Saint Augustine of Hippo, Bishop, Confessor & Doctor
S. Augustini Episcopi Confessoris et Ecclesiae Doctoris
Saint Augustine, Bishop of Hippo in North Africa, was converted from a wayward youth to become one of the greatest teachers of the Church, and is venerated as a Father and Doctor whose writings have illumined the faith for sixteen centuries.
Saint Augustine was born in the year 354 at Tagaste, in Roman North Africa, the son of a pagan father, Patricius, and a devout Christian mother, Saint Monica, whose feast the Church keeps a few days before his own. Gifted with a brilliant mind, he was sent to study rhetoric at Carthage, and became a master of that art; but in his youth he wandered far from God, giving himself to ambition and to the disorders of the flesh, and for a time following the errors of the Manichaeans. Through all those years his mother never ceased to weep and pray for his soul.
The long road to conversion
His search for truth led him from Africa to Rome and then to Milan, where he came under the influence of the great bishop Saint Ambrose, whose preaching opened his mind to the Catholic faith. There, in the year 386, after a long and painful struggle, the grace of God at last conquered his heart. The tradition handed down in his own Confessions relates how, in a garden, weighed down by his sins and weeping, he heard a child’s voice chanting “Take up and read.” Opening the Scriptures, his eye fell upon the words of Saint Paul that bade him put off the works of darkness and put on the Lord Jesus Christ; and in that moment the long resistance was ended. He was baptised by Saint Ambrose at Easter in the year 387, to the great joy of his mother, who died soon after, her prayers fulfilled.
Bishop, teacher, and Doctor of the Church
Returning to Africa, Augustine was ordained priest and afterward made Bishop of Hippo, which see he governed for some thirty-five years with untiring zeal. He preached constantly to his people, cared for the poor, and laboured to defend the faith against the errors of his age. From his pen flowed a multitude of writings — among them the Confessions, that incomparable account of a soul’s return to God, and The City of God — in which the depth of his thought and the ardour of his love for God have made him a teacher of the whole Church.
Saint Augustine died at Hippo on the twenty-eighth of August in the year 430, as the city lay besieged, having spent himself wholly in the service of Christ. For the surpassing richness of his teaching he is honoured as one of the four great Doctors of the Latin Church. The collect of his feast asks that, through his intercession, God may grant the effect of his accustomed mercy to those whom he has filled with hope in his forgiveness — a fitting prayer for the patron of all who have known their need of grace. His feast is kept on the day of his death.
The Collect
Give heed to our supplications, O almighty God; and upon those to whom Thou dost grant the confidence of hoping in Thy loving-kindness, bestow in Thy mercy the wonted effect of Thine accustomed compassion, through the intercession of blessed Augustine, Thy Confessor and Bishop.
Adésto supplicatiónibus nostris, omnípotens Deus: et, quibus fidúciam sperándæ pietátis indúlges, intercedénte beáto Augustíno Confessóre tuo atque Pontífice, consuétæ misericórdiæ tríbue benígnus efféctum.
Patronage
He is venerated as a Father and Doctor of the Church and is honoured as a patron of theologians and of many who labour and study, as well as of the religious orders that follow the Rule that bears his name.
In the Modern Calendar
In the modern calendar his memorial is observed on the same day, 28 August, as an obligatory memorial.
Common Questions
When is the feast of Saint Augustine?
In the calendar of the 1962 Roman Missal his feast is kept on 28 August as a Third Class feast, the day of his death. The modern calendar likewise observes him on 28 August.
Who was Saint Augustine of Hippo?
He was a fourth- and fifth-century Bishop of Hippo in Roman North Africa, converted from a wayward youth largely through the prayers of his mother Saint Monica and the preaching of Saint Ambrose. His writings, including the Confessions and The City of God, have shaped Christian thought ever since, and he is honoured as one of the four great Doctors of the Latin Church. He died in 430.
What are his best-known writings?
The two most famous are the Confessions, in which he recounts his sins and his conversion as a long prayer to God, and The City of God, his great work on divine providence and the two cities of God and of men. Many sermons, letters, and treatises also survive, prized for their depth and devotion.
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