There are two St. Augustines in the Catholic calendar, and both deserve to be much better known. And please, pronounce them correctly. (They aren’t the same!)
The first is St. Augustine of Hippo, the great North African bishop, theologian, Doctor of the Church, and author of Confessions and The City of God. The second is St. Augustine of Canterbury, the sixth-century monk who left Rome to bring the Gospel to the Anglo-Saxons and became the first Archbishop of Canterbury.
They lived more than 150 years apart and served the Church in dramatically different ways. One spent his life wrestling with the deepest questions of theology and the restless desires of the human heart. The other crossed the sea with a small band of missionaries to proclaim Christ to a people who had largely never heard the Gospel.
Both, however, have something important to say to Catholics today.
St. Augustine of Hippo: The Restless Heart
Augustine was born in Tagaste, North Africa, in A.D. 354. His mother, St. Monica—you might have hear of her—was a Christian, but Augustine spent much of his youth far from the Faith. He pursued education, rhetoric, philosophy, professional success, and various religious ideas while searching for the truth.
He eventually encountered Christianity through the preaching of St. Ambrose of Milan. After a long and difficult intellectual and moral journey, Augustine was baptized in 387. He returned to North Africa, became a priest, and eventually became bishop of Hippo. There he spent the remainder of his life preaching, writing, defending the Faith, and caring for his people.
His writings would shape Christian thought for centuries. But perhaps Augustine’s greatest gift to Catholics is not found in one particular theological teaching. It is found in his own story. Augustine spent years trying to find happiness in things that could never satisfy him. He wanted God, but he also wanted to remain in control of his own life. He wanted truth, but he struggled to surrender himself completely to it.
That struggle should sound familiar. The modern world offers us countless ways to distract ourselves from the deepest questions of human existence. We can fill our lives with entertainment, careers, relationships, politics, technology, and endless information. We can become extraordinarily busy while never asking whether we are actually becoming holy. Augustine reminds us that the human heart was made for something greater. His most famous line from the Confessions captures the reality: our hearts are restless until they rest in God.
That restlessness is not necessarily our enemy. It can be an invitation. The dissatisfaction we feel with lesser things may be evidence that we were created for something greater than those things can provide. Augustine teaches us not to silence that restlessness with distractions but to allow it to lead us toward God.
St. Augustine of Canterbury: Give the Faith Away
The second Augustine lived in a very different world.
Around A.D. 596, Pope St. Gregory the Great sent Augustine and a group of monks from Rome to evangelize the Anglo-Saxons in England. Augustine eventually became the first Archbishop of Canterbury and died around 604.
Imagine the courage that required. Augustine was not entering a society where Christianity was already familiar. He was entering a pagan culture with its own customs, traditions, rulers, and religious practices. He and his companions had to learn how to communicate the Gospel to people who did not yet share their worldview.
The mission reminds us of something that can be easy for Catholics to forget: the Faith is meant to be shared. We can become so focused on our own spiritual lives that we forget the people around us who may never encounter the Gospel unless we bring it to them. A Catholic family, workplace, neighborhood, parish, or friendship can become a missionary territory. Augustine of Canterbury did not wait for England to become interested in Christianity. He went to England because he was invested in their salvation.
Most of us will never cross a sea to establish a new archdiocese. But we are constantly being given smaller missionary opportunities. We can invite someone to Mass. We can explain why we believe. We can give a Catholic book to a friend. We can answer a child’s question about God. We can simply live our faith visibly and joyfully. Evangelization does not always require a microphone. Sometimes it requires a conversation.
Two Augustines for the Modern Catholic
The two saints therefore give us two complementary lessons.
St. Augustine of Hippo teaches us to look inward and ask whether our hearts are truly resting in God. St. Augustine of Canterbury teaches us to look outward and ask whether we are helping anyone else find that same rest. One spent years searching for the truth. The other spent years proclaiming the truth he had received. Both remind us that Catholicism is not merely a collection of ideas that we happen to believe. It is a relationship with God that transforms the whole of life.
And perhaps that is why these two men remain so important. We live in a world filled with restless hearts. We also live in a world filled with people who desperately need someone to show them where true rest can be found. St. Augustine of Hippo tells us where to look. St. Augustine of Canterbury reminds us to go tell others.
Saints Augustine and Augustine, pray for us.
Image from Wikimedia Commons
