From Pagan to Saint

CEBU, Philippines - Among the saints venerated by the Roman Catholic Church this month is the “wisest of the saints and the holiest of the wise” whose feast is on August 28 – St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, Africa.

His father, Patricius, was a pagan and his mother, Monica, was a Christian. St. Augustine is known for his “Confessions” wherein he acknowledged that he was the worst of sinners.

During his time, there was no distinction yet between Roman Catholics and non-Roman Catholics. This came after the German Augustinian priest, Martin Luther protested in 1517 against the teaching on “indulgences,” with the concomitant doctrine of purgatory. Hence, the term “Protestants” came to be.

Ironically, the recent Popes taught that one cannot buy heaven with money. This implies that offering stipends or “pamisa” cannot buy the souls out of ‘purgatory’.

During his visit to our country, Pope Francis warned us against “technological colonization,” the most recent of which is the “Pokemon Go” craze. The word ‘colonization’ brings back the mind to how the handsome Spaniards colonized the aborigines in G-strings, the cross on one hand, the sword on the other! Until now we see how effective the Spanish colonization of the country was, because there are church practices in the Philippines not done in Spain, the native country of the Friars who brought Roman Catholicism to our shores. It was not the Spaniards who brought Christianity in Africa where St. Augustine was born. They brought it here very much later than the Christianization of that country.

Augustine metamorphosed from a pagan to a Christian, to a priest, to a bishop, to a doctor of the church, and to a great saint of the Western Rite Roman Catholic Church. Inside the Basilica of St. Peter in Vatican City (adjacent to Rome, Italy) is a huge chair right below the stained glass window depicting the Holy Spirit. This biggest chair on earth, referred to as the “cathedra,” is supported by four more-than-life-size statues of bishops wearing mitres: two representing the Eastern Rite Roman Catholic (St. John Chrysostom and St. Gregory Nazianzen) and two representing the Western Rite (St. Ambrose and St. Augustine).

It was largely due to the prayers of his mother, St. Monica, that Augustine was converted from a pagan and a big sinner, as he claims in his “Confessiones,” to a great saint and doctor (from the Latin “doctor” meaning teacher) of the Roman Catholic Church. It is said that God always hears the prayers of a mother for her wayward children. Would mothers of illegal drug dependents turn to God, to whom nothing is impossible?

St. Augustine’s “Inquietum”: Inquietum est cor meum donec requiescat in Te, Domine. (Restless is my heart until it rests in Thee, O Lord.) (FREEMAN)