St. Augustine Bio Talk

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Mandeville, LA – Exclusive Transcript – Before we get to the phones, a little bit about St. Augustine.  Some of you are probably going: “That’s why I tuned into this?  Here you go again.  Really?”  Let me inform you of something, kind sir, and that arrogant and conceited thought, if you have it.  Check out today’s transcript for the rest….

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Begin Mike Church Show Transcript

Mike:  Before we get to the phones, a little bit about St. Augustine.  Some of you are probably going: “That’s why I tuned into this?  Here you go again.  Really?”  Let me inform you of something, kind sir, and that arrogant and conceited thought, if you have it.  Western civilization as you know it today would not exist in the way — let me say he’s not responsible for the perversions of modernity, but the arc of Western history does not occur in the manner in which it did which for over a millennia was beautiful.  Tens of millions of soul were not falling into hell like snowflakes because of Christianity on the continent, as they call it in Europe.  It then spread throughout the world.

That does not happen without the Bishop of Hippo, Augustine, who died in 430 AD as the Goths were ready to storm hippo.  Did you know that it was the Goths that found most of Augustine’s writings?  Because Augustine, in great humility, had gone out to the leader of the Goths and begged him: Look, if we won’t put a fight up, promise me you won’t kill the people in Hippo.  The Goth warlord was overcome by Augustine’s grace and he said: Okay, if you don’t put a fight up.  Of course, the imbeciles from the Roman Empire that were there guarding the city went out and tried a sneak attack.  They still spared many.  But Hippo falls in 428, somewhere around there, and Augustine dies shortly thereafter.  Augustine’s works were found by the Goths.  I think it was the Goths, whoever the barbarians were.  If it’s not the Goths, barbarians.  It’s just one of the great stories.

Basically the whole town of Hippo is surrounded and Augustine walks out there with his bishop’s staff and goes straight to the tent of the leader of the Goths.  The leader of the Goths says: Are you here to surrender?  Are you here to try to save me, bishop, or Christian?  Augustine says: Yeah, but why I’m really here is to save the people in the city, and I’m here to turn myself in.  I want to present myself as collateral.  There won’t be any attack if you’ll spare them.  Of course, the Goth leader says: No, that’s not necessary.  That’s just one of the stories of Augustine.  There are so many.

The reason why Augustine is such a profound story — by the bye, I changed my name to, when I made my adult conversion in 1992, I took Augustine is my patron saint.  I’m taking it very seriously in the last four years as my patron saint.  January 1st of this year I changed my name to Frederick Michael Augustine Mary, consecrated to our Mother Mary but the patron saint of Augustine.  Frederick Michael is my birth name.  I just want to read you a quick little paragraph from Alban Butler biography of St Augustine.  Again, the history of the West, Western civilization, passes through and is altered inexorably for the better because St. Augustine lived, no ifs, ands or buts.

[reading]

SO great is the veneration which popes, councils, and the whole church have paid to the memory of [St. Augustine] this glorious saint, through every succeeding age since his time, that to load our history with a list of his illustrious panegyrists would be a superfluous labour; and barely to copy the sober praises, which the most judicious Christian critics have bestowed on his extraordinary learning and sanctity, would be like carrying water to the sea. For the name of the great St. Austin is alone the highest eulogium and panegyric, raises in all persons the most exalted idea, and commands the most profound respect. This perfect model of true penitents, this triumphing champion of our holy faith and confounder of heresies, this bright light and most glorious doctor of the church of Christ, was born on the 13th of November, in the year 354, at Tagaste, a small town of Numidia, in Africa, not far from Hippo, but at some distance from the sea, which the saint had never seen till he was grown up.

[end reading]

End Mike Church Show Transcript