Yesterday on August 6th, I watched a drama titled “St Augustine – Confession of Life” which was produced by the Augustine Drama Group.

This year is the 20th anniversary of the Augustine Drama Group - it is quite meaningful to have St Augustine as the drama’s theme.

Augustine was born on November 13th, 354. His father was a pagan while his mother was a devout Christian.

Augustine had received the Holy Salt as a sign to enter the group of catechumens. He was disappointed with the bible, because of the poor Latin translation. In addition, he did not feel satisfied with the biblical contents. He felt that the contents about war and narration of changes in various stages of life are not up to the level of philosophy. As a result, he followed Manicheism*. He received quite a lot of conveniences in his career and also maintained a non-marital relationship with his mistress who bore him an intelligent son named Adeodatus. Unfortunately their child died at an early age.

Later, Augustine left Carthage for Rome and Milan to find the peak of his career, becoming a scholar of rhetoric. Gradually even Manicheism could not satisfy his thirst for the truth. At that opportune time, he met the Bishop of Milan (Ambrose) who was a knowledgeable man. Augustine was baptized a Christian on April 24th, 387. He was 32 years old.

At that time, his mother Monica was of course the happiest person as she never gave up to pray for this “undisciplined child”. Many times, her tears washed her face.

Augustine decided to return to Africa and lived a similar Monastic life-style. Unfortunately, while waiting for his return journey, his mother died at Ostia.

After returning to Africa, he was ordained in the year 391 (at the age of 36), and he and his friends started to live his life-long plan of a Monastic life.. Four years later he was consecrated as Bishop. In more than 35 years of his term as a bishop, he gave several sermons throughout the week, helping the poor and orphans, cultivating,forming and organizing the clergy and monasteries. He died on August 28th, 430 at the age of 76.

Although the repertoire is named “Confession of Life” because Augustine only converted to God when he was 34 years old, if there was no previous experience in his early life, his work might have been quite boring. His mother Monica would not have had the chance to witness Augustine’s latter pastoral work. For Augustine, it could be truly said that he had “Loved You Too Late”!

This might be my personal feeling because when I was ordained, my mother had already returned to heaven.

* Manichaeism was founded by a Persian called Mani in the 3rd century AD. He absorbed the teachings of Christianity, Buddhism and Zoroastrianism etc., and formed his own unique beliefs. Manicheism believed that when the material world appeared, dark matter and the spirit of light came into conflict with each other. After the appearance, darkness would invade light so Manicheism opposed materialism, considering it to be darkness.