LA CONSOLACION COLLEGE – BAIS SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL
:
“The Life of St. Augustine: Early Childhood”
At the end of this lesson, the you are expected to:
1. identify the basic source of Saint Augustine’s life;
2. appreciate the peculiarity of Saint Augustine’s family;
3. relate with Saint Augustine’s journey towards learning and finding the truth;
Activity 1: “Watch and Relate”
Instruction: Watch the short film about St. Augustine’s Life and take note of the similar
instances in your life (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3-SZv3UJTw)
My life and St. Augustine’s do they have similarities
St. Augustine’s Life My Life
AUGUSTINIAN SPIRITUALITY 1
LA CONSOLACION COLLEGE – BAIS SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL
Introduction
St. Augustine, also called Saint Augustine of
Hippo, original Latin name Aurelius Augustinus, (born
November 13, 354, Tagaste, Numidia [now Souk Ahras,
Algeria]—died August 28, 430, Hippo Regius [now
Annaba, Algeria]; feast day August 28), bishop of Hippo
from 396 to 430, one of the Latin Fathers of the Church
and perhaps the most significant Christian thinker after
St. Paul. Augustine’s adaptation of classical thought to
Christian teaching created a theological system of great
power and lasting influence. His numerous written
works, the most important of which are Confessions (c.
400) and The City of God (c. 413–426), shaped the
practice of biblical exegesis and helped lay the
foundation for much of medieval and modern Christian thought. In Roman Catholicism
he is formally recognized as a doctor of the church.
St. Augustine of Hippo is the patron of brewers because of his conversion from
a former life of loose living, which included parties, entertainment, and worldly
ambitions. His complete turnaround and conversion has been an inspiration to many
who struggle with a particular vice or habit they long to break.
This famous son of St. Monica spent many years of his life in wicked living and
in false beliefs. Though he was one of the most intelligent men who ever lived and
though he had been brought up a Christian, his sins of impurity and his pride
darkened his mind so much, that he could not see or understand the Divine Truth
anymore. Through the prayers of his holy mother and the marvelous preaching of St.
Ambrose, Augustine finally became convinced that Christianity was the one true
religion. Yet he did not become a Christian then, because he thought he could never
live a pure life. One day, however, he heard about two men who had suddenly been
converted on reading the life of St. Antony, and he felt terrible ashamed of himself.
"What are we doing?" he cried to his friend Alipius. "Unlearned people are taking
Heaven by force, while we, with all our knowledge, are so cowardly that we keep rolling
around in the mud of our sins!"
Full of bitter sorrow, Augustine flung himself out into the garden and cried out
to God, "How long more, O Lord? Why does not this hour put an end to my sins?" Just
then he heard a child singing, "Take up and read!" Thinking that God intended him to
hear those words, he picked up the book of the Letters of St. Paul, and read the first
AUGUSTINIAN SPIRITUALITY 2
LA CONSOLACION COLLEGE – BAIS SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL
passage his gaze fell on. It was just what Augustine needed,
for in it, St. Paul says to put away all impurity and to live in
imitation of Jesus. That did it! From then on, Augustine began
a new life.
He was baptized, became a priest, a bishop, a famous
Catholic writer, Founder of religious priests, and one of the
greatest saints that ever lived. He became very devout and
charitable, too. On the wall of his room he had the following
sentence written in large letters: "Here we do not speak evil of
anyone." St. Augustine overcame strong heresies, practiced
great poverty and supported the poor, preached very often
and prayed with great fervor right up until his death. "Too late
have I loved You!" he once cried to God, but with his holy life he certainly made up for
the sins he committed before his conversion. His feast day is August 28th.
Early Years
Augustine is the first ecclesiastical author the whole course of whose
development can be clearly traced, as well as the first in whose case we are able to
determine the exact period covered by his career, to the very day. His father Patricius,
as a member of the council, belonged to the influential classes of the place; he was,
however, in straitened circumstances, and seems to have had nothing remarkable
either in mental equipment or in character, but to have been a lively, sensual, hot-
tempered person, entirely taken up with his worldly concerns, and unfriendly to
Christianity until the close of his life; he became a catechumen shortly before
Augustine reached his sixteenth year (369-370). To his
mother Monnica (so the manuscripts write her name, not
Monica; b. 331, d. 387) Augustine later believed that he
owed what lie became. But though she was evidently an
honorable, loving, self-sacrificing, and able woman, she
was not always the ideal of a Christian mother that
tradition has made her appear. Her religion in earlier life
has traces of formality and worldliness about it; her
ambition for her son seems at first to have had little moral
earnestness and she regretted his Manicheanism more
than she did his early sensuality. It seems to have been
through Ambrose and Augustine that she attained the
mature personal piety with which she left the world.
Augustine as a boy his parents were intensely proud. He
received his first education at Thagaste, learning, to read
and write, as well as the rudiments of Greek and Latin
literature, from teachers who followed the old traditional pagan methods. He seems to
have had no systematic instruction in the Christian faith at this period, and though
enrolled among the catechumens, apparently was near baptism only when an illness
and his own boyish desire made it temporarily probable.
AUGUSTINIAN SPIRITUALITY 3
LA CONSOLACION COLLEGE – BAIS SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL
His father, delighted with his son’s progress in his
studies, sent him first to the neighboring Madaura, and
then to Carthage, some two days’ journey away. A year’s
enforced idleness, while the means for this more
expensive schooling were being accumulated, proved a
time of moral deterioration; but we must be on our guard
against forming our conception of Augustine’s vicious
living from the Confessiones alone. To speak, as
Mommsen does, of” frantic dissipation” is to attach too
much weight to his own penitent expressions of self-
reproach. Looking back as a bishop, he naturally
regarded his whole life up to the ” conversion ” which led
to his baptism as a period of wandering from the right
way; but not long after this conversion, he judged differently, and found, from one point
of view, the turning point of his career in his taking up philosophy -in his nineteenth
year. This view of his early life, which may be traced also in the Confessiones, is
probably nearer the truth than the popular conception of a youth sunk in all kinds of
immorality. When he began the study of rhetoric at Carthage, it is true that (in
company with comrades whose ideas of pleasure were probably much more gross than
his) he drank of the cup of sensual pleasure. But his ambition prevented him from
allowing his dissipations to interfere with his studies. His son Adeodatus was born in
the summer of 372, and it was probably the mother of this child whose charms
enthralled him soon after his arrival at Carthage about the end of 370. But he remained
faithful to her until about 385, and the grief which he felt at parting from her shows
what the relation had been. In the view of the civilization of that period, such a
monogamous union was distinguished from a formal marriage only by certain legal
restrictions, in addition to the informality of its beginning and the possibility of a
voluntary dissolution. Even the Church was slow to condemn such unions absolutely,
and Monica seems to have received the child and his mother publicly at Thagaste. In
any case Augustine was known to Carthage not as a roysterer but as a quiet honorable
student. He was, however, internally dissatisfied with his life. The Hortensius of Cicero,
now lost with the exception of a few fragments, made a deep impression on him. To
know the truth was henceforth his deepest wish. About the time when the contrast
between his ideals and his actual life became intolerable, he learned to conceive of
Christianity as the one religion which could lead him to the attainment of his ideal.
But his pride of intellect held him back from embracing it earnestly; the Scriptures
could not bear comparison with Cicero; he sought for wisdom, not for humble
submission to authority.
AUGUSTINIAN SPIRITUALITY 4
LA CONSOLACION COLLEGE – BAIS SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL
TRUE or FALSE
Instruction: Write “True” on the space provided before each number if the statement is true. Write
“False” if the statement is false.
ANSWER QUESTIONS/STATEMENTS
_________ 1. St. Augustine overcame strong heresies, practiced great poverty and supported
the poor, preached very often and prayed with great fervor right up until his
death.
_________ 2. St. Augustine’s feast day is August 27th.
_________ 3. St. Augustine, also called Saint Augustine of Hippo, original Latin name
Aurelius Augustinus, (born November 13, 354)
_________ 4. St. Augustine August 28, 430 A.D.
_________ 5. On the wall of his room he had the following sentence written in large letters:
"Here we do not speak evil of anyone."
_________ 6. One of St. Augustine’s quotation is, “Too late have I loved You!”
_________ 7. Augustine’s conversion happened when he heard a voice of child which says
"Take up and read!"
_________ 8. Augustine spent many years of his life in wicked living and in false beliefs.
_________ 9. St. Augustine of Hippo is the patron of brewers because of his conversion from
a former life of loose living, which included parties, entertainment, and worldly
ambitions.
_________ 10. St. Augustine was born in Tagaste, Numidia [now Souk Ahras, Algeria]
_________ 11. St. Augustine’s, delighted with his son’s progress in his studies, sent him first
to the neighboring Madaura, and then to California.
_________ 12. His father Patricius, as a member of the council, belonged to the influential
classes of the place.
_________ 13. The Hortensius of Cicero, now lost with the exception of a few fragments,
made a deep impression to St. Augustine.
_________ 14. St. Augustine received his first education at Thagaste, learning, to read
and write, as well as the rudiments of Greek and Latin literature, from
teachers who followed the old traditional pagan methods.
_________ 15. St. Augustine’s, delighted with his son’s progress in his studies, sent him first
to the neighboring Madaura, and then to California.
AUGUSTINIAN SPIRITUALITY 5
LA CONSOLACION COLLEGE – BAIS SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL
On the space provided, write a short reflection on following the sayings
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AUGUSTINIAN SPIRITUALITY 6
LA CONSOLACION COLLEGE – BAIS SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL
Catholic Online. (n.d.). St. Augustine of Hippo - Saints & Angels. Retrieved August 29,
2020, from https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=418
O'Donnell, J. (2020, August 24). Confessions. Retrieved August 29, 2020, from
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Augustine/Confessions
Unknown. (1970, January 01). St. Augustine : The Miserable Bishop (354-430 AD) by Chris
White. Retrieved August 29, 2020, from
http://hagiographynow.blogspot.com/2014/02/st-augustine-miserable-bishop-354-
430.html
'St Augustine, Bishop of Hippo in Discussion'. Monks pray in the background. St Augustine
of Hippo (354-430) is regarded as one of the great fathers of the early Christian
church. French manuscript.. (n.d.). Retrieved August 29, 2020, from
https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo/st-augustine-of-hippo.html
(n.d.). Retrieved August 30, 2020, from https://iep.utm.edu/augustin/
(n.d.). Retrieved August 30, 2020, from http://www.notable-uotes.com/a/augustine_st.html
79 Best St. Monica images: St monica, Monica, Catholic. (2019, February 06). Retrieved August
30, 2020, from https://www.pinterest.ph/40daysofprayer/st-monica/
(n.d.). Retrieved August 30, 2020, from https://iep.utm.edu/augustin/
AUGUSTINIAN SPIRITUALITY 7
