Saint Augustine: A Voice For All Generations | Full Movie | Mike Aquilina

great art Thou O Lord and greatly to be praised great is thy power and infinite is thy wisdom so begins chapter one of the confessions of st. Augustine of Hippo a man of such influence that as Time magazine has observed in each of the sixteenth centuries since his conversion he has continued to exert a major intellectual spiritual and cultural force however it is not just because of a sheer gift of intellect that the writer has been so well regarded his life journey although in due course triumphant mirrors that of many who stumble along life's way hoping to find meaning to their existence ultimately we love Augustine because we see ourselves in him we relate to his struggles his quest for purpose and understanding and through his writings we discover along with him the answers that he finally discovered in God you Agustin was born on November 13th in the year 354 ad to a middle-class family into gostin a small town in North Africa in the land that is now Algeria his father Patricius August eNOS was a pagan but his mother Monica was a devout Christian who persistently urged her faith on her children Augustine had two siblings a brother named Davi giuse and a sister whom we know from tradition as Perpetua although his father lacked wealth he was active in local government he wanted his children to have a better life and he was quite demanding of them he wanted a Gustin to become a man of culture but Augustine had a rebellious spirit which caused some estrangement between father and son determined as she was pious Monica was relentless in her hope that Augustine would one day dedicate himself to God even though her pleadings often fell on deaf ears if Augustine would not listen to her Monica would go to the one she was certain would not refuse her God he was raised in a Christian home his mother was a devout Christian we we honor her today as a saint Saint Monica and he was raised by this great Saint she did not have him baptized as a child it was not the custom in that part of the world at that time Augustine would later come to advocate the custom because he had not been baptized as an infant and because he thinks he would have benefitted from the grace of baptism from the grace of sacraments when he was young but his mother did not baptize him she but she raised him in the faith and she raised him as a Christian Augustine would later reflect on the love his mother showed through her unceasing and persistent prayers it was an example of virtue that would remain with him the rest of his life although he would eventually become known as an intellectual the young Augustine detested his lessons certain subjects he found to be too difficult and others simply senseless what on earth is the use of repeating one plus two equals three finding games more interesting than his education he was thrashed repeatedly in school Agustin mused over this later in life my mind was absorbed only in play and I was punished for this by those who were doing the same things themselves but the idling of our elders is called business the idling of boys though quite like it is punished by those same elders and no one pities either the boys or the men for will any common-sense observer agree that I was rightly punished as a boy for playing ball just because this hindered me from learning more quickly those lessons by means of which as a man I could play at more shameful games to secure a better education Augustine was sent away at the age of 12 to Madera an old city about 12 miles away and pagan to the core there he made friendships that would last a lifetime and for the first time he fell in love with learning especially the writings of the celebrated Roman poet Virgil four years later when he was 16 the tuition money ran out and Agustin was forced to return home for a year his parents struggled to find the means of furthering his education Augustine however reveled in a prolonged time of Liberty Lord how loathsome I was in thy sight he writes later in his confessions of the lust which stormed confusedly within me whirling my thoughtless youth over the precipice of desire and so I wondered still father for me not surprisingly his parents differed in their reaction to the change in their son's life while his mother continuously admonished him his father womanizer that he was seemed amused by Augustine's antics and fleshly interests while marriage was an option neither of his parents wanted a hurried Union the madness of lust held full sway in me that madness which grants into audience to human shamelessness even though it is forbidden by their laws and I gave myself entirely to it meanwhile my family took no care to save me from ruin by marriage for their sole care was that I should learn how to make a powerful speech and become a persuasive orator but being unchaste was not his only sin Augustine went back home for a year the family had run out of money so he had to stop his education he went back home and he ran with the rough crowd back home young boys and they they would stay out late at night and get into trouble and one night they they were out late and they they stole pears from the neighbor's tree and he they had no interest in eating the pears the pears didn't taste good they didn't look good they weren't attractive in any way but they they loaded up on these pears and then they went and threw them at pigs to some this may seem like mere juvenile antics but as a Gustin wrote about it later in life he considered it a sin most foul the pleasure I got was not from the peers it was in the crime itself enhanced by the companionship of my fellow sinners my pleasure in it was not what I stole but rather the act of stealing you strange seducer of the soul who hungers for mischief from impulses of mirth and wantonness who craves and others lost without any desire one's own profit or revenge so that when they say let's go let's do it we are ashamed not to be shameless Augustine spent several chapters in his confessions going over this event in his mind meditating on it and trying to figure out what what was their motivation as they stole the pears as they true them at pigs and he concludes that they did it just for the delight of doing evil his conclusion is that there is a certain depravity in a human being that were wounded were wounded by the effects of original sin and so were weakened in our will and we have a tendency to take delight in things that that are wrong over time doing these evil actions becomes habitual and we have a tendency to do them and we become vicious in this way this is a lifelong struggle Agustin would conclude all our life on earth is a trial and it's a struggle to do good against the undertow of evil that's in ourselves in our weakened wills soon thereafter his father Patricius took ill and died but not before converting to Christianity Monica's prayers and witness won over her husband in the end with no money to his name it seemed a gustin's education had come to an end but a certain Romani honest a wealthy citizen of taiga stay had taken notice of the young man's promise and his talent in literature thanks to this man's patronage Augustine soon was bound for Carthage to further his studies it was everything a young man from the country could dream of the city was pagan the goddess tenet was worshipped Augustine wrote I came to Carthage where a cauldron of unholy loves was seething and bubbling all around me my soul was unhealthy and full of sores it exuded itself forth itching to be scratched by scraping on the things of the senses while his interest in studies did not wane the lures of Carthage overwhelmed the young man his father dead and his mother far away Augustine threw himself into the delights of the city recalling his mother's warnings he wrote I ran headlong with such blindness but I was ashamed among my equals to be guilty of less impudence than they were and I took pleasure to do it not for the pleasure of the act only but for the praise of it also ignoring his mother's warnings Augustine took on a mistress something not uncommon in his day and fathered a son a day or dhatus it must be noted however that Augustine and his mistress were faithful to one another it's possible that marriage would have been forbidden for them by law due to differences in their social standing it was illegal at the time for people to marry outside their social class regardless his mother Monica did not look upon the Union with much favor though the temptations of the flesh remained he also became attracted to his studies he studied rhetoric mathematics music and philosophy my unquiet mind was altogether intent to seek learning at this time he discovered the teaching of the Roman philosopher Cicero who extolled the virtues of wisdom and began to ponder how he might acquire it but what was wisdom and what Avenue could he take to pursue it through his teachers Augustine was exposed to many new ideas Augustine was a religious seeker he was he was sincere in his desire to know the truth and he was open to to anything and so when Cicero awakened in him a desire for wisdom he went looking for that wisdom in the place that seemed most natural to him he went looking in the Holy Scriptures he went looking in the Bible but there was a problem he expected it to be as as beautiful as Cicero in the way that Cicero was beautiful he expected it to have this learned eloquence this this gorgeous latinidad didn't have it it didn't have it the the scriptures he was using at that time were translated into a rough Latin a vulgar latin so to speak they were filled with stories that were that seemed kind of scandalous to him the stories of the patriarchs taking concubines and and multiple wives and committing adultery Agustin was scandalized by these things these rude stories of bad behavior in the ancient world and these were supposed to be our models in the faith when I then turned towards the scriptures they appeared to me to be quite unworthy for my inflated pride was repelled by their style nor could the sharpness of my wit penetrate their enemy truly they were of a sort to aid the growth of little ones but I scorned to be a little one and swollen with pride I looked upon myself as fully grown unimpressed the young seeker discarded the Holy Scriptures and sought for something more appealing at the time there was plenty to choose from the religious situation in the Roman world was complicated Christianity had been legal for more than a half century and was thriving it was the dominant religion in the empire but it was not the only religion in the Empire the temples of the old religion were still standing they were no longer state subsidized but they were still standing and still in operation in most places also there were new and exotic religions coming from the Far East religions like like manake ISM were arriving in Rome and enticing the locals with an exotic flavor so the religious marketplace was was was pretty crowded it was pretty noisy and there were many voices clamoring for the attention of a young seeker like Augusto founded by the Persian mani monotheism was an Eastern religion that exalted reason science and philosophy covered with a Christian veneer claiming to be an apostle of Christ he taught that Christ had not been born had never become a man and had never died many hated the established Church and entered the scene with new so-called truths that lured seekers Augustine was seduced into believing them he was edified by the behavior of many of the mana keys he met because they were serious they were serious about living an ascetical life a disciplined life a moral life and that appealed to him because he wanted he wanted that kind of discipline also they were seeking wisdom in classes that were held by by these perfect men the elite in the group and and there's something really appealing about the promise of secret knowledge you know we're going to give you a secret something that nobody else knows and it's going to unlock all the mysteries of the universe they made a promise like that it was it was an ambitious promise having joined the mana Keys agustin now about 25 years old returned to toggle to teach rhetoric taking his mistress and son with him his mother was horrified to hear of his manichaean affiliation and although her heart ached for her son she did not allow him to set foot in her house not one to be put off Augustin simply went to visit his patron Romani honest and lodged with him staying with Romani honest Agustin was given every privilege and took advantage of them all pursuing his ambitions he won fame for his speeches during this period of nine years from my 19th year to my 28th I went astray and led others astray I was deceived and deceived others in varied lustful projects sometimes publicly by the teaching of what men style the liberal arts sometimes secretly under the false guise of religion encouraged by his success he felt sure he was on the right path until something happened that stopped him in his tracks a close friend and one whom Agustin had converted to the Manichaean religion suddenly became very ill as he lay unconscious his family feared his impending death and they asked a Catholic priest to baptize him I tried to jest with him supposing that he also would jest in return about that baptism which he had received when his mind and senses were inactive but which he had since learned he had received but he recoiled from me as if I were his enemy and with a remarkable and unexpected freedom he admonished me that if I desired to continue as his friend I must cease to say such things confused and stunned Augustine decided that he would question his good friend about his abandonment of the manney faith he never had the opportunity however as two weeks later he received the news that his friend had died the death of so close a friend greatly affected Augustine and he sought consolation in his new faith after all mani had presumed to be at once the teacher author guide and leader of all whom he could persuade to believe this so that all who followed him believed that they were following not an ordinary man but thy Holy Spirit he plied his mana key teachers with questions most of which they were unable to answer to his satisfaction no matter they explained while we may not be able to Faustus he will put all your inquiries to rest Faustus was the leading Manichaean of his day so it was with great anticipation that Agustin approached him during one of the acclaimed teachers visits and he kept hearing this name of Faustus and it was always promised to him that just save up your questions because Faustus will have an answer for all of these so when he met him he was deflated he was unimpressed because Faustus was not a learned man he was a lot less educated than Agustin already was as a very young man he wasn't well-read he he wasn't even very intelligent as a matter of fact he asked the young Agustin if if he would tutor him in literature so that he could learn a little bit more unimpressed and disillusioned Augustine's interest in the Manicheans diminished he later wrote food in dreams appears like our food awake yet the sleepers are not nourished by it for they are asleep with such empty husks was I then fed and yet was not fed he continued to identify himself with the movement but there was a great degree of disillusionment and even from that moment on a certain level of reserve a certain degree of skepticism about what they were presenting to him though the seeds of doubt had been planted and they were coming to flower and his in his soul over time soon after Agustin fell away from the the Catholic faith his mother began to pray in earnest and she sought spiritual direction from from any church men she went to one Bishop who himself had been a hearer among the mana keys in his own youth but the bishop refused to speak with Augustine he answered that I was still unteachable being inflated with the novelty of that heresy but let him alone for a time he said only pray God for him he will of his own accord by reading come to discover what an error it is and how great its impiety is when he had said this she was not satisfied but repeated more earnestly her entreaties and shed copious tears still beseeching him to see and talk with me finally the bishop a little vexed at her importunity he exclaimed go your way as you live it cannot be that the son of these tears should perish as she often told me afterward she accepted this answer as though it were a voice from heaven because Monica prayed and she prayed intensely she prayed with tears and that Bishop knew it that Bishop was able to prophesy that Agustin would be saved for nearly three years Agustin taught rhetoric in Carthage disgusted with the lack of discipline he saw in his students he longed to get away soon he came up with a plan augusten went to carthage to catch a ship to rome he intended to leave his past behind him he would be unfettered he would be free to pursue his ambitions to pursue his his desires but there was a problem his mother had followed him to Carthage and she intended to go with him wherever he went that was a problem so he did something tremendously deceitful he installed her at a church because he knew she would have a desire to pray in a shrine of st. Cyprian the great african martyr there she spent the night in prayer Agustin told her you wait here and I'm going to go and say farewell to a friend and then I'll come back and pick you up and we'll go to Rome instead he boarded a ship and he left realm meant so much to agustin he was proud of his heritage he was a patriot and Rome was more than a city it was a symbol of that cultural heritage it was it was the the city of Virgil it was a city of Cicero so much of what he had learned what he had studied what he had pored over what he hadn't inherited from from his ancestors it must have been a great joy for him to to get the job offer that came in he had an opportunity to move on to Rome to set up a school of his own a school of rhetoric and to take on students in that illustrious City and he was still young enough to be an idealist he thought things would be different across the sea students would be different across the sea they wouldn't be like the students in Carthage who were ill behaved and and ill-disposed to learn anything in Rome the students would be disciplined and he found so found found out that that in Rome students were students they were the same as they were in Carthage they were little interested in their studies they were willing to take advantage of him though they would attend the lectures they would take advantage of the lectures they would they would boast that they'd attended the lectures of a prestigious teacher but then the day the the tuition bill came to they wouldn't show up and they'd stop showing up from that point Augustine ended up being left with with the bill so to speak Augustine had looked to Rome as the answer to all his problems instead it turned into a great disillusionment nearly broke weak in health and without a religious compass he felt lost it was precisely at this moment however when the opportunity of a lifetime presented itself in the form of a new patron Symmachus his patron here in Rome was Samak as a man from a senatorial family very important figure Samak has had a cultural agenda of his own he wanted to return Rome to its former glory and to do that he thought Rome had to return to the traditional ways the traditional religion the worship of the gods of ancient Rome Samak as' was advocating a return to state sponsorship of the old Roman religion he wanted to return the altar of victory and the sacrifices performed there and he thought that this would be good for the welfare of the people he was looking for allies and Agustin was a promising ally a brilliant young intellectual very eloquent the best rhetorician of his age and he would be in the employ of Samoas the seat of government at the time was in Milan the young Emperor twelve-year-old Valentinian ii ruled the empire through his mother the Empress Justina symmachus offered a Gustin the chair of rhetoric in Milan the prestigious and influential position it was everything Augustine had ever dreamed of and he jumped at the opportunity as an orator and as a teacher of rhetoric Augustine had skills that were highly valued by the Roman people he wielded a lot of influence especially in a place like Milan he was the mouthpiece of the government he was the propaganda machine he was the public relations industry that was getting the word out if he wanted to tell the virtues of the Emperor Augustine was the man who would do it if you wanted to have him declaimed on a military victory in a distant land Agustin was going to do it it was a pivotal position in the city of Milan at that time back in togas Monaco worried over her son she was aware of his proclivities and weaknesses and prayed for him fervently once she was widowed Monica doted on him even more she followed him where he wherever he went and she intended to follow him to Rome she didn't succeed in that of course Augustine managed to uh to leave her behind in Carthage and and flee on his own to Rome but that wasn't going to stick and eventually she found her way to his side in Milan in his new position Agustin prospered both in influence and affluence soon his mother joined him delighted to be near her son and equally elated to be near the famous bishop Ambrose Ambrose was Bishop of Milan and held in high esteem by the people born into a respected and wealthy family Ambrose had been elected governor a position he held with integrity when a conflict arose between the church and the Arion sect Ambrose rushed to the scene to quell any disturbance noting he was probably the best person to rule over them some people in the crowd began shouting Ambrose Bishop nearly the entire assembly took up the chant refusing the title Ambrose fled to a friend's house until his hosts received a letter from the Emperor praising the appointment Ambrose friend quickly turned him in and within a week Ambrose was baptized and confirmed as bishop a position he then took to believe was God's will with the same dignity and sincerity with which he had governed the city Bishop Ambrose took up his new responsibilities he soon adopted an aesthetic lifestyle and gave his wealth to the poor well-educated and entirely devoted to the cause of the church bishop ambrose became known for his powerful sermons something that Augustine envied prodded by his mother to inquire of bishop ambrose augustine relented while he resented his mother's continued interest in christianity he appreciated using his own position and his mother's inquiries to get to know the good Bishop better and so she used Augustine as a go-between bringing her religious questions before Ambrose and Agustin would listen for Ambrose's answer so that he could deliver it to his mother but he was edified by Ambrose's answers because they were very thoughtful Ambrose had thought these things through Ambrose was grounded in philosophy the way Augustine was but he had a wisdom about him and a peace a serenity that Agustin lacked and he wanted it he wanted what Ambrose had Augustine found in Bishop Ambrose just what Faustus lacked bishop ambrose was both an intellectual and a christian he was fascinated but not yet ready to embrace the good bishops faith for I had my back toward the light and my face toward the things on which the light falls so that my face which looked towards the illuminated things was not itself illuminated when he got to Milan he found himself in the midst of a new philosophical movement this new kind of Platonism rediscovering Plato for a new world a new age and they were very excited about it and this this movement included many many great minds neoplatonism was a revival of the ancient philosophy of Plato many intellectuals of Augustine's time found it attractive because it was open to religious ideas and experience Milan was a great center of neoplatonist thinking and some of its philosophers were Christians Ambrose used the language and categories of Neoplatonism in his own theology and preaching and this had a profound influence on Augustine so when Agustin arrived in Milan he very naturally gravitated toward the company of this movement and he was very excited by what was going on and he was attracted by the figure of Ambrose who was able to to work with such great ideas and was and yet was um was so confident in his Christianity was so at peace with himself just imagine a figure like that a slightly older man maybe 14 years older than than Agustin to come into your life if there was one person in the entire Roman Empire who could spar with Agustin it would be Ambrose and so he gets to know Ambrose very cautiously very hesitantly but he draws closer to Ambrose while Monica was pleased with Augustine's interest in Bishop Ambrose and his teachings she was equally aware that her son was rising up the social ladder it was time for him to take on a legitimate wife Augustine's concubine was of a lower social standing there was no possibility of a marriage there it was legally impossible so his concubine was sent back to Africa and Monica began to arrange a marriage for him with a family that was more of their standing it seemed brutal to agustin at the time but necessary he understood why it had to be done my heart was torn at the place where it stuck to hers and the wound was bleeding the concubine had a certain nobility a certain dignity that was inspiring in a sense she was more mature than Augustine at that point she said as she was leaving that she would always love him and that she would never love another man according to tradition she she went to North Africa and she lived as a celibate she found herself a community and lived as a servant of God from that point on she became a role model for Augustine and it took the broken heart in a sense to heal his heart forever brokenhearted yet submissive to the change Augustine's attention was soon diverted by a very difficult situation the Empire was ruled at least nominally by the boy Emperor Valentinian ii the real power behind the throne though was his mother Justyna Justyna ascribed to the Arian heresy the Aryans did not believe that the Christ was Co eternal with the father or co-equal with the father the religion spread Jerome said the world awoke to find itself Aryan and it spread rapidly throughout the world there was a great struggle between the Aryan and the Catholic factions in the Christian Church Justyna wanted her faction to dominate in Milan that administrative capital of the Empire and so she wanted to take the Basilica there for her own the Basilica in Milan belonged to the Church of Milan whose Bishop was Ambrose Justyna the queen mother however wanted it for her own purposes for her own heresy really the Arian heresy she intended to install her own bishop her own priests in that Basilica the authorities first made the request of Bishop Ambrose not surprisingly he declined and stood firm and so did the Empress so Justyna intended to close in on the Basilica and take possession by military might Ambrose created an act of civil disobedience he had his congregation occupied the basilica they went in and they sang hymns they chanted the Psalms they remained there and listened to him exhort them and preached to them and and and teach them also in the Basilica was st. Monica the mother of Saint Augustine and you can imagine her doing what she could to encourage the people there it was an act of courage it was an act of bravery because at any moment the soldiers outside could have received the order to close in take no prisoners Bishop Ambrose was ready for that in a letter to a friend he wrote if you demand my person I am ready to submit carry me to prison or to death I will not resist but I will never betray the Church of Christ I will not call upon the people to succor me I will die at the foot of the altar rather than deserted the tumult of the people I will not encourage but God alone can appease it well it was a standoff the soldiers outside with Justyna and the congregation inside with Ambrose I'm sure Agustin was conflicted here because I'm sure that he saw that this this may be endangered him professionally and he did I'm sure he had friends on all sides of the dispute his mother was there in the church Ambrose was there in the church so he had certain sympathies in that direction but I'm sure there was a degree of fear too I mean he could lose his mother and and that's a very real fear it's a very real threat at that time and if ever there was a man who loved his mother it was a custom barricaded inside the church along with a large portion of Milan's populace bishop ambrose stood his ground he was a man ready to die for his convictions and it was precisely that conviction which stemmed the tide the Emperor called off the troops and they they backed away it's interesting the Emperor said to the troops you would hand me over to Ambrose for judgment before you would hand Ambrose over to me so obviously Ambrose had won the sympathy even of the troops so the standoff won it was an act of civil disobedience it could have gone very badly like a lot of acts of civil disobedience it could have ended in a lot of bloodshed but it didn't the soldiers did not move in they backed off and the basilica returned to its rightful owners the Church of Milan with Ambrose as its bishop no doubt the situation impressed Agustin and he began to see Christianity in a new light he sought bishop Ambrose help and received it remember when Augustine first was awakened to the possibility of wisdom and he he felt that desire for wisdom he went first to the Bible and he wanted to find wisdom there and he felt that he didn't well Ambrose showed him that he he just didn't look hard enough and he wasn't looking in the right way he wasn't looking for the right things and he showed him a way of reading the Old Testament and and it made it possible for Agustin to engage the scriptures as he had not been able to do before at such times I am conscious of something within me that plays before my soul and his light dancing in front of it entranced by what he feels is God working in his heart Augustine gets closer to the Christian faith it is interesting to note that in his writings Augustine at one point declares himself a catechumen or convert to the Christian faith Augustine goes on to write that when he informed his mother of this she did not leap for joy as he had expected Monica replied that she had the assurance from God that before she died she would see him a full believer not a partial one while Agustin was on the path to conversion he was not yet truly converted Augustine is at the pinnacle of his career as a professor of rhetoric in Milan Capital City a place where he could wield a lot of influence not only on his field but on world events when he makes the decision that he's going to retire from it all get away from the rat race and he's going to the countryside with a group of his friends having the use of a villa they decide to dedicate themselves to the pursuit of truth through philosophy yet even in that setting something seems to be amiss well things are going well but I wouldn't say that everything is fine Augustine describes himself still as soul sick soul sick he has everything he's living in the Peace of the countryside he's he's got a nice house a peaceful place where they can have conversations and they're pursuing philosophy which is his great overriding interest in life so he has all of these things and yet he's still soul sick Augustine receives the visit of an officer from the Imperial Household a fellow African and converted Christian named Ponte chiana's having set down prior to playing dominoes p'tee chiana's notice is a book on the table he took it up open it and contrary to his expectation found it to be the Apostle Paul for he imagined that it was one of my wearisome rhetoric textbooks at this he looked up at me with a smile and expressed his delight and wonder that he had so unexpectedly found this book and only this one lying before my eyes for he was indeed a Christian and a faithful one Ponty giannis tells the story of two men he knew men in the imperial service also so men of accomplishment and both were engaged to be married and they were out for a walk one day and they wandered into a house that was occupied by celibate men who had given their lives to prayer and study of the Sacred Scripture so they wander into the house and they picked up a book there and they started reading it and it was the life of st. Anthony by Saint Anthony sheis of Egypt they started reading it and they found out about how Anthony who was a landowner and an heir one day heard the gospel preached and had the impulse to give it all up and to go out to the desert to live entirely for God to live a life of prayer to live a life of study and he acted on the impulse and He gave His life and that was the course of his entire life from then on he lived to be over a hundred years old and he lived his life in solitude with God they were so inspired by this that they broke their engagements and both of them went off and joined a monastery so Ponty chiana's tells the story and agustín's there and he hears it and when the visitor leaves Augustine begins to weep and he said with all we have with the education we have with the opportunities we have these men in the imperial service they had so much less than we have so much less philosophy so their minds weren't as refined as agustín's was and as his his companions mines were and yet these men were going into the kingdom ahead of Augustine who was not even baptized at that point and he began to weep he said that up to that point his prayer to God had been give me chastity and continence but not yet he didn't feel like he wanted to give up the pleasures of the flesh it was in fact my old mistresses trifles of trifles and vanities of vanities who still enthralled me they tugged at my fleshly garments and softly whispered are you going to part with us and from that moment we will never be with you anymore and from that moment will not this and that be forbidden you forever and the finality of that held him back he wanted chastity he wanted continents because he wanted that relationship with God but not yet he kept deferring it and deferring it and yet he never knew satisfaction he never knew happiness he never knew joy he was soul sick because he was holding on to these trifles these inanity zazz he called them these things that kept calling back to him from his memory Augustine often talks about the power of memory how when we enjoy an illicit pleasure it remains in the memory and continues to give us a kind of pleasure holding us back holding on to us keeping us from the thing that we really want in life and making us miserable and there in that garden setting that paradise out in the country with philosophers in conversation having everything he had dreamed of he was soul sick and he knew he had to change it's important that we understand just how agitated he was he describes himself as tearing at his hair he describes himself as hitting himself on the head he he knew that the storm was breaking inside him and he he needed to get away he was about to start sobbing and he was embarrassed by that so he went out and ran into the garden he said he he put himself out a good distance from Alypius so that his sobs would not be heard how long how long tomorrow and tomorrow why not now why not at this very hour make an end to my uncleanness there he threw himself down underneath the fig tree and he was crying when he heard a child's voice come from a distance come from one of the nearby houses and it said told Lele Jane told Lele Jai take up and read take up and read and Agustin thought to himself is this a nursery rhyme is this a child's game a jumprope prime as we would use today and he racked his memory and he couldn't think of anything to correspond to it and he thought this must be a sign from God and he ran to the house he knew what he had to do he went in where Alypius was sitting and there lay the letters of st. Paul he picked up the book and he opened and he read knowing the time that now it is high time to awake out of sleep for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed the night is far spent the day is at hand let us therefore cast off the works of darkness and let us put on the armor of light let us walk honestly as in the day not in rioting and drunkenness not in chambering and wantonness not in strife and envying but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ and make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof and at that moment Augustine surrendered himself to God to his greater joy Alypius joined augustine in full commitment without any hesitation joyfully they went to Monica and we went into my mother and told her what happened to a great joy we explained to her how it had occurred and she leaped for joy triumphant and she blessed thee who art able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think for she saw that thou hast granted her far more than she had ever asked for in or her pitiful and doleful lamentations for thou did so convert me to thee that I sought neither a wife nor any other of this world's hopes but set my feet on that rule of faith which so many years before thou hadst showed her in her dream about me and so they'll disagree Finn to gladness more plentiful than she had ventured to desire and dearer and purer than the desire she used the cherish of having Quran children of my flesh and they carried on with great joy anticipating their day of baptism by the late 4th century the church had a very established process of initiation becoming a Christian was not simply a quick choice by show of hands Christian's faced persecution and as such the convert or catechumens needed to have a clear understanding of doctrine and what becoming a Christ follower would demand instructed by teachers the catechumen would journey through the basics of the Christian faith retracing the story of the fall and redemption although he had knowledge of many of these things Augustine took the form of a student once again and humbled himself to learn his son adiyae dhatus by now nearly fifteen years old joined him in conversion the instruction period could last up to six months I'm the knight of Easter Vigil leading up to the time of baptism the bishop would read many readings from the Old Testament that told the entire history of salvation in O you know the story of Abraham and Isaac the story of Moses taking the people through the Red Sea readings from the prophets leading up to the time of Christ and the Paschal mystery the mystery of Christ's passion and of his Passover and how those mysteries fulfilled all of the things that had been anticipated in the Old Testament the the bishop would open up these mysteries to the congregation and the people would be taken into the baptistry Augustine was baptized completely naked you know he had to take off his clothing and go down into the waters and there the bishop would plunge you into the waters three times in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and he would be baptized with that timeless formula that formula going back to the beginning just as people are baptized today and we brought up out of the waters and given a new garment a white garment to symbolize this pure life that he was now living the life of Christ life in God there's the purity of the garment to symbolize the taking away of all the sins of his past life just imagine that joy Agustin must have known at that moment with his mother present Augustine his son a diodorus and his close friend Alypius were all baptized by bishop ambrose one can only imagine what a cherished moment this was for Monica who had so fervently and faithfully prayed for the conversion of her son soon thereafter a decision is made to return to North Africa Augustine and his companions began their journey home to Africa they traveled down the boot of Italy and they made their way to Rome sport Ostia by the sea Ostia on the Tiber here they hoped to catch a ship that would lead them home a ship to Carthage there they planned to establish a Christian community of servants of God this is the ruin of the fourth century christian basilica in the town of Ostia this would have been the centre of the Christian community of the church there was a school of catechumens here we can be fairly certain that our group of Africans Augustine and Monika their family and friends worshiped in this place while waiting in Ostia Augustine and Monica and their their companions took up residence in a comfortable house with the courtyard garden and Agustin tells us of a conversation he had with his mother as they were leaning out a window looking at that beautiful garden and they began to consider what would be the life of the saints in heaven they considered all the pleasures of the earth and they decided that the the joy of the saints was so great that none of these pleasures could compare and they began to consider the heavens themselves and then they went beyond the heavens they said to their own Souls and they contemplated their own souls and they went beyond that till they found themselves in the unmediated presence of God's wisdom as a young man Augustine's had set himself the goal of pursuing wisdom when he had read Cicero's hortensia's here he was for a brief moment a fleeting moment in the presence of divine wisdom and his mother was there - we call this the ecstasy at Ostia because they were taken outside themselves taken in to God then my mother said son for myself I have no longer any pleasure in anything in this life now that my hopes in this world are satisfied I do not know what more I want here or why I am here my God have answered more than abundantly so that I see you now made his servant and spurning all earthly happiness what more am i to do here just a few days after their heavenly conversation Monica suddenly fell ill she took to her bed with the fever she lost consciousness and her sons rushed to her bedside she came to and said where was I and then she turned to them and saw them grieving and she said you will bury your mother here and niveus must have started babbling and trying to console her and saying no mother will take you back to Africa and you can die there and will bury you with your husband that had been her wish she said listen to him talk how silly she was detached even from that wish of being buried with her husband and she explained to them that she would die there and it would not be a problem that when the time came for our Lord to call her home he would know where to find her nothing is far from God she said she was ready she had made it clear that she was ready her life's purpose had been fulfilled as she saw Augustine come to live the Christian life when she breathed her last it was a gust and her eldest son who closed her eyes he sang one of her favorite hymns he sang a song that had been written by Ambrose and that comforted him and brought back his old feelings for his mother it brought brought him to a certain peace and that's where he remained grieving but in peace you Augustine set out from these waters on the long voyage back to Africa he was starting something new in his life a new community something new for God something new for the church his ambitions had led him out of Africa his vocation was leading him home soon after his arrival Augustine is beset with another heartbreak when his teenage son succumbs to sickness having found comfort in God however he soon gets to work setting up a Christian community where he hopes to have time to meditate and grow in God's Word after so long a search and so we read a personal struggle it is the culmination of everything he has ever longed for but God had other plans Agustin didn't want that kind of complication in his life but one day he was attending a liturgy and Hippo and the people in the congregation knew that they were in need of priests and the bishop was preaching about this and the people decided that they wanted Agustin to be one of their priests so as sometimes happened in those days they went and they took him literally in hand and dragged him up to the bishop and they presented him to the bishop as a man to be ordained to the priesthood for their church and the bishop accepted him as as a candidate and ordained him so Agustin became first a priest of the Diocese of Hippo later coadjutor Bishop and Hippo and finally bishop in this great port city in North Africa faced with the constant need of his ever-growing flock and the dangers of ever growing sects and heresies Augustine rises to the occasion as a faithful Shepherd with time he pens over 1,000 documents that both help the body of believers to grow in faith as well as to keep their foundation pure from false teaching but Agustin did not confine himself to writing using his god-given gift for rhetoric he debated and triumphed and with the manichaean fortunatus a challenge he felt compelled to take up in order to repair the damage done by false teaching soon after that Augustine faced an even greater threat the collapse of the world as he knew it barbarian hordes invaded muddy Rome in AD 410 and would eventually lay siege to hippo years later it was in a sense the end of the civilized world as they knew it many of the people surmised that the gods were sending punishment because of the acceptance of Christianity and their insistence in belief of one God in response Agustin penned one of his greatest works the City of God so in the City of God Agustin tried to look on what was permanent what was permanent in this world and he looked back to the beginning of history and he traced human history in all of the cultures going down to his own day to look at the progress of the City of God and the city of man and what's enduring in the city of God on earth how do you recognize the City of God what characteristics does imagine what how did the citizens behave in the City of God that's what Agustin wanted to know what he wanted to put out there for people but as with many a prophet some take heed and others do not soon the unthinkable happens and Rome Falls the people in the Empire could not imagine a time when all those monuments when all that grandeur would be reduced to rubble and ruin they could not imagine a time when you would walk down those streets and see columns standing in the middle of nowhere with no building to hold up they could not imagine such a time the legacy of Augustan is vast his influence profound his books are requisite in any serious library thinkers must still contend with his thought churches are named after him like this one in Rome his mother Monica still is a formidable presence in the Christian world she's an inspiration she's an influence she's an intercessor to mothers everywhere especially mothers of wayward children she remains a model for getting that child back home back to the church back to the practice of the Christian faith she succeeded in ways that every mother dreams of succeeding and getting her children to heaven in the last years of Augustine's life barbarian vandals invaded North Africa and laid siege to hippo itself fascitis Augustine's biographer wrote that Augustine lived to see cities overthrown and destroyed churches denuded of priests and ministers virgins and monks dispersed some dying of torture others by the sword others captured and losing innocence of soul and body and faith itself in cruel slavery he saw hymns and divine praises ceasing in the churches the buildings themselves often burned down faced with such depredations Augustine in a 78th year increased the time he spent in prayer and then on August 28th 420 AD he died in the presence of his friends having no earthly possessions Augustine left no will his true legacy however was the vast corpus of his writings a treasure that would endure through the centuries his work is at the foundation of Western civilization his teaching belongs to the whole church truly his has been a voice for all generations you

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Keywords: Christian Videos, Christian Films, Christian Movies, Religious Movies, Films, Movies, Entertainment, Feature Films, Saint Augustine, Of Hippo, Augustinian Order, The City of God, On the Trinity, The Confessions, Early Church, Early Church History, Mike Aquilina

Id: 32bFPD36M8g

Length: 59min 26sec (3566 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 01 2020