Saint Ambrose: 8 facts that may interest you

Saint Ambrose was one of the four first Doctors of the Church and the one who baptized Saint Augustine.

Thus, on the eve of the feast of Saint Ambrose, we present eight facts about this saint compiled by the apologist Jimmy Akin, a convert from Protestantism, published in the National Catholic Register.

1. Who was Saint Ambrose?

Saint Ambrose was Bishop of Milan (Italy). He was born around the year 338 and died in 397.

2. How was he appointed bishop?

He was a government official. However, upon the death of the local bishop, the Catholics and Arians came into vehement conflict over who should be his successor.

Ambrosio was trying to keep the peace and calm the two groups, when someone, supposedly a little boy, started shouting, “Ambrosio bishop!”

Soon, the two groups decided that Ambrose should be the new bishop.

As Akin writes, “apparently the Arians felt that, although Ambrose was Catholic in his beliefs, he would make a kinder bishop.”

The apologist indicates that “this set of circumstances is quite extraordinary, but even more extraordinary is that Ambrose was not even a Christian yet. “He was an unbaptized catechumen!”

3. Saint Ambrose did not want to be a bishop

He did not want to be a bishop, so he decided to go into hiding. However, Emperor Valentinian found out what happened and decreed severe penalties for anyone who gave him refuge.

He was therefore forced to come out of hiding and accept his ordination as a bishop. He was quickly passed through the previous grades and received episcopal consecration about a week later.

4. How was it for you as a bishop?

Saint Ambrose did very well as a bishop, and this contributed to his being declared a Doctor of the Church.

He left many wonderful writings, helped convert Saint Augustine, fought heresy and introduced the West to divine lessona practice that has remained with us to this day.

5. The divine lesson served for his preaching

Benedict XVI explained that although Saint Ambrose was culturally well educated, at the same time he lacked knowledge of the Scriptures, so he began to study them, turning to the works of Origen, the undisputed master of the “School of Alexandria.”

Thus, Saint Ambrose transferred the meditation on the Scriptures that Origen had begun to the Latin sphere, introducing to the West the practice of divine lesson.

Benedict XVI also affirmed that this method served as a guide for all the preaching and for the writings of the Bishop of Milan, which emerged precisely from prayerful listening to the Word of God.

6. How did Saint Ambrose help in the conversion of Saint Augustine?

This episode is part of a quite dramatic story, in which the Bishop of Milan confronted the emperor, risking his own life.

Pope Benedict XVI recalled that, in his ConfessionsSaint Augustine relates that he arrived in Milan as a professor of rhetoric; He was a skeptic and not a Christian.

He was searching for Christian truth, but he was not able to truly find it.

What moved the heart of the young African rhetorician, skeptical and despondent, and what prompted him to definitive conversion were not the splendid homilies of Saint Ambrose, although he deeply appreciated them, but the testimony of the bishop and the Church in Milan, since They prayed and sang as one intact body.

It was a Church that was able to resist the tyrannical maneuvers of the emperor and his mother, who at the beginning of 386 again demanded a church building for the Arians’ celebrations.

In the building that was going to be requisitioned, says Saint Augustine, “the devout people kept vigil, ready to die with their bishop.”

This testimony of the Confessions It is beautiful, because it indicates that something was moving in Saint Augustine, who continues: “We too, although spiritually lukewarm, share the agitation of all the people.”

7. Was Saint Ambrose notable in other ways?

It was remarkable in many ways. One of them today would seem surprising to us.

Pope Benedict XVI recalled that, in his ConfessionsSaint Augustine notes that every time he went to see the Bishop of Milan, he found him busy with a multitude of people full of problems and for whose needs he did his utmost.

There was always a long line waiting to speak with Saint Ambrose, seeking comfort and hope from him.

When the bishop was not with the people, something that happened for brief moments, he either replenished his body with the necessary meals or fed his spirit with reading.

Here, Saint Augustine marvels, because Saint Ambrose read the Scriptures with his mouth closed, only with his eyes. In the first Christian centuries, reading was conceived strictly for proclamation, and doing it aloud also facilitated understanding.

The fact that Saint Ambrose could read only with his eyes suggested to the admiring Saint Augustine that the bishop had a rare ability to familiarize himself with the Bible.

8. The Council of Saint Ambrose

Saint Ambrose also gave Augustine some very famous advice, which many people quote today without even knowing where it comes from.

Saint Augustine noticed that liturgical customs in Rome were different from those used elsewhere, and Saint Ambrose advised him: “When you are in Rome, do what the Romans do.”