St Rita of Cascia High School - Cascian Yearbook (Chicago, IL)

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his garden, flinging himself under a fig tree to pour out his heart to God. Suddenly he seemed to hear a voice calling upon him to consult the divine oracle, Take up and read. He left and sought the volume where his friend, Alypius, was sitting, and read: Let us walk honestly, as in the day: not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chamber- ing and impurities, not in contention and envy. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ. tllomans XIII, 13, 14.5 After his conversion, which is supposed to have occurred in the summer of 386, Augustine gave up his profession as a teacher in rhetoric and retired to a friend's house in the country in order to prepare himself for Baptism. During the duration of his stay he broke his habit of prof use swearing, and in other ways sought, to prepare properly for his Baptism. He received Baptism on Easter at the age of 333 and along with him his son, Adeodatus, and his friend, Alypius, was admitted to the Catholic Church. Monica, his mother, had rejoined him and at length rejoiced in the fulfillment of her prayers. Dying before his return to his native country, she was gladdened by his Christian sympathy. She implored hin1 to lay her body anywhere, but wherever he might be, to remember her, at the altar of the Lord. Augustine then went back to Rome for a brief period and returned to his native city, forming with certain friends a small religious community. Their mode of life was not formally monastic according to any special rule, but the experience of this kind of seclusion was the basis of tl1at monastic system which Augustine afterwards sketched, and which derived from him its name. It did not remain for him to origi- Page 8

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other, unable to find satisfaction in any. Manichaeism was the first to catch his fan- cy. Manichaeism was a doctrine of two ,if principles, one of good and one of evil. This seemed the answer to tl1c wild per- plexity that raged within l1im. He became a me111ber of the sect, and entered into the M class of auditors. His greatest ambition was to be received QIIHOIIQ the Elect and so re- ceive the core of what he thought was their superior knowledge. Soon the system lost its attraction and he abandoned it. After this letdown he traveled to Milan to serve as a teacher of rhetoric. At Milan, the conflict that raged in his mind and heart continued with more fervor than ever before. Now 30 years of age, effete and dejected, he had been seeking for some 11 years to find mental rest, unable to find it. Ambrose was, at that time, the Bishop of Milan and although his voice was weak, he was noted far and wide for his eloquence. Augustine, attracted by the reputation of this great preacher, went to hear him speak. As Ambrose spoke, Augustine hung on every word. After Ambrose had finished, Augustine wished to speak to him, but this was not easily done because Ambrose had no leisure for philosophic conversa- tion. Nevertheless, Augustine continued to hear Ambrose speak and gradually the gos- pel of divine truth was received into l1is heart. First Plato and then St. Paul opened his mind to higher thoughts, and at length certain works of St. Paul were driven home with irresistible force to his conscience. One day he was absorbed in studying the Paul- ine epistles when his struggle of mind be- came intolerable. He burst into an uncon- trollable flood of tears and rushed out into Page 7

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nate the monastic ideag but the association ot' monks in communities under a definite order and head received a special impulse both from Ambrose and his illustrious con- vert. The fame of such a convert in such a position soon spread, and invitations to a more active ecclesiastical life came to him from many quarters. He shrank from these responsibilities, but the Faith was on the march. After living for 3 years in retire- ment he journeyed to Hippo to see a friend who wished to ask him why he had devoted hilnself to a religious life. XVhile in Hippo, he was ordained to the presbyterate and in a few years was made coadju- tor to the Bishop and finally Bishop of the See. The time was one of almosl universal ecclesiastical and intellectual excite- ment and so powerful a lnental activity as was his was dynamoed in all direc- tions. He wrote condemnations of the Manichaeans. He was able, from his own experience, to give force to his arguments for the unity of creation and of spiri- tual life. Following his writings against the Manichaeans came those against the Donatists. This pa1'ty made great pretensions to purity of discipline, and rapidly rose to popularity. Augustine was strongly moved by the lawlessness ot'.the party, and launched a series of writings against -Dm them. The third controversy of which Augus- tine was a party was the most important, and the most intimately associated with his distinctive greatness as a theologian. Augus- tine was greatly interested in the anthropo- logical aspects of the Catholic idea of re- demption. He himself had been brought out of the darkness only by entering the depths of his soul and finding that there was no Page 9