St. Augustine is a man of passion and faith, of high intelligence and untiring pastoral zeal. This great saint and doctor of the Church is often well-known, at least by name, even by those who ignore Christianity, or who are little acquainted with it, because he made a deep impression on the cultural life of the Western world, and the world in general. Due to his exceptional importance, St. Augustine has been enormously influential, so much so that it could be said, on one hand, that all the roads of Christian Latin literature lead to Hippo (today’s Annaba, on the Algerian coast), the place where he was a bishop, and on the other hand, that from this town of Roman Africa, where Augustine was bishop from 395 to 430, branch out many other roads of future Christianity and of Western culture itself.
Rarely has a civilization encountered a figure so great, capable of embracing its values and of proclaiming its intrinsic richness, formulating ideas and methods that serve to nurture successive generations, as Paul VI also emphasized: "One can say all of antiquity’s philosophy converge in his work, and from it derive currents of thought pervading the doctrinal tradition of the next centuries" (AAS, 62, 1970, p. 426).
Moreover, Augustine is the Father of the Church who has left the greatest number of writings. His biographer Possidius says: It seemed impossible that a man could write so much during his life. We will talk about his various works in a future session. Today we will focus on his life, a life that we can reconstruct from his writings, and in particular from the "Confessions," his extraordinary spiritual autobiography written in praise of God, and which is his most popular work.
Precisely because of the attention paid to interiority and psychology, Augustine's "Confessions" is a unique model in Western and non-Western literature, even including nonreligious literature, right through to modern times. The focus on spiritual life, on the mystery of self, on the mystery of God that hides in the self, is an extraordinary thing without precedent and remains, so to speak, a spiritual "vertex."
But, returning to his life, Augustine was born in Tagaste -- in the Roman province of Africa -- on Nov. 13, 354, to Patrick, a pagan who then became a catechumen, and Monica, a zealous Christian. This passionate woman, venerated as a saint, was a big influence on her son and educated him in the Christian belief. Augustine also received salt, as a mark of welcome in the catechumenate. He was always charmed by the figure of Jesus Christ; he says he had always loved Jesus, but he had grown more and more apart from the faith and practice of the Church, as happens with a lot of young people today.
Augustine also had a brother, Navigius, and a sister, whose name we do not know, and who, when widowed, became the head of a female monastery.
Augustine had a sharp intelligence and received a good education, though he was not always a model student. He studied grammar, first in his hometown and then in Madaurus, and beginning in 370 he took rhetoric in Carthage, capital of Roman Africa. He came to master Latin, but did not do as well in Greek or Punic, the language of his fellow countrymen.
It was in Carthage that he read "Hortensius" for the first time, a work by Cicero -- subsequently lost -- and which started him on the road to conversion. The text awakened in him a love of wisdom, as confirmed in his writings as a bishop in the "Confessions": "The book changed my feelings," so much so that "suddenly, every vain hope became empty to me, and I longed for the immortality of wisdom with an incredible ardor in my heart" (III, 4, 7).
But, since he was convinced that without Jesus truth cannot really be found, and because in that fascinating book his name was missing, he immediately set to reading Scripture, the Bible. But he was disappointed. Not only was the Latin translation of the sacred Scripture insufficient, but also the content itself did not seem satisfactory.
In the narrations of wars and other human events, he could not find the heights of philosophy, the splendor of its search for the truth. Nevertheless, he did not want to live without God, and so he sought a religion that matched his desire for truth and his desire to be close to Jesus.
He fell into the net of the Manichaeans, who presented themselves as Christians and promised a totally rational religion. They confirmed that the world is divided into two principles: that of good and evil. This explained the complexity of human history. St. Augustine also liked the dualistic morality, because it entailed a very high morality for the chosen ones: and for those, like him, who adhered to it, it was possible to live a life more suited to the times, especially for a young man. He therefore became a Manichaean, convinced that he had found the synthesis between rationality, the search for the truth and the love of Jesus Christ.
And his private life benefited as well: Being a Manichaean opened career possibilities. To adhere to this religion, which included many influential personalities, allowed him to pursue a relationship he started with a woman, and to continue his career.
With this woman he had a son, Adeodatus, who was very dear to him, extremely intelligent, and who later on will be present in Augustine's preparation for baptism in Lake Como, forming part of the "Dialogues" that St. Augustine has passed on to us. Unfortunately, the boy died prematurely.
After teaching grammar in his hometown at the age of 20, he soon returned to Carthage, where he became a brilliant and celebrated master of rhetoric. With time, however, Augustine distanced himself from the Manichaean faith. It disappointed him intellectually as it was not capable of resolving his doubts. He moved to Rome, and then to Milan, where he obtained a prestigious place in the imperial court, thanks to the recommendations of the prefect of Rome, the pagan Symmachus, who was hostile to the bishop of Milan, St. Ambrose.
At first with the purpose of enriching his rhetorical repertoire, Augustine began attending the impressive lectures of Bishop Ambrose, who had been a representative of the emperor in Northern Italy; he was charmed by his words, not only because of their eloquence, but because they touched his heart. The main problem of the Old Testament -- the lack of oratory and philosophical elevation -- resolved itself in the lectures of St. Ambrose thanks to the typological interpretation of the Old Testament: Augustine understood that the Old Testament is a journey toward Jesus Christ. So he found the key to understanding the beauty, the philosophic depth of the Old Testament, and he understood the unity of the mystery of Christ in history, as well as the synthesis between philosophy, rationality and faith in the Logos, in Christ, the eternal Word that became flesh.
Quickly, Augustine realized the allegorical reading of Scripture and the Neoplatonic philosophy practiced by the bishop of Milan helped him resolve the intellectual difficulties he encountered at a younger age, when he first approached the biblical texts, which he believed to be insuperable.
Augustine continued to read the writings of the philosophers along with Scripture, and especially the letters of St. Paul. His conversion to Christianity, Aug. 15, 386, is therefore placed at the apex of a long and tormented inner journey of which we will speak in another catechesis; The African moved to the country north of Milan near Lake Como -- with his mother Monica, his son Adeodatus, and a small group of friends -- to get ready for baptism. At 32, Augustine was christened by Ambrose on April 24, 387, during Easter vigil in the Milan Cathedral.
After his baptism Augustine decided to return to Africa with his friends, with the idea of putting into practice a communal monastic life, in the service of God. But in Ostia, while waiting to leave, his mother suddenly fell sick and a little later died, leaving her son's heart in torment.
Back in his homeland he settled in Hippo to found a monastery. In this town on the African coast he was ordained presbyter in 391, despite his refusal, and began a monastic life with some companions, dividing his time between praying, studying and preaching. He wanted to serve truth alone, he didn’t feel called to the pastoral life; then he understood that God’s call was to be a shepherd among others, and to offer the others the gift of truth.
Four years later, in 395, he was consecrated bishop in Hippo. Deepening the study of Scripture and the texts of the Christian tradition, Augustine was an exemplary bishop in his untiring pastoral commitment: He preached to the faithful several times a week, he helped the poor and the orphans, he followed the education of the clergy and the organization of female and male monasteries.
In short, he affirmed himself as one of the most important representatives of Christianity of the time: Very active in the administration of his diocese -- with considerable civic results too -- in more than 35 years of episcopate, the bishop of Hippo had an immense influence in the leadership of the Catholic Church in Roman Africa and, in general, in the Christianity of his time, facing Manichaeism, Donatism and Pelagianism, which were endangering the Christian faith and the one and only God full of grace.
Augustine entrusted himself to God every day, right up until the very end of his life. He was struck by fever, while Hippo was being besieged by invaders. The bishop -- as his friend Possidius tells us in the "Vita Augustini" -- asked to transcribe in large characters the penitential psalms, "and he had the sheets pinned to the wall, so that during his illness he could read them while in bed, and he cried endlessly warm tears" (31,2); this is how Augustine spent his last days. He died on Aug. 28, 430, at the age of 75. We will dedicate the next sessions to his works, his message and his interior experience.
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The great bishop of Hippo, St. Augustine, four years before he died, wanted to nominate his successor. To this end, on Sept. 26, 426, he gathered the people in the Basilica of Peace in Hippo so he could present them with his choice for this task.
He said: "We are all mortal, but no individual can be sure of his last day in this life. In any case, in childhood we hope to reach adolescence, in adolescence we aspire toward adulthood, in adulthood toward middle age and in middle age we look to reaching old age. We are never sure we will get there, but that is our hope.
"Old age, however, is not followed by another stage of life toward which we can aspire; its duration is unknown. I arrived in this city in the vigor of my life, but now my youth has gone and I am an old man" (Ep. 213,1).
At this point Augustine told them the name of his chosen successor, the priest Heracles. The people burst into applause of approval and repeated 23 times: "Thanks be to God! Praise be to Christ!" They continued to exclaim approval when Augustine told them of his plans for the future. He wanted to dedicate his remaining years to a deeper study of holy Scripture (Ep. 213,6).
The following four years were indeed of an extraordinary intellectual activity: Augustine carried out important works, he undertook new ones that were no less demanding, he held discussions with the heretics -- he always sought dialogue -- and he intervened to promote peace in the African provinces that were harassed by the southern barbarian tribes.
For this reason he wrote to Count Darius, who had come to Africa to put an end to the disagreement between Count Boniface and the Imperial Court, which the Mauri tribes were taking advantage of for their raids. "A greater title for glory," he affirmed in his letter, "is to kill war with words, rather than to kill men with the sword, and to get or maintain peace through peace and not through war. Certainly the fighters, if they are good, are also seeking peace, but at the cost of shedding blood. You, on the contrary, have been sent to prevent blood being spilt on any side" (Ep. 229, 2).
Unfortunately, the hope for peace in the African territories was not fulfilled: In May 429, the Vandals, invited to Africa out of spite by Boniface himself, crossed the Gibraltar strait and entered Mauritania. The invasion rapidly spread to other rich African provinces. In May or June 430, "the destroyers of the Roman Empire," as Possidius called these barbarians ("Vita," 30,1), laid siege to Hippo.
Boniface also sought shelter in town; he had reconciled too late with the Court and was now trying to stop the invaders, but to no avail. The biographer Possidius describes Augustine's pain: "More than usual, his tears became his bread day and night, and arriving almost to the end of his life, he was, more than others, dragging his old age into bitterness and mourning" ("Vita," 28,6). He explains: "That man of God was in fact witnessing the massacre and destruction of the cities; homes in the countryside destroyed and residents killed by the enemy, or forced to flee; churches deprived of their priests and ministers; sacred virgins and monks displaced; among them, some were tortured and killed, others murdered by the sword, others taken prisoners; they lost faith and the integrity of their soul and body, reduced to a grievous and long slavery by their enemies" (ibid., 28,8).
Despite being old and tired, Augustine remained strong, providing comfort for himself and others through prayer and meditation on the mysteries of God's will. He spoke of "the world's old age" -- and this Roman world really was old. He spoke of this old age as he had done years earlier to console the Italian refugees when the Goths from Alaric invaded the city of Rome. In old age sickness abounds: coughs, catarrh, anxiety, exhaustion. Though the world grows old, Christ is forever young.
So he invited them: "Don't refuse to be young again united with Christ, even in an old world. He tells you: Do not fear, your youth will be renewed like the eagle's youth" (cf. Serm. 81,8). Therefore, the Christian should not be let down even in difficult situations, but he must help those in need. This is what the great doctor advised, answering Honoratus, bishop of Tiabe, who had asked him whether a bishop, a priest or any man of Church could flee to save his life when under barbarian invasions: "When the danger is shared by all -- bishops, clergymen and laymen -- those in need should not be left alone. In this case they should all be transferred to safe places; but if some need to stay, they should not be left alone by those who have the duty to assist them with the sacred ministry, so either they all save themselves together, or together they bear the disaster that the Father wants them to suffer" (Ep. 228, 2).
And he concluded: "This is the supreme test of charity" (ibid., 3). How could we not recognize, in these words, the heroic message that many priests have embraced and identified with along the centuries?
Meanwhile, the town of Hippo held fast. Augustine's house-monastery had opened its doors to the colleagues in the episcopate who were seeking refuge. Among them was Possidius, already his disciple, who managed to leave us a direct account of those final, dramatic days. "In the third month of that siege," he tells us, "he was struck by fever: That was his last illness" ("Vita," 29,3). The holy, venerable, old man decided to dedicate his remaining time to intense prayer. He used to affirm that no one, bishop, monk or layman, however irreproachable his conduct may have been, could confront death without adequate penitence. That's why between tears he continually repeated the penitential psalms, that he had so often recited with his people (cf. ibid., 31,2).
As he worsened, the more the dying bishop felt the need for solitude and prayer: "About 10 days before he left his body, in order not to be troubled in his concentration, he begged us to not let anyone enter his room outside of the medical visiting hours or the eating time schedule. His wishes were carried out and during all that time he prayed" (ibid., 31,3). He died Aug. 28, 430: His great heart finally rested in God.
"We assisted in the removal of his body," Possidius informs us, "dedicated to God, and then he was buried" (Life, 31,5). At a certain point -- date unknown -- his body was transferred to Sardinia, and from there to Pavia around 725, to the Basilica of San Pietro in Ciel d'oro, where he rests today.
His first biographer has the following conclusive judgment about him: "He left a large clergy to the Church, as well as male and female monasteries with people dedicated to the obedience of their superiors. He left us libraries with books and speeches by him and other holy men from which, with God's grace, we can deduce his merit and stature in the Church, and in which the faithful always rediscover him" (Possidius, "Vita," 31, 8).
We can associate ourselves with this judgment: In his writings we also "rediscover him." When I read St. Augustine's works, I don't have the impression that he died more or less 1,600 years ago, I feel he is a modern man: a friend, a contemporary who speaks to me, he speaks to us with his fresh and modern faith.
In St. Augustine, who speaks to us -- who speaks to me at us in his writings -- we see the permanent actuality of his faith; of the faith that comes from Christ, eternal word made flesh, Son of God and son of man. This faith does not belong to yesterday, though it was preached yesterday. It is always of today, because Christ is truly yesterday, today and always. He is the way, the truth and the life. St. Augustine encourages to entrust ourselves to the living Christ and to find through him the way to life.
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In 1986, on the 1,600th anniversary of his conversion, my beloved predecessor John Paul II dedicated a long and detailed document to St. Augustine, the apostolic letter "Augustinium Hipponensem."
The Pope himself chose to describe this text as "thanksgiving to God for the gift he bestowed on the Church and on all humanity with that wonderful conversion" (AAS, 74, 1982, p. 802). I would like to return to the subject of his conversion in a future audience. It is a fundamental subject, not only for St. Augustine's own personal life but for ours too. In last Sunday's Gospel, the Lord himself summarized his preaching with the words "be converted." In following the path of St. Augustine we can consider what this conversion revolves around: It is definitive, decisive, but the fundamental decision must be developed and must be accomplished throughout our lives.
Today instead, the catechesis is dedicated to the subjects of faith and reason, which are the defining themes of St. Augustine's biography. As a child he learned the Catholic faith from his mother Monica. As an adolescent he abandoned the faith because he could not see how it could be reasoned out and did not want a religion that was not also for him an expression of reason -- that is to say, truth.
His thirst for truth was radical and led him away from the Catholic faith. His radicality was such that he was not satisfied with philosophies that did not reach truth itself, and that did not reach God -- not a God as a last cosmological hypothesis, but the true God, God who gives life and joins our very lives.
The intellectual and spiritual itinerary of St. Augustine is also a valid model for today in the relationship between faith and reason, a topic not only for faithful individuals, but for every person who seeks the truth, a central theme for the equilibrium and destiny of every human being.
These two dimensions, faith and reason, should not be separated nor opposed, but rather go forward together. As Augustine himself wrote after his conversion, faith and reason are "the two forces that lead us to knowledge" ("Contra Academicos," III, 20, 43).
To this end the two famous Augustinian formulas ("Sermons," 43, 9) express this coherent synthesis between faith and reason: "Crede ut intelligas" (I believe in order to understand) -- faith opens the way to step through the door of truth -- but also, and inseparably, "intellige ut credas" (I understand in order to believe), in order to find God and believe, you must scrutinize truth.
The two assertions of St. Augustine express the synthesis of this problem in which the Catholic Church sees its own approach expressed with depth and immediacy. Historically speaking, this synthesis was formed even before the coming of Christ, with the coming together of the Jewish faith and Greek thought in Hellenistic Judaism. Subsequently, this synthesis was taken up again and developed by many Christian thinkers. The harmony between faith and reason means above all that God is not far away; he is not far from our reasoning or from our lives; he is close to every human being, close to our hearts and close to our reason if we truly follow his path.
It is precisely this closeness of God to man that Augustine experienced with extraordinary force. The presence of God in man is deep and at the same time mysterious. It can however be discovered and recognized deep down in oneself: Don't look outside of yourself, says the converted one, "but go back into yourself -- truth resides in the interior man, and if you find that your nature is changeable, transcend yourself. But remember, when you transcend yourself, that you transcend a soul which reasons. Then reach beyond -- to where the light of reason is lit" ("De vera religione," 39, 72).
He emphasizes this with a well-known assertion at the beginning of the "Confessions," a spiritual autobiography written in the praise of God: "You made us for you, and our heart is restless until it rests in you" (I, 1, 1).
Distance from God means distance from oneself. Addressing his words directly to God he acknowledges ("Confessions," III, 6, 11): "You are more intimately present to me than my inmost being and higher than the highest element in me," -- "interior intimo meo et superior summo meo" -- so that, he adds in another passage remembering the time preceding his conversion, "you were in front of me, but I, instead, had gone far from myself and could not find myself again, and even less could I find you again" (Confessiones, V, 2, 2).
Because Augustine personally experienced this intellectual and spiritual journey, he managed to convey it in his writings with immediacy, depth and wisdom; in another two famous passages of the "Confessions" (IV, 4, 9 and 14, 22), he acknowledged that man is "a great enigma" (magna quaestio) and "a deep abyss" (grande profundum), an enigma and an abyss that Christ alone enlightens and saves.
This is important: A man who is distant from God is also distant from himself, estranged from himself, he can find himself only by meeting God. This path leads to himself, to his true self and identity.
In "De Civitate Dei" (XII, 27) Augustine underlines the fact that the human being is by nature a social animal, but antisocial in his vices. Man is saved by Christ, the only mediator between God and humanity, and as repeated by my predecessor John Paul II ("Augustinium Hipponensem," 21), he is "the universal path to freedom and salvation."
In the same text, Augustine affirms that "no one has ever found freedom or will ever find freedom" ("De Civitate Dei," X, 32, 2) other than by following this path which has always been accessible to man. Christ, as the only route to salvation, is head of the Church and inscrutably united with it. Augustine affirms, "We have become Christ. In fact, if he is the head of man and we are the body, together we make up the whole" ("In Iohannis Evangelium Tractatus," 21, 8).
People of God and house of God: The Church in the Augustinian vision is closely associated with the concept of the Body of Christ, based on the Christological rereading of the Old Testament and on the sacramental life centered on the Eucharist, in which the Lord gives us his Body and transforms us in his Body. It is then essential that the Church -- people of God in the Christological and not sociological sense -- be really placed in Christ, who "prays for us, prays in us, is prayed to by us," as Augustine affirms beautifully on the written page: "He prays for us as our priest, he prays in us as our chief, he is prayed to by us as our God: so we recognize in him our voice, and in ours, his" ("Enarrationes in Psalmos," 85, 1).
In the conclusion of the apostolic letter "Augustinum Hipponensem," John Paul II asked St. Augustine what he would say to the men of today, and he answers with the words that Augustine dictated in a letter shortly after his conversion: "It seems to me that men have to be guided toward the hope of finding the truth" (Epistulae, 1, 1); that truth is Christ himself, true God, to whom is dedicated one the most beautiful and famous prayers of the Confessions (X, 27, 38):
"Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new,
late have I loved you!
You were within me, but I was outside,
and it was there that I searched for you.
In my unloveliness
I plunged into the lovely things which you created.
You were with me, but I was not with you.
Created things kept me from you;
yet if they had not been in you
they would have not been at all.
You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness.
You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness.
You breathed your fragrance on me;
I drew in breath and now I pant for you.
I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more.
You touched me, and I burned for your peace."
So Augustine found God and throughout his life experienced God to the point that this reality -- which was above all an encounter with a person, Jesus Christ -- changed his life, just as it changed the lives of so many men and women who have had the grace to meet him.
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St. Augustine is the Father of the Church who has left the most works.
Some of the Augustinian writings are of major importance not only for the history of Christianity but also in terms of the development of Western culture as a whole: The clearest example of this is his "Confessions," without doubt one of the most frequently read books of ancient Christianity -- even today. As other Fathers of the Church in the early centuries, but vastly more influential, the Bishop of Hippo has in fact exercised an extensive and persistent influence as demonstrated by the abundance of manuscripts of his works, which are truly numerous.
He personally reviewed these in the "Retractationes" a few years before his death, and shortly after his death they were carefully recorded in the "Indiculus" (list) attached to the biography of St. Augustine, "Vita Augustini," by his faithful friend Possidius. The list of works by Augustine was created with the express purpose of safeguarding them as the destructive Roman invasion rampaged across Africa, and is made up of more than 1,030 writings numbered by their author, plus others that “cannot be numbered because he did not give them a number.” Possidius, bishop of a nearby town, dictated these words in Hippo --where he had taken refuge and had witnessed the death of his friend -- and almost definitely based these comments on Augustine's personal library.
Today more than 300 letters and 600 sermons from the bishop of Hippo have survived. Originally there would have been many more, perhaps even 3,000 or 4,000, fruit of 40 years of preaching by the ex-rhetorician who decided to follow Christ and not to speak just to important individuals in the imperial court, but to the ordinary population of Hippo.
In recent years the discovery of a group of letters and sermons have enriched our knowledge of this great Father of the Church. His friend, the Bishop Possidius wrote: "Many books were written and published by him, many homilies were given in Church and then transcribed and edited, both to refute various heresies as well as to interpret Sacred Scriptures for the edification of the children of the Church. These works are so numerous that a scholar could hardly find it possible to read all of them and learn them" ("Vita Augustini," 18, 9).
Within Augustine’s literary production -- more than 1,000 publications subdivided into philosophical, apologetic, doctrinal, moral, monastic, exegetic, and anti-heretical writings, as well as the letters and sermons -- are some exceptional works of great theological and philosophical intensity.
Above all it is necessary to remember the already mentioned "Confessions," written in 13 books in praise of God between 397 and 400. It is a sort of autobiography in the form of a dialog with God. This literary genre reflects St. Augustine’s life, which was not a reclusive life, not dispersed in many things, but was a life mainly lived like a conversation with God, a life shared with others. Already the title "Confessions" shows the specificity of his autobiography.
In the Christian Latin developed in the tradition of the Psalms, the word "confessiones" has two meanings that are interlinked. In the first place "confessiones" is the confession of one’s own weaknesses, and of the misery of sins; at the same time "confessiones" means praise of God, gratitude to God.
Seeing one's misery in the light of God becomes praise for God and gratitude because God loves us and accepts us, he transforms us and raises us toward him. In the "Confessions" -- which were already largely successful during St. Augustine’s life -- he wrote: "They exercised such action on me while I was writing them and do so even now when I reread them. There are many brothers who like these writings" ("Retractationes," II, 6). I should also mention that I am one of these "brothers."
Thanks to the "Confessions" we can follow step by step the inner journey of this extraordinary man who was fascinated by God.
Less well-known but equally important are the "Retractationes," composed in two books around 427, in which St. Augustine, now an old man, puts together a "revision" (retractatio) of all his writings, thus leaving us a particular and precious literary document, but also a teaching of sincerity and intellectual humility.
"De Civitate Dei" (The City of God) -- a decisive and imposing work in the development of modern political thought in the West and in Christian historical theology -- was written between 413 and 426 and was made up of 22 books. It was prompted by the sacking of Rome by the Goths in 410.
Many pagans who had survived, and also many Christians, had said: "Rome has fallen; the Christian God and the Apostles cannot protect the city. During the presence of the pagan gods, Rome was the 'caput mundi,' the capital of the world, and no one thought it could fall into the hands of its enemies. Now, with a Christian God, this great city no longer seems safe. The Christian God therefore did not protect and could not be a God in which one could trust."
It is this charge that was deeply felt by the Christians that St. Augustine answered with this magnificent work, "De civitate Dei." He clarified what we should and should not expect from God. Even today, this book is the source used to clearly define secular and clerical responsibilities, as well as the competences of the Church, the true and great hope that gives us faith.
This great book is a presentation of the history of humanity as governed by divine Providence, but actually divided by two loves. This is the fundamental design, his interpretation of history, which is the struggle between two loves: love of oneself, “even to the point of showing indifference toward God,” and love of God, “even to the point of being indifferent toward oneself” ("De Civitate Dei," XIV, 28 ), which leads to full freedom to be for others in the light of God. This, therefore, is perhaps St. Augustine's greatest book, of enduring importance.
Equally important is "De Trinitate," a work comprising 15 books on the main linchpin of Christian faith, God as part of the holy Trinity. It was written between 399 and 412. The first 12 books were published without Augustine's knowledge, who completed and revised the work around the year 420. He reflects on the face of God and tries to understand this mystery of a God which is unique: creator of the world, of all of us, and yet part of a trinity -- a circle of love. He seeks to understand the unfathomable mystery: the Trinitarian being, in three persons, as precisely the most real and most profound expression of teh unity of the one God.
"De Doctrina Christiana" however is a true cultural introduction of the interpretation of the Bible and on Christianity, which had a decisive influence on the formation of Western culture.
Even if modest, Augustine was certainly aware of his intellectual magnitude. Nevertheless, he considered it more important to carry the Christian message to the ordinary people than to realize major works of high theological relevance. His deeper intention, that drove him all his life, is revealed in a letter written to his colleague Evodio, where he announces his decision to temporarily suspend the dictation of "De Trinitate," "because they are too laborious and I think they may be understood only by a few; more urgent are texts which I hope will be useful to many" ("Epistulae," 169, 1, 1).
Therefore he found it more useful to communicate the faith in a comprehensible manner to all, than to write large theological works. The responsibility he felt toward the popularization of the Christian message is the reason for writings such as "De Catechizandis Rudibus," a theory as well as a practice of the catechesis, or the "Psalmus Contra Partem Donati."
The Donatists were the big problem in St. Augustine’s Africa, a definitively African faction. They affirmed that true Christianity was African and opposed the unity of the Church. The great bishop fought all his life against this split, trying to convince Donatists that only in unity could the African way be true.
In order to be understood by ordinary men, who could not understand the great rhetorician's Latin, he said: I should write with grammatical mistakes, in a very simplified Latin. He did this above all in his "Psalmus," a simple poem against Donatists, to help everybody understand that only through the unity of the Church can we truly realize our connection with God and can encourage peace in the world.
In this production destined to a wider public, the numerous sermons play an important role. Often given extemporaneously, they were transcribed by the stenographers during the preaching and immediately distributed. Among them stand out the attractive "Enarrationes in Psalmos," which were widely read during the Medieval age.
It is the actual routine of publication of the thousands of sermons by Augustine -- often without the control of the author -- that explains their spread and successive dispersal, but also their vitality. Because of the author’s reputation, immediately his lectures became very sought after and were used as models by other bishops and priests, and adapted to ever-new contexts.
The iconographic tradition, which we can see in a Lateran fresco dating from the 6th century, represents St. Augustine with a book in his hand to express his literary production that highly influenced Christian mentality and thinking, but also to express his love for books, for reading and knowledge of the great cultures.Possidius tells us that at his death he did not leave anything, but "he urged to always conserve diligently for posterity the library of the Church with all its codices," as well as his own writings. Possidius underlines that Augustine is "always alive" in his works and helps those who read them, even if, he concludes, "I believe that those who saw and heard him when he preached in Church had profited more from that contact, but most of all, those who had experience of his daily life among the people" (Vita Augustini, 31).
Indeed, it would have been wonderful to listen to him when he was alive. But he truly lives in his works, he is present with us, and this is how we see the permanent vitality of his faith to which he had dedicated all his life.
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We conclude our presentation of St. Augustine. Having dwelt on his life, his works, and some aspects of his writings, today I would like to return to the process of his interior conversion, which was one of the greatest conversions in Christian history.
It is to this journey in particular that I dedicated my reflections during my pilgrimage to Pavia last year, to pay homage to the mortal remains of this Father of the Church. In so doing, I wanted to demonstrate the admiration and reverence of the entire Catholic Church toward St. Augustine, and my own personal devotion and recognition of a figure with whom I feel I have close ties to due to the part he has played in my theological life, in my life as a priest and a pastor.
Even today it is possible to revisit the experiences of St. Augustine; above all this is thanks to the "Confessions," written in the praise of God and which is the basis of a more specific Western literary form -- the autobiography. That is, a personal expression of the knowledge of oneself.
Anyone who gets close to this extraordinary and fascinating book, which is still read by many today, will soon realize that the conversion of St. Augustine was not sudden or completed quickly, but it is better described as a journey that remains a true example for each one of us.
This journey culminated with his conversion and subsequent baptism, but was not concluded with the Easter vigil of 387, when the African rhetorician was baptized by Bishop Ambrose of Milan.
In fact, Augustine’s journey of conversion continued with humility until the end of his life. We can state that all the stages of his life -- and we can easily distinguish three phases -- together make up a single long conversion.
St. Augustine was from the start, a passionate seeker of the truth: He remained so his whole life. The first stage of his journey toward conversion was realized through his gradual approach to Christianity.
In reality, he received a Christian education from his mother, Monica, with whom he was always very close. Even though he lived an errant life in his youth, he was deeply tied to the love of Christ's name, as he himself underlined (cfr. "Confessions," III, 4, 8).
Philosophy, and especially Platonic philosophy, led him closer to Christ by revealing to him the existence of the Logos, or creative reason. The books of the philosophers showed him the existence of 'reason' from which the whole world is derived, but did not tell him how to reach this Logos, which seemed so inaccessible.
It was only through reading the letters of St. Paul, in the faith of the Catholic Church, that he came to a fuller understanding. This experience was summarized by Augustine in one of the most famous passages of the "Confessions." He tells us that in the torment of his reflections, he withdrew into a garden, when suddenly he heard a child's voice singing a lullaby he had never heard before: "Tolle, lege, tolle, lege," -- take and read, take and read (VIII, 12,29).
He was reminded at that moment of the conversion of Anthony, the father of monasticism. He hastily returned to the writings of Paul, which he had been looking at a short time before. His eyes fell on the passage of the Letter to the Romans, in which the apostle urges the abandonment of the pleasures of the flesh in favor of Christ (13:13-14).
He understood that those words were specifically meant for him. They came from God, through The Apostle, and showed him what he had to do in that moment. Augustine felt the dark cloud of doubt disperse and was free to give himself completely to Christ: “You converted my being to you,” he notes ("Confessions," VIII, 12,30). This was the first and decisive conversion.
It is thanks to his passion for men and for the truth that the African rhetorician arrived at the most important stage of his long journey; a passion that brought him to seek God, the great and inaccessible. His faith in Christ made him understand that God, seemingly so distant, was in truth not distant at all. In fact he has come near us, becoming one of us. In this sense his faith in Christ allowed Augustine to accomplish his long search for truth. Only a God who made himself 'touchable,' one of us, was a God to whom one could pray, for whom and with whom one could live.
This is a road to undertake with courage and humility, leading to a permanent purification, which everyone needs. That Easter vigil in 387, however, was not the end of Augustine’s journey. He returned to Africa and founded a small monastery where he retreated with a few friends, and dedicated himself to contemplation and study. This was his life's dream. He was called to completely dedicate his life to truth, in friendship with Christ, who is the truth. This dream lasted three years, until he was consecrated a priest in Hippo and destined to serve the believers, continuing to live with Christ and for Christ, but at the service of everyone.
This was very difficult for him, but since the beginning he understood that only by living for others, and not simply for his private contemplation, could he live with Christ and for Christ. So, by renouncing a life of only meditation, Augustine learned, not without difficulty, to put his knowledge at the disposal of others. He learned to communicate his faith to the ordinary people, and to live for them in what became his home town. He carryied out tirelessly a burdensome and generous activity that he describes in one of his beautiful sermons: "To preach continuously, discuss, reiterate, edify, be at the disposal of everyone -- it is an enormous responsibility, a great weight, an immense effort" (Sermon 339, 4). But he took this weight upon himself, knowing that this way he could be closer to Christ. His true second conversion was indeed to understand that one reaches others through simplicity and humility.
There is a last step -- a third conversion -- in the Augustinian journey: The one that led him to ask God for forgiveness every day of his life. At first he thought that once christened, in a life in communion with Christ, in the sacraments, and in the celebration of the Eucharist, he would attain a life as proposed in the Sermon on the Mount, which is one of perfection given through baptism and confirmed in the Eucharist.
In the latter period of his life he understood that what he had said in his first homilies on the Sermon on the Mount -- that we as Christians permanently live this ideal life -- was a mistake. Only Christ himself realizes truly and completely the Sermon on the Mount. We always need to be cleansed by Christ, who washes our feet, and be renewed by him. We need a permanent conversion. Up to the end we need to demonstrate a humility that acknowledges that we are sinners on a journey, until the Lord gives us his hand and leads us to eternal life. It is with this attitude of humility that Augustine lived out his final days until his death.
This deep humility in the face of the one Lord Jesus introduced him to an intellectual humility as well. In his last years, Augustine, who in fact was one of the greatest figures in philosophical history, wanted to critically examine his numerous works. This was the origin of the "Retractationes" -- Revisions -- that places his theological thinking, which is truly great, within the humble and holy faith of that which he refers to as simply Catholic, that is, the Church.
In this very original book he writes: "I understood that only one is truly perfect, and that the words of the Sermon on the Mount are completely realized in only one -- in Jesus Christ himself. The whole Church, instead -- all of us, including the Apostles -- must pray everyday: Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us" (I, 19, 1-3).
Converted to Christ, who is truth and love, Augustine followed him all his life and became a model for every human being, for all of us in search of God.
That is why I wanted to conclude my pilgrimage to Pavia by offering to the Church and the world, before the tomb of this great lover of God, my first encyclical -- "Deus Caritas Est." The encyclical owes a great deal to St. Augustine’s thinking, especially its first part.
Today, as then, mankind needs to know and to live this fundamental reality: God is love and meeting him is the only answer to the fears of the human heart. A heart where hope dwells, perhaps still dark and unenlightened for many of our contemporaries, but which for us Christians opens the doors to the future, so much so that St. Paul wrote "in hope we are saved" (Romans 8:24). I wanted to dedicate my second encyclical to hope -- "Spe Salvi" -- this one also owes a great deal to Augustine and to his meeting with God.
In a beautiful text St. Augustine defines prayer as an expression of desire, and affirms that God answers by moving our hearts closer to him. For our part we should purify our desires and our hopes in order to receive God's gentleness (cfr. "In I Ioannis," 4, 6). In fact, this alone -- opening ourselves up to others -- can save us.
Let us pray therefore that we are able to follow the example of this great man every day of our lives, and in every moment that we live, encounter the Lord Jesus -- the only one who can save us, purify us, and who gives us true joy and true life.
[Translation by Laura Leoncini]
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