Saint Augustine of Hippo, Bishop and Doctor of the Church

In the Novus Ordo liturgical calendar, today (August 28) is the feast day of St. Augustine of Hippo, (354-430), one of the more successful of all converts to the Faith (after the original Apostles, of course, who were all converts!)  However, the feast is superseded by the weekly Sunday solemnity, so it may not be mentioned at Mass.

Augustine is widely recognized as one of the most brilliant theologians in Christian history. He is among the 36 men and women designated as Doctors of the Church.  What does this mean? According to the Catholic Encyclopedia:

"The requisite conditions are enumerated as three: eminens doctrina, insignis vitae sanctitas, Ecclesiae declaratio (i.e. eminent learning, a high degree of sanctity, and proclamation by the Church). Benedict XIV explains the third as a declaration by the supreme pontiff or by a general council. But though general councils have acclaimed the writings of certain Doctors, no council has actually conferred the title of Doctor of the Church. In practice the procedure consists in extending to the universal church the use of the Office and Mass of a saint in which the title of doctor is applied to him. The decree is issued by the Congregation of Sacred Rites and approved by the pope, after a careful examination, if necessary, of the saint's writings. It is not in any way an ex cathedra decision, nor does it even amount to a declaration that no error is to be found in the teaching of the Doctor. It is, indeed, well known that the very greatest of them are not wholly immune from error. No martyr has ever been included in the list, since the Office and the Mass are for Confessors. Hence, as Benedict XIV points out, St. Ignatius, St. Irenæus, and St. Cyprian are not called Doctors of the Church." [Note: although this entry is from the "old" C.E. which dates back to the first half of the 20th Century, the procedure and requisites for naming a Doctor of the Church remain essentially the same today.]

Augustine was an original party animal, who spent his youth and early adulthood pursuing an openly hedonistic lifestyle, to the great distress of his mother, (St. Monica, who prayed for his conversion for many years), before he finally took instruction in the Christian Faith from St. Ambrose of Milan and was baptized. His prolific writings are a source of many famous quotations. One of my favorites: "Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depends on you."

My other favorite is: "You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you."

Despite Augustine's towering intellect and years of study, even he was unable to develop a rational way to understand the greatest of all Christian mysteries, the Holy Trinity. At the conclusion of a lengthy and densely-reasoned treatise on the subject, (nearly 100 pages in my English translation), Augustine concluded that the Trinity is beyond human comprehension. Heck, I could have told him that in a lot fewer words.

One very interesting thing about St. Augustine's writings is the degree to which some Protestants purport to be subscribers to his theology.  Calvinists, especially, are inclined to do this.  Their adherence to Augustine's thought is, of course, highly selective, ignoring the many aspects of his writings which are undeniably and completely Catholic.  But I still find it fascinating, and it is, I think, an indication of just how brilliant Augustine's theology is.

St. Augustine, ora pro nobis!

Laudator Jesus Christus 

Feast of St. Louis IX of France (Yes, THAT St. Louis!)

Today the Church honors Louis IX of France, the patron of the great City of St. Louis, Missouri, where I and two generations of my forebears entered this world.  My first knowledge of this Saint came from the famous statue that stands in front of the Art Museum in St. Louis, a work by C.H. Niehaus entitled "The Apotheosis of St. Louis."

My parents, who were semi-practicing Presbyterians, couldn't explain to me what the title "Saint" meant, other than to say it was a great honor of some kind.  They did not, to their credit, use it as an occasion to bash the Catholic Church.  Upon my conversion and entry into the Church in 2005, after I started paying attention to the solemnities, feasts and memorials of the liturgical calendar, I was pleased to learn more about the man for whom the city of my birth was named.  Here are the last few paragraphs from the Catholic Encyclopedia's quite lengthy entry about St. Louis:

"St. Louis led an exemplary life, bearing constantly in mind his mother's words: "I would rather see you dead at my feet than guilty of a mortal sin." His biographers have told us of the long hours he spent in prayer, fasting, and penance, without the knowledge of his subjects. The French king was a great lover of justice. French fancy still pictures him delivering judgements under the oak of Vincennes. It was during his reign that the "court of the king" (curia regis) was organized into a regular court of justice, having competent experts, and judicial commissions acting at regular periods. These commissions were called parlements and the history of the "Dit d'Amiens" proves that entire Christendom willingly looked upon him as an international judiciary. It is an error, however, to represent him as a great legislator; the document known as "Etablissements de St. Louis" was not a code drawn up by order of the king, but merely a collection of customs, written out before 1273 by a jurist who set forth in this book the customs of Orléans, Anjou, and Maine, to which he added a few ordinances of St. Louis.

St. Louis was a patron of architecture. The Sainte Chappelle, an architectural gem, was constructed in his reign, and it was under his patronage that Robert of Sorbonne founded the "Collège de la Sorbonne," which became the seat of the theological faculty of Paris.
He was renowned for his charity. The peace and blessings of the realm come to us through the poor he would say. Beggars were fed from his table, he ate their leavings, washed their feet, ministered to the wants of the lepers, and daily fed over one hundred poor. He founded many hospitals and houses: the House of the Felles-Dieu for reformed prostitutes; the Quinze-Vingt for 300 blind men (1254), hospitals at Pontoise, Vernon, Compiégne.
The Enseignements (written instructions) which he left to his son Philip and to his daughter Isabel, the discourses preserved by the witnesses at judicial investigations preparatory to his canonization and Joinville's anecdotes show St. Louis to have been a man of sound common sense, possessing indefatigable energy, graciously kind and of playful humour, and constantly guarding against the temptation to be imperious. The caricature made of him by the envoy of the Count of Gueldre: "worthless devotee, hypocritical king" was very far from the truth. On the contrary, St. Louis, through his personal qualities as well as his saintliness, increased for many centuries the prestige of the French monarchy (see FRANCE). St. Louis's canonization was proclaimed at Orvieto in 1297, by Boniface VIII. Of the inquiries in view of canonization, carried on from 1273 till 1297, we have only fragmentary reports published by Delaborde ("Mémoires de la société de l'histoire de Paris et de l'Ilea de France," XXIII, 1896) and a series of extracts compiled by Guillaume de St. Pathus, Queen Marguerite's confessor, under the title of "Vie Monseigneur Saint Loys" (Paris, 1899)."

You can read the whole thing here.

Laudator Jesus Christus!