VATICAN - Benedict XVI dedicates general audience to Saint Ambrose: “From the life and the example of Bishop Ambrose, Augustine learned to believe and to preach”

Thursday, 25 October 2007

Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - The life and witness of the holy Bishop of Milan, Ambrose who died at dawn on Holy Saturday 4 April in the year 397, was the theme of the catechesis given by the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI during his general Wednesday Audience in St Peter's Square on 24 October. Born to Christian parents around the year 340 a Trier, the son of the Prefect of Gaul, Ambrose was taken to Rome on the death of his father and trained for a civil career with sound instruction in rhetoric and law. In about the year 370 he was sent to govern the provinces of Emilia and Liguria with his see in Milan. “Precisely there, Orthodox and Arians were arguing - the Pope recalled in his catechesis -, especially following the death of the Arian Bishop Aussenzius. Ambrose intervened to restore peace among the conflicting factions and his authority was such that he, a simple catechumen, was proclaimed Bishop of Milan by the people. Until then Ambrose had been the highest magistrate in the Empire in northern Italy. Culturally educated, but lacking an approach to Sacred Scripture, the new Bishop began to study with readiness”.
Ambrose “came to know and comment the Bible thanks to the works of Origen, unquestioned maestro of the ‘Alexandrian school. In this way Ambrose transferred into the Latin environment, meditation on Scripture initiated by Origen, starting in the West, the practice of lectio divina. The method of lectio soon guided all the sermons and writings of Ambrose, which flowed precisely from prayerful listening to the Word of God”. In one of Ambrose's catechesis we see how the holy Bishop applied the Old Testament to the Christian life, so that his preaching “started from the reading of the Holy Books (‘the Patriarchs’, that is the historical books, and ‘Proverbs’, Books of wisdom), in order to live in conformity with divine Revelation”.
Augustine, who arrived in Milan as a professor of rhetoric, was led to conversion by the “testimony of the Bishop of Milan and his Church which prayed and sang, compact, as one body… From the life and the example of Bishop Ambrose, Augustine learned to believe and to preach”. Saint Augustine acquired from Ambrose “the habit of assiduous reading of Sacred Scripture in an attitude of prayer, in such a way as to truly accept and assimilate the Word of God in his heart ”. In his book ‘Confessions’ Augustine speaks of his encounter with Ambrose: “when he went to see the Bishop of Milan, he nearly always found him busy listening to 'hordes' of people with many necessities which he did his best to meet. There was always a long line of people waiting to speak with Ambrose to receive words of consolation and hope. When Ambrose was not with them, with the people, and this happened only for brief periods of time, he was either restoring the body with the necessary food, or nourishing the spirit with reading.” Augustine was struck by Ambrose' s “singular capacity for reading and familiarising with the Scriptures”, which was then the basic principle of Ambrosian catechesis: “it is Scripture itself, intimately assimilated, which suggests the contents to announce in order to lead hearts to conversion. Thus, according to the teaching of Ambrose and Augustine, catechesis is inseparable from testimony of life. What I wrote in the Introduction to Christianity, with regard to the theologian, is also valid for the catechist. A person who educates to the faith cannot run the risk of appearing like some sort of clown, reciting a part «doing a job». Instead - to use an image dear to Origen, a writer particularly appreciated by Ambrose - he must be like the disciple Jesus loved, who rested his head on the Master's heart and there learned to think, speak and act. All told, the true disciple is one who announces the Gospel in a most credible and effective manner.”
The Holy Father concluded his catechesis recalling that, like St John the Apostle, Saint Ambrose never tired of saying: “Omnia Christus est nobis! For us Christ is everything!”. (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 25/10/2007 - righe 44, parole 647)


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