(Section 29.) For Augustine this meant a totally new life. He once described his daily life in the following terms: “The turbulent have to be corrected, the faint-hearted cheered up, the weak supported; the Gospel’s opponents need to be refuted, its insidious enemies guarded against; the unlearned need to be taught, the indolent stirred up, the argumentative checked; the proud must be put in their place, the desperate set on their feet, those engaged in quarrels reconciled; the needy have to be helped, the oppressed to be liberated, the good to be encouraged, the bad to be tolerated; all must be loved”.
“The Gospel terrifies me” - producing that healthy fear which prevents us from living for ourselves alone and compels us to pass on the hope we hold in common. Amid the serious difficulties facing the Roman Empire—and also posing a serious threat to Roman Africa, which was actually destroyed at the end of Augustine’s life—this was what he set out to do: to transmit hope, the hope which came to him from faith and which, in complete contrast with his introverted temperament, enabled him to take part decisively and with all his strength in the task of building up the city.
In the same chapter of the Confessions in which we have just noted the decisive reason for his commitment “for all”, he says that Christ “intercedes for us, otherwise I should despair. My weaknesses are many and grave, many and grave indeed, but more abundant still is your medicine. We might have thought that your word was far distant from union with man, and so we might have despaired of ourselves, if this Word had not become flesh and dwelt among us”.
On the strength of his hope, Augustine dedicated himself completely to the ordinary people and to his city—renouncing his spiritual nobility, he preached and acted in a simple way for simple people.
Below is a report of the Pope’s General Audience in Rome on 9th January 2008.
"All the Roads of Christian Latin Literature Lead to Hippo"
VATICAN CITY, JAN. 9, 2007 (Zenit.) Here is a translation of the address Benedict XVI delivered today at the general audience in Paul VI Hall. The reflection is the first in a series on St. Augustine, bishop of Hippo.
After the Christmas holidays I would like to turn to the meditations on the Fathers of the Church and speak today of the greatest Father of the Latin Church, St. Augustine: 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.
(Continued on the next page.)
Photos (at right).
Augustinians in Manila area, Philippines, October 2007.
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