CNA Staff, Aug 28, 2025 / 04:00 am

The Catholic Church honors St. Augustine of Hippo, an early Church Father, doctor of the Church, and foundational theologian, on Aug. 28.

Augustine was brought up as a Christian in his early childhood but drifted from the Church, fathering a child out of wedlock and falling into the heresy of Manichaeism. His mother, Monica, a woman of deep faith who was later canonized herself, never stopped praying for his return to the Church.

Of the more than 5 million words that St. Augustine wrote during his lifetime (A.D. 354–430), his “Confessions” have had a particularly lasting influence as a philosophical, theological, mystical, and literary work. Written in about A.D. 400, “Confessions” details how God worked in Augustine’s life and reads not just as a st

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