A video report by the Augustinian nuns of the Santi Quattro Coronati monastery in Rome and the book “Ritratto di Agostino in trenta pennellate” (Portrait of Augustine in thirty brushstrokes) by the Discalced Augustinian Father Gabriele Ferlisi help us to understand the human and spiritual life of the Bishop of Hippo, whom the liturgical calendar commemorates on August 28. Two tools that, with simple and immediate language, facilitate the approach to the figure of the great father of the Church.
Tiziana Campisi – Vatican City
For those who are still not familiar with St. Augustine and are afraid of taking on daring readings or getting lost among dusty volumes or stumbling upon anachronistic pages, two new books come to the rescue. 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 his Retractions, counted 93 works, including the best-seller The Confessions, but to which must be added at least 500 sermons and some 300 letters – he is presented simply as a man in search of the meaning of life, an entertaining video-reportage by the Augustinian nuns of the Santi Quattro Coronati monastery in Rome and a pleasant, recently published book by the Discalced Augustinian Father Gabriele Ferlisi.
St. Augustine narrated in several voices
The cloistered nuns who live “with one heart and one soul” inclined towards God, a stone’s throw from the Colosseum, have decided to describe Saint Augustine in their own voices on their YouTube channel, telling what this man who lived between the 4th and 5th centuries was really like. A scholar all about study and prayer? Not at all, he was a “charming, imaginative, expansive, brilliant boy”, who loved to study, thirsty for knowledge and truth, but who “did not seem to be very interested in the subject of faith”. A young man who cultivated friendships, got into trouble, had fun, who knew passionate love, fell in love with a woman, soon became a father, but “continued to study tirelessly, driven by the need to understand what there is in man and what moves the world”.
Where does this impulse 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, fighting against each other,” we read in the Confessions, “and in the struggle they lacerated” his spirit. A battle that ends when Augustine’s heart, wounded by the darts of God’s love, opens totally to this love, which he describes as the amplexus of the inner man, “where a light shines in my soul that no flow of centuries can take away, where a perfume spreads that no gust of wind 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 brushstrokes
Those who wish to delve deeper into the personal history of the Bishop of Hippo can turn to the “Portrait of Augustine in Thirty Strokes” that Father Ferlisi has entrusted to Ancora Editrice. Acting as a “painter,” the religious man proposes 30 short, easy-to-read chapters, like brushstrokes, in which all of Saint Augustine is really condensed into just over two hundred pages, which flow quickly because they are entertaining and captivating. Pages in which Augustine emerges “human, close to each person to whisper to the heart the right word that encourages, consoles, advises, admonishes,” explains the Discalced Augustinian, who specifies that his are virtual brushstrokes, “that is, such that one can only see with the eyes of the heart.” And these are chapters that can also be read without following the numerical order, Father Gabriele Ferlisi specifies to the Vatican media, to be chosen according to the themes they delve into or according to the curiosity they arouse or the personal interest they arouse. And so one can find “Augustine, student of interiority”, “Augustine, moved by love”, “Augustine, man of prayer”, “Augustine, attentive reader of human events”, “Augustine, fascinated by Christ”, “Augustine, lover of friendship”, “Augustine, multifaceted man”.
How did the idea of creating this portrait of Saint Augustine come about?
It has distant roots. Since I began to study St. Augustine, and then, over the years, observing the way in which so many scholars, authoritative professors, spoke of St. Augustine, I realized the strong clash between what many authors said and said and what I read directly from the works of the bishop of Hippo himself. Augustine is a great prism, but the temptation to identify him simply as a philosopher, to speak of him only under a certain profile – St. Augustine and predestination, St. Augustine the doctor of grace, St. Augustine the young libertine – leads to reductionist views of his greatness. For my thesis at the Gregorian on the meaning of memory in St. 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 have lived too. This different approach gave me the idea of making a portrait of Augustine as I see him.
What are the traits of Augustine that you can still discern in the man of today?
He was arrogant when he studied, he was aware of his intelligence, he always tried to improve himself. In the man of today, these traits could be identified in the difficulty of seeking the truth well, of finding the right path to truth, to interiority, of understanding that man cannot do without God. Augustine’s anthropology is theological: let me know you, let me know myself, said Augustine. This discovery of the right path to truth, this journey into oneself, today, perhaps, modern man does not have the right key to achieve it. Because today everything is ideological, everything is virtual, everything is manipulated. In the end, the problems are always the same: the desire, the passion, of the search for truth. However, today, so many external factors disorientate, distance us from the true interiority where God is found. Deus interior intimo meo et superior summo meo, said Augustine, God is more interior than my most intimate part and more superior than my highest part. Augustine’s problems are those of today and today’s problems are those of Augustine, but the approach to the problems has changed completely.
Thirty brushstrokes is what you call the thirty chapters of your book that draw a complete profile of the Bishop of Hippo and that 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 make Augustine speak above all. I have made almost 700 quotations. I have spoken about Augustine by making Augustine speak.
What traits of Agustín are you most passionate about?
His humanity, his religious dimension as a monk, his security and certainty that God guides history and He holds the reins. History is in God’s hands. Wars, the atomic bomb, artificial intelligence, are serious problems that must be addressed responsibly. But history is not left only in the hands of men, history is written by 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 catastrophes, to massacres. But God also recycles evil into good. In the Confessions, Augustine writes: “Vanity led me astray, all the winds carried me here and there. But you, Lord, in the shadows, guided me.” God does not make a fuss, or a noise, but guides us in silence, with firmness and sobriety.
Does St. Augustine reveal something to us that most people don’t know?
For example, the monastic dimension. Nobody talks about the monasticism of St. Augustine, he is a mystic, one of the greatest mystics in history.
How can we approach Saint Augustine today?
Reading him without prejudice, without tying him to his own problems in order to make Augustine say what he does not say. The problems he solved are his problems. We must be inspired by him, not drag Augustine into the diatribe of today’s problems; it makes no sense. Whoever reads Saint Augustine must do so without prejudice. That is why we must read the Confessions as he wrote them, taking into account that he does not limit himself to recounting episodes of his life, but rather reads his story with the eyes of faith, with a psychological examination. And then, in this objective and serene approach to these writings, I invite us to discern his relationship with Christ and with the Church. This personal relationship with a 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 accepting all his multifaceted richness, becomes passionate, because he notices that he resolves doubts, problems that we still pose today. He has also faced these problems and has been able to resolve them calmly and in time. In short, Agustín takes you by the hand and accompanies you.
What would Augustine say to contemporary man?
It is not about evicting God from your life, it is not about taking God’s first place. It is about knowing 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, us with God.
