St. Augustine of Hippo: Feast Day, Patronage & Prayers
Feast day: August 28 (Memorial of St. Augustine, Bishop and Doctor of the Church)
Patron of: Theologians and those seeking conversion.
About St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine was born in 354 at Thagaste in North Africa, the son of a pagan father and the devout Christian St. Monica. Brilliant and restless, he became a teacher of rhetoric, lived for years with a woman outside marriage, and followed several philosophies in search of truth, while his mother prayed and wept for him. In Milan the preaching of St. Ambrose moved him deeply, and in a garden in 386 he heard a child's voice chanting, "Take up and read." He opened St. Paul's Letter to the Romans, and his heart was changed.
Baptized by Ambrose in 387, Augustine returned to Africa, was ordained a priest, and became bishop of Hippo, where he served for over thirty years. His Confessions, a prayer telling the story of his conversion, begins with the famous words, "Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our heart is restless until it rests in Thee." His City of God and many other works shaped Western theology more than those of any writer after the apostles. He died in 430 as the Vandals besieged Hippo. Augustine proves that it is never too late to begin to love God.
Prayers to St. Augustine of Hippo on Daily Catholic Prayers
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