Heroes of the Faith: Saints Who Teach Us to Love Christ
"In every generation, God raises up men and women whose lives help us to see the Gospel more clearly. They are not heroes because they were perfect. They are not remembered because they never struggled, doubted, suffered, or failed. They are remembered because, in their own time and place, they bore faithful witness to Jesus Christ." (This is a monthly podcast offered by Padre Mario Melendez and Father Stuart King)
Heroes of the Faith: Saints Who Teach Us to Love Christ
Episode 4 | St Augustine
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
St. Augustine was born in North Africa in 354. His mother, St. Monica, was a faithful Christian who prayed for him with tears and perseverance. Augustine, however, did not come easily to faith. (This is the fourth monthly episode of the series "Heroes of the Faith: Saints Who Teach Us to Love Christ" brought to you by Padre Mario Melendez and Father Stuart King)
Saint Augustine of Hippo, bishop, theologian, pastor, sinner, convert, and one of the greatest teachers the church has known. Augustine was born in North Africa in 354. His mother, Saint Monica, was a faithful Christian who prayed for him with tears and perseverance. Augustine, however, did not come easily to faith. Brilliant, ambitious, restless, and divided within himself, he searched for truth and success, pleasure, reputation, philosophy, and religion. None gave him peace. He wanted truth, but also control. He wanted God, but not yet. He wanted conversion, but not too soon. That is why Augustine speaks so powerfully to us. He is not a distant, polished saint, untouched by ordinary struggle. He knew desire, temptation, and intellectual pride. He knew what it was to be pulled between the love of God and the love of self.
SPEAKER_01In his confessions, Augustine looks back on his life, not merely to tell his story, but to praise God's mercy. He writes, You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you. That restlessness lies at the heart of his witness. Augustine teaches that the human heart is made for God. We may try to satisfy it with achievement, admiration, pleasure, possessions, distraction or power. These may comfort or occupy us for a time, but they cannot bear the weight of our longing. Only God can give the heart its true rest.
SPEAKER_00Augustine is therefore a wise companion for pastoral ministry. He knew that people often come to God by crooked paths. Some resist grace for years. Some are drawn by beauty before they can explain doctrine. Some need the prayers of others when they cannot pray for themselves. Through Monica's tears, Ambrose's preaching, the scriptures, and the quiet work of grace, Augustine discovered that God had been seeking him long before he knew how to seek God. Conversion, for Augustine, is not self-improvement, it is being found by mercy. Baptized by St. Ambrose in Milan in 387, Augustine later returned to North Africa and became bishop of Hippo. He served as pastor, preacher, teacher, and defender of the faith. His teaching on grace remains one of his greatest gifts to the church. We do not save ourselves through cleverness, strength, or moral achievement. We are saved by the free, merciful, undeserved love of God poured into our lives through Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01Grace does not make our response unimportant, it makes it possible. It does not destroy our freedom, but heals it. Grace teaches the heart to love rightly, turns us from ourselves towards God, and enables us to become what we could never become alone. Augustine also teaches that sin is disordered love, loving lesser things as though they were ultimate. Holiness is the healing and ordering of love, so that God is love first and everything else is loved in him.
SPEAKER_00The church is not a fellowship of the already finished, but a school of grace for those still being healed. In our restless world of noise, distraction, longing, and anxiety, Augustine reminds us that beneath all our searching lies a deeper hunger, the hunger for God. May Saint Augustine teach us to bring our restless hearts to Christ and find in him the mercy, truth, and peace for which we were made.
SPEAKER_01Let us pray, Merciful God who drew Saint Augustine from restless searching to the peace of your truth and grace, heal our disordered love, turn our hearts towards you, and grant that we may find our true rest in Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord. Amen.