A video story by the Augustinian nuns of the Monastery of the Santi Quattro Coronati in Rome and the book “Portrait of Augustine in thirty brush strokes” by the Discalced Augustinian Father Gabriele Ferlisi help us understand the human and spiritual story of the Bishop of Hippo, who the liturgical calendar remembers on August 28. Two tools that, with a simple and immediate language, allow us to approach the figure of the great Father of the Church more easily.
Tiziana Campisi – Vatican City
For those who are still not fully acquainted with Saint Augustine and fear the risk of reading too much or getting lost in dusty volumes or stumbling upon anachronistic pages, two new things come to mind. Bishop of Hippo, Father of the Church, Doctor of Grace, whom the Church commemorates today, August 28, philosopher, theologian and author of various writings – he himself, in Retractionscounted 93 works, among which it is obligatory to remember the best seller The confessions but to which are added at least 500 sermons and approximately 300 letters – he is simply presented as a man in search of the meaning of life, a pleasant video story by the Augustinian nuns of the Monastery of the Santi Quattro Coronati in Rome and a pleasant book recently published by the Discalced Augustinian Father Gabriele Ferlisi.
St. Augustine narrated by many voices
The cloistered nuns who live, “with one heart and one soul” reaching out towards God, a stone’s throw from the Colosseum, have thought of describing him with their voices. Saint Augustine, on their YouTube channeltelling what this man who lived between the fourth and fifth centuries was really like. A scholar all studies and prayers? No, he was a “charming boy, full of imagination, expansive, brilliant”, who loved to study, thirsty for knowledge and truth, but who “didn’t seem to be too interested in the topic of faith”. A young man who cultivated friendships, was guilty of pranks, enjoyed carousing, who experienced passionate love, fell in love with a woman, soon became a father but “continued to study tirelessly, driven by the need to understand what is in man and what moves the world”. Where did this drive lead him? To a long interior journey, to the discovery of himself and of God in his life, to a bitter conflict between “two wills, one old, the other new; one carnal, the other spiritual, that fought each other – we read in the Confessions – and fighting tore apart” his spirit. A battle that ends when Augustine’s heart, struck by the arrows of God’s love, opens totally to this love that he describes as the embrace of the inner man, “where a light shines on my soul that no flow of centuries can take away, where a perfume spreads that no gust can disperse, where a flavor is tasted that no voracity can diminish, where a relationship is woven that no satiety can break”.
A portrait in thirty brush strokes
Anyone wishing to delve deeper into the personal history of the bishop of Hippo can turn to the “Portrait of Augustine in thirty brush strokes” that Father Ferlisi has entrusted to Ancora Editrice. Improvising as a “painter”, the religious man offers 30 short chapters that are easy and convenient to read, as if they were brush strokes, where everything about Saint Augustine is there, condensed into just over two hundred pages, which flow quickly, because they are pleasant and captivating. Pages in which Augustine emerges “human, close to each person to whisper to their heart the right word that encourages, comforts, advises, admonishes”, explains the Discalced Augustinian who specifies that his are virtual brush strokes, “that is, such as to be seen only with the eyes of the heart”.
And these are chapters that can be read even without following the numerical order, he specifies. Father Gabriele Ferlisi to the Vatican media, to be chosen for the themes they explore or for the curiosity they arouse or for the personal interest they arouse. And so one can come across “Augustine, scholar of interiority”, “Augustine, moved by love”, “Augustine, man of prayer”, “Augustine, attentive reader of human events”, “Augustine, fascinated by Christ”, “Augustine, cultivator of friendship”, “Augustine, multi-purpose man”.
Listen to the interview with Father Gabriele Ferlisi
How did the idea of creating this portrait of Saint Augustine come about?
It has distant roots. Since I began studying Saint Augustine, and then, over the years, noticing the way in which many scholars, authoritative teachers, spoke of Saint Augustine, I realized the strong dissonance between what many authors said and say and what I was reading directly from the works of the same bishop of Hippo. Augustine is a great prism, but the temptation to identify him simply as a philosopher, to speak of him only under a certain profile – Saint Augustine and predestination, Saint Augustine doctor of Grace, Saint Augustine young libertine – leads to reductive visions of his greatness. For my thesis at the Gregoriana on the meaning of memory in Saint Augustine, my approach to Augustine was academic, because that is how a thesis should be done. But, as I read it, a more human, more pastoral approach brought me closer to him, making me feel like a father, a brother, a friend who advises you on certain problems, that you live and that he also lived. This different approach gave me the idea of making a portrait of Augustine as I see him.
What are the traits of Augustine that can still be seen in today’s man?
He was arrogant when he studied, he was aware of his intelligence, he always tried to excel. In today’s man these traits could be identified in the difficulty of seeking the truth well, of finding the right path towards the truth, towards interiority, of understanding that man cannot do without God. Augustine’s anthropology is theological and his theology is anthropological: that I may know you, that I may know myself, said Augustine. This discovery of the right path towards the truth, this journey within himself today, perhaps, modern man does not have the right key to complete them. Because today everything is ideological, everything is virtual, everything is manipulated. Ultimately the problems are always the same: the desire, the passion, of the search for truth. However, today, many external factors disorient, take us away from the true interiority where God is found. God is my inmost being and my highest supreme, Augustine said, God is more interior than my most intimate part and more superior than my highest part. Augustine’s problems are those of today and those of today are those of Augustine, but the approach to the problems has totally changed.
Thirty brushstrokes she calls the thirty chapters of her book that trace a complete profile of the bishop of Hippo and which can also be read individually.
Yes, you can start from the beginning to the end or from the end to the beginning. However, in these 200 pages, I try to let Augustine speak above all. I have made almost 700 quotes. I have spoken about Augustine by letting Augustine speak.
What are the traits of Augustine that fascinate you the most?
His humanity, his religious dimension as a monk, his certainty and certainty that God guides history and He has the reins in His hand. History is in the hands of God. Wars, the atomic bomb, artificial intelligence, are serious problems that must be faced with responsibility. However, history is not left to men alone, we write history with four hands: the hands of God and our hands. For me, this truth is so strong and certain that I always have a great peace within me about tomorrow, about history, about today and the tomorrow of the Church. God is in history, even when adverse forces lead to disasters, to killings. However, God also recycles evil into good. In Confessions Augustine writes: “Vanity led me astray, every wind drove me this way and that. But you, Lord, in the shadows, guided me.” God does not make a fuss, does not make a racket, but guides us silently, firmly and soberly.
Can you reveal something to us that most people don’t know about St. Augustine?
For example, the monastic dimension. Nobody talks about Augustine’s monasticism, he is a mystic, one of the greatest mystics in history.
How to approach St. Augustine today?
Reading it without prejudice, not tying it to one’s own problems to make Augustine say what he does not say. The problems he solved are his problems. We must take inspiration from it, not drag Augustine into the diatribe of today’s problems; it makes no sense. Whoever reads Saint Augustine must do so without prejudice. So The confessions they should be read as he wrote them, considering that he does not only tell the episodes of his life, but that he reads his story with the eyes of faith, with a psychological analysis. And then, in this objective, serene approach to these writings, I invite you to see his relationship with Christ and with the Church. This personal relationship with the humble Jesus makes Augustine great and also his personal relationship with the Church, which he loved so much, which he defended. Here, whoever reads Augustine, without prejudice, open to welcoming all his multifaceted richness, as he goes along, becomes passionate, because he notices that he resolves doubts, problems that we still ask ourselves today. He too asked himself and was able to resolve them serenely and over time. In short, Augustine takes you by the hand and accompanies you.
What would Augustine say to contemporary man?
It is not evicting God from your life, not taking God’s first place. Know that your life has value in reference to Him. Write life with Him, because life is a love story written together. Life is not a problem or a sum of problems to be solved, but a mystery to be lived with love. And it is a love story that we write together: God with us, we with God.
