August 28--St. Augustine of Hippo, Bishop and Doctor of the Church

      

Sinner, heretic, gambler, playboy, philosopher, teacher, penitent, monk, priest, bishop, saint.  All these describe the same person, St. Augustine.  St. Augustine was the most influential person in developing and explaining Church doctrine in the first millennia after the first century.  He helped make clear the doctrines of Original Sin, the Trinity, grace, free will, Baptism, and more.  He was one of the four original Doctors of the Latin Church along with St. Ambrose, St. Gregory, and St. Jerome.

However, before he converted he was an opponent of the Catholic Church, belonging to a heretical group that said we have two wills, one good and one evil.  He had a mistress and an illegitimate son.  He was ambitious for fame and glory.  But he was also a searcher for truth.  That commitment to the truth eventually led him back to the faith of his mother, St. Monica.  All this is recorded in his great autobiography, The Confessions, which tells of his sinful youth and eventual conversion.

One of his famous lines from The Confessions is, "Our hearts are restless until they rest in you, O God."  God plants in our hearts the desire for God.  If we are faithful to that desire; if we are honestly searching for truth, we will find God already in our hearts.