substance but rather a negation or defect. It was St. Augustine’s unwitting
first step back to the Church.
It was while in Milan that he came into contact with St. Ambrose and his
preaching. He was introduced to the great bishop by a friend, who received
St. Augustine as a son: “I loved him not at first as a teacher of truth (which
I had utterly despaired of in Thy Church), but as a person kind towards
myself.” It was St. Ambrose who provided St. Augustine with the ideal
model of personal holiness and religious authority to move his will and
pass from a study of Plato to the Epistles of St. Paul. But the internal
struggle within St. Augustine was still raging, delaying his conversion:
“Two wills, one old, one new; one of the flesh, one of the spirit, fought
angrily together, and my soul was on the rack.” His mother then arrived in
Milan and arranged for him a marriage that fell through due to the bride’s
tender age. St. Augustine finally dismissed his concubine after fifteen
years, only to take up another.
The decision to convert came in August 386. St. Augustine heard of the
sudden conversion of two Roman military officers who abandoned their
careers and embraced the monastic life: “The unlearned start up and take
heaven by violence, while we with all our learning…wallow in flesh and
blood.” Then St. Augustine heard the voice of a child singing a song with
the refrain, “Tolle lege, tolle lege” (“Pick up and read, pick up and read”).
He opened at random a volume of St. Paul’s letters and read the following:
“Not in riotings and drunkenness, not in chamberings and impurities, not in
contention and envy, but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not
provisions for the flesh and its lusts” (Rom. 13, 13-14). In April, 387, in the
presence of his mother, St. Augustine, his son Adeodatus and his best
friend Alypius received baptism at the hands of St. Ambrose: “Thou hast
made us for Thyself, O God, and our hearts are restless until they find their
rest in Thee.” Only a few months later, St. Monica was to die after sharing
the famous ecstasy of Ostia with her now converted son. St. Augustine’s
description of his mother’s saintly death and his grief make some of the
most exquisite reading in all literature.
One must never underestimate the role of St. Monica. For sixteen years she
persevered in prayer for her son’s conversion and the regulation of his
relationship. But even she had no idea that her perseverance would bring
forth not only a conversion, but also a bishop, a confessor and defender of
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