Why augustine became a saint

Benedict, whose names I bear is St. The name Augustine is a form of the title Augustus , which was given to Roman emperors to indicate their greatness and venerableness. If you like the information I've presented here, you should join my Secret Information Club.

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Jimmy Akin Jimmy was born in Texas and grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant pastor or seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible.

But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith. Eventually, he entered the Catholic Church.

Subscriber Service Center Already a subscriber? Renew or manage your subscription here. Give a Gift Subscription Bless friends, family or clergy with a gift of the Register. Order Bulk Subscriptions Get a discount on 6 or more copies sent to your parish, organization or school. Subscribe Support the register. Jimmy Akin Blogs August 28, Augustine, bishop and doctor of the Church. Who was he and why is he so famous? Here are 10 things to know and share In , Augustine returned to Thagaste, where he lived on his family estate in a small, quasi-monastic community.

But Augustine's talents continued to attract attention. In , he visited the city of Hippo Regius, about 60 miles from Thagaste, in order to start a monastery, but he ended up being drafted into the priesthood by a Christian congregation there. In , he became the bishop of Hippo.

He spent the next 35 years preaching, celebrating mass, resolving local disputes, and ministering to his congregation. He continued to write, and he became famous throughout the Christian world for his role in several controversies.

During this period, the Christian church in north Africa was divided into two opposing factions, the Donatists and the Catholics. In the early s, the African church had suffered Imperial persecutions, and some Christians had publicly renounced their beliefs to escape torture and execution, while others accepted martyrdom for their faith. After the persecutions ended, the Catholics re-admitted those Christians who made public repentance for having renounced their faith.

But the Donatists insisted that anyone wanting to rejoin the church would have to rebaptized. Furthermore, they refused to recognize any priests or bishops except their own, believing that the Catholic bishops had been ordained by traitors.

By the s, the conflict had erupted into violence, with Donatist outlaws attacking Catholic travelers in the countryside. At first, Augustine tried diplomacy with the Donatists, but they refused his overtures, and he came to support the use of force against them. The Roman government banned Donatism in , but conflict continued until , when hundreds of Donatist and Catholic bishops met for a hearing in Carthage before the imperial commissioner Marcellinus, Augustine's friend and a Catholic.

Augustine, the former rhetor, eloquently argued the position of the Catholics, and Marcellinus decided in their favor.

Donatism was suppressed by severe legal penalties. Augustine's vision of Catholicism as an institution that could thrive despite the imperfections of believers later became a definitive statement about the role and purpose of the church. While the Donatist controversy was in full swing, a catastrophe struck the Roman world. In the year , Rome, the symbolic capitol of an empire that had dominated the known world for hundreds of years, was looted and burned by the armies of the Visigoths, northern European barbarian tribes.

Many people throughout the empire believed that the fall of Rome marked the end of civilization as they knew it. In response, Augustine began writing his greatest masterpiece, The City of God Against the Pagans, which he worked on for 15 years. In The City of God, Augustine places the heavenly and eternal Jerusalem, the true home of all Christians, against the transitory worldly power represented by Rome, and in doing so, he articulates an entirely new Christian world view.

About the time of the fall of Rome, a movement called Pelagianism began in the church, calling for a fundamental renewal of spiritual and physical discipline. Its founder, a British monk named Pelagius, had read Augustine's plea to God in the Confessions, "Grant what you command and command what you will" Pelagius was horrified by the apparent human helplessness that Augustine's statement seemed to imply.

E-News Archive. Photo Galleries. Province Offices. Heritage Room. Archives Research Center. Other Links. The Augustinian Fund. Father Riley Fund. Tolle Lege Day. Legacy Gifts. Mass Cards. Memorial Bricks. Monica was a Christian and also became a saint, but her husband was a pagan.

She prayed often that her family would be Christians. Just before he died in , Patricius converted to Christianity. Augustine would not convert for many more years. His teachers would often punish him for not knowing the correct answers. Finally, he discovered that he loved the Latin language. He worked very hard to study Latin and showed everyone he was actually very intelligent.