Augustine underwent several stages of conversion throughout his life: 1) An intellectual conversion at age 19 after reading Cicero's work which led him to philosophy. 2) A conversion of the heart at age 32 in Milan where he committed himself fully to Christianity. 3) A mystical conversion after being baptized by Ambrose at age 33. 4) An ecclesial conversion in 391 when he was ordained as priest and bishop of Hippo in 396. 5) A final surrender to Christ as the sole manifestation of the perfect life from 412-427 where he felt a continuing need for God's mercy and grace.

1. AUGUSTINE
AUGUSTINE
You have made us for yourself,
O Lord,
and our heart is restless
until it rests in you.

2. Augustine was born on 13th November 354, in Tagaste, a
small town situated about fifty miles inland from the port of
Hippo. Hippo is on the northern coast of Africa, today
Algeria. His parents, Monica and Patricius, owned a house
and few acres of land, but were not considered wealthy.
Monica was a Christian of intense but simple piety, while
Patricius a pagan, until shortly before his death in 370.

3. After elementary schooling in Tagaste,
Augustine was sent, at about the age
of ten, to study grammar and classical
literature in Madaura, a nearby town.
About 369, the young Augustine due
to lack of funds, had to interrupt his
studies for a year. Romanianus, a
wealthy Tagastan, provided the money
for Augustine to go to Carthage
for advanced studies in rhetoric. This
was in the fall of 370. A brilliant
student, Augustine soon became a
teacher in his own right, opening a
Grammar school in Tagaste (373 – 374) and then teaching
rhetoric at Carthage until 383.

4. For many years, Augustine lived with a woman (whose
name we do not know) who bore him a son, in 371, named
Adeodatus. The following year Augustine, drawn perhaps
by companionship in search for truth, became a member of
the Manichaean sect and remained a member for some
nine years. The Manichaeans
believed in two great gods:
one was the source of light and
goodness, the other was the
ruler of darkness and evil.
Augustine became increasingly
disillusioned with the
Manichaean experts as they
proved incapable of dealing
with questions he put to them.

5. At the age of about twenty-eight, he left Carthage and went
to Rome. There he made connections that procured for him
the appointment to an official professorship at Milan, then
the place of residence of the emperor of the west. The
bishop of Milan was Ambrose, the most eminent Christian
leader of the day. Augustine went to hear him preach, and
this, his first contact with the mind of a Christian intellectual,
was enough to shake
his prejudice against
Catholic teaching.
The climax of a long
personal struggle
came in the summer
of 386 in a Milan
garden.

6. He was converted after hearing a voice. It was the voice of
a boy or a girl, who was constantly repeating to him: “Take
and read. Take and read.” Augustine snatched the Bible
and read in silence the passage upon which his eyes first
fell: “Not in rioting and drunkenness,
not in chambering and wantonness,
not in strife and envying: but put on
the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not
provision for the flesh in
concupiscence.” Augustine had no
wish to read further; there was no
need to. For immediately he had
reached the end of this sentence it
was as though his heart was filled
with a light of confidence and all
the shadows of his doubt were swept
away.

7. The fall of the year 386 found Augustine
ready to resign his teaching position and
to begin his preparation for baptism in
the Catholic Church. Bishop Ambrose
baptised him during the Easter vigil in
387. On their way back to Africa,
Augustine and his Monica were delayed
in Ostia. The touching account of the
death of his mother, in the late spring of
387 is in the ninth book of the
Confessions.

8. Home again at Tagaste, Augustine formed a small
community devoted to the religious life of contemplation and
study. But, its peace was soon broken when, on a visit to
Hippo in 381, Augustine was forced to accept ordination as
assistant priest to its aging bishop. Four years later he
became auxiliary bishop of Hippo, succeeding to the see in
396. The bishop in Roman Africa was not only the pastor of
the parish, the busy teacher and preacher, but the presiding
judge in a much-frequented court of summary jurisdiction in
civil cases. Augustine never enjoyed robust health, and the
vast extent of his literary output was made possible only by
the constant services
of stenographers and
by his extraordinary
capacity to formulate
ordered thought.

9. Most of Augustine’s important treatises appeared in the first
quarter of the fifth century. The book of Confessions was
written in the years about 400. Between 400 and 416 he
wrote, in fifteen books, On the Trinity, long recognised as the
major Patristic treatise on this subject. In almost the same
period (401 – 416) his most important biblical work was
composed, the Literal Commentary on Genesis. Responding
to a growing attack on Christianity within the Roman Empire,
Augustine began his famous City of God in 413 and did not
complete its 22 books before 426. His numerous letters and
sermons were carefully preserved. Four years before his
death he undertook to review his
many writings, in chronological
order. These Retractions (426)
give a solid base for determining
the dates and authenticity of the
more than 1000 works that came
from his pen.

10. Augustine’s demanding responsibilities never induced him
to abandon his monastic ideals. As a priest he founded a
monastery on a portion of church grounds, given him for
this purpose by Bishop Valerius. As a bishop he turned
his Episcopal residence into a monastery in which the
members of his household lived the common life.

11. The monastic ideal of Saint Augustine came to full fruition
centuries later when numerous religious communities sprang
up which adopted the
Rule of Saint Augustine
and became a powerful
force in evangelisation,
preaching the gospel to
the poor in the cities,
bringing the good news to
the world, defining the
true faith in the pulpits
and on university chairs,
taking the initiative in
founding schools,
orphanages, hospitals
and other works of
charity.

12. To the world at large
Saint Augustine is above
all known as the great
thinker who powerfully
influenced philosophy
and theology, the
thrust of the spirituality of
the Latin Church and the
development of apostolic
endeavours. The source
from whence he drew
the strength for his great
achievements should not
be overlooked: his
monastic ideal, and
contemplation and the
search for God.

13. The Stages or Turning Points of
Augustine’s Conversion
• Intellectual Conversion
Aged 19 in Carthage, Conversion to
Philosophy upon reading Cicero’s
Hortensius in 373. The intellectual
conversion of St. Augustine happened in
the year 373-374 during his working days
as a tutor to students in grammar at
Thagaste and in Carthage. In Confessions
3.4, Augustine makes reference to this
writing:

14. • “The book changed my feelings and prayers,
and entirely altered my purposes and desires.
Suddenly all I hoped in, I saw as worthless…I
had begun that journey upward by which I was
to return to you.” Likewise, he writes in
Confessions 6.11.18. “I anxiously reflected how
long a time had elapsed since the 19th year of
my life when began to burn with a zeal for
wisdom…And here I was already thirty, and still
mucking about in the same mire in state of
indecision.”

15. • Conversion of the Heart ( Aged 32 in Milan—
July/August 386)
As reflected in the Book of Confessions, Augustine
writes: “I was all hot for money, honors and
marriage. And you made a mock of my hotness.
In pursuit of these I suffered most
disappointment. But in this you were good to me,
since I was prevented from taking delight in
anything not yourself.” (Confessions 6.6).

16. Mystical or Spiritual Conversion (baptized by
Ambrose at the age of 33 with Monica at
Ostia in 387
• In Confessions 9.10.23 Augustine writes:
“Our conversion led us to the point where
the pleasure of the body’s senses seemed
unworthy of comparison beside the joy of
that life, and we lifted ourselves in longing,
and step by step traversed all bodily
things. Higher still we mounted and we
arrived at the summit of our minds; and
this too we transcended, to touch that land
of never- failing plenty.

17. • And as we talked and panted for that
wisdom, we just touched it by the utmost
leap of our hearts; then, sighing
unsatisfied, we left the first fruits of our
spirit captive there, and returned to the
noise of articulate speech where words
have beginning and end. How different
from your Word, O Lord which grows not
old but renews all things.”

18. Ecclesial Conversion: (In the year 391, he
was ordained as priest and was ordained
Bishop of Hippo in the year 396).
• In his words, “I was made to stand at the
ship when I scarcely knew how to hold an
oar” (Sermon 340). In the same sermon,
he says: “From the moment this burden
was placed on my shoulders, anxiety
about honor shown me has always ben
haunting me…For you I am a bishop, with
you, after all, I am a Christian.”

19. • In letter 48.2, he writes: “Do not prefer
your leisure to the needs of the Church,
since there would not have been good
servants ready to attend at her
childbearing, we would not have found a
way to be born.”

20. Surrender to Christ as sole manifestation of
the “perfect life”—412-427 A.D. (Final
Conversion)
• According to Pope Benedict XIV,
Augustine arrived to a further degree of
humility in this stage of his life. He felt the
need for a continuing mercy and grace of
God. In his illness Augustine had the
penitential psalm (Ps 51) not really for His
personal sins but for his shortcomings in
his ecclesial tasks. This was also his act of
surrender to have total Christ. (Psalm 51)

21. • Lastly, in the Apostolic Letter of John Paul
II, “Augustine of Hippo,” (1986) the late
Pope says: “In some ways, all believers
are sons and disciples of St. Augustine.”