through in a story told by one early biographer who relates that as Brother Thomas was praying one morning before the crucifix, he anxiously implored the Lord as to whether or not his writings were correct. Jesus spoke to him saying, “You have written well of Me, Thomas, what shall be your reward?” Thomas replied, “Nothing but You, Lord.”
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