About Saint Augustine of Hippo

Most, if not all Catholic organisations and groups choose a patron saint who they think matches what they do. Our campus ministry bears the name of St. Augustine of Hippo, one of the most famous scholars in the ancient world, who had a big influence on modern-day Catholic (and Protestant) church teachings.

Why a patron saint?
Our campus ministry wants to reach students and young people, but we don’t want to be preachy or exclusive. We want to take inspiration from this great example as we go. We think St. Augustine’s life and his ministry are great to guide us in our work. Saints are rarely born as saints and don’t always live a pious life; if they end up being a great example for many, it is by the grace of God they can do so. Sainthood never happens out of our own accord.

So who was St. Augustine of Hippo?
St. Augustine was born as Aurelius Augustinus in Tagaste (North Africa) on 13 November 354. His mother was a Christian named Monica and his father was a pagan called Patricius. His mother, however, managed to give her son a Christian education. His father wanted him to continue his studies in the big city, Carthage. The only problem was that there wasn’t enough money to send young Augustine to ‘college’ right away. The money needed to be raised, and in the meantime, the young man wandered around Tagaste in idleness. He met other students who lived the prototypical student way of life: parties, lots of drinking, gambling, women and going out to the theatre. It didn’t take long for young Augustine to adopt that life-style, and it also didn’t take long before he had to confess to his mother that he and his girlfriend were expecting a child.

Manicheism
At this time, he didn’t really consider himself to be a Christian. His mother had enrolled him into the catechumenate, but he never finished it and only considered baptism after falling seriously ill. As soon as he recovered from his illness, he resumed his old life-style, and the baptism never took place. This was a common practice at that time. Instead of continuing to study the faith of his mother, he felt more attracted by a philosophy called Manicheism, which is a form of gnosticism that was gaining some popularity in that time.

Conversion to the Catholic Faith
He eventually took up his studies and turned out to be quite talented. Studying rhetoric, he wanted to become a diplomat, and possibly rich and famous at the same time. Naturally, someone with this ambition had one goal: go to Rome. Augustine didn’t tell his mother about his plans to move to Rome, but when Monica found out, she followed him there. Things went really well in Rome: he opened a School of Rhetoric while he was there and moved to Milan to obtain a professorship in Rhetoric. During this time he also got the opportunity to meet and discuss with a high-profile Manichean bishop and was left utterly disappointed, which marked the beginning of a spiritual crisis. The bishop didn’t answer critical questions and instead tried to escape questions by using demagogic tricks on Augustine.
In Milan, he came into contact with the local Bishop, Ambrose. He liked his sermons and became a friend. Slowly but surely he started to see that there was a lot of consistency in what this bishop preached, and he converted to Christianity and was baptised.

Priesthood and episcopate
Augustine, now being a high-profile Christian professor of Rhetoric, was a likely candidate for priesthood, but he did not want it, because of fear that once he would be ordained a priest, he also could be raised to the episcopacy. After all, he was well known throughout the ancient world. One day, after having been summoned to Hippo by a friend whose soul’s salvation was at stake, he was praying at a church and almost mobbed by a crowd of people who gathered about him, cheered him and begged the bishop, Valerius, to ordain him to the priesthood. Augustine apparently protested in tears, but to no avail: he felt obliged to yield to their entreaties. He was ordained in 391 and became one of the most prominent defenders of the Catholic faith of that day. A lot of his sermons survived and can be read until this day. In 430 he witnessed the fall of the Roman Empire and died during the siege of Hippo on 28 August 430, at the age of 76.

Find more information about St. Augustine of Hippo here.