On Dec. 7, the Catholic Church will celebrate the memory of St.
Ambrose, the brilliant Bishop of Milan who influenced St. Augustine's
conversion and was named a Doctor of the Church.
Like Augustine himself, the older Ambrose (born around 340) was a
highly educated man who sought to harmonize Greek and Roman intellectual
culture with the Catholic faith.
Trained as a lawyer, he eventually
became the governor of Milan. He manifested his intellectual gifts in
defense of Christian doctrine even before his baptism.
While Ambrose was serving as the governor of Milan, a bishop named
Auxentius was leading the diocese.
Although he was an excellent public
speaker with a forceful personality, Auxentius also followed the heresy
of Arius, which denied the divinity of Christ.
Although the Council of Nicaea had reasserted the traditional
teaching on Jesus' deity, many educated members of the Church
–including, at one time, a majority of the world's bishops– looked to
Arianism as a more sophisticated and cosmopolitan version of
Christianity.
Bishop Auxentius became notorious for forcing clergy
throughout the region to accept Arian creeds.
At the time of Auxentius' death, Ambrose had not yet even been
baptized. But his deep understanding and love of the traditional faith
were already clear to the faithful of Milan.
They considered him the
most logical choice to succeed Auxentius, even though he was still just a
catechumen.
With the help of Emperor Valentinan, who ruled the Western Roman
Empire at the time, a mob of Milanese Catholics virtually forced Ambrose
to become their bishop against his own will.
Eight days after his
baptism, Ambrose received episcopal consecration on Dec. 7, 374.
The
date would eventually become his liturgical feast.
Bishop Ambrose did not disappoint those who had clamored for his
appointment and consecration.
He began his ministry by giving everything
he owned to the poor and to the Church.
He looked to the writings of
Greek theologians like St. Basil for help in explaining the Church's
traditional teachings to the people during times of doctrinal confusion.
Like the fathers of the Eastern Church, Ambrose drew from the
intellectual reserves of pre-Christian philosophy and literature to make
the faith more comprehensible to his hearers.
This harmony of faith
with other sources of knowledge served to attract, among others, the
young professor Aurelius Augustinus– a man Ambrose taught and baptized,
whom history knows as St. Augustine of Hippo.
Ambrose himself lived simply, wrote prolifically, and celebrated Mass
each day.
He found time to counsel an amazing range of public
officials, pagan inquirers, confused Catholics and penitent sinners.
The people of Milan never regretted their insistence that the reluctant civil servant should lead the local church.
His popularity, in fact, served to keep at bay those who would have
preferred to force him from the diocese, including the Western Empress
Justina and a group of her advisers, who sought to rid the West of
adherence to the Nicene Creed.
Ambrose heroically refused her attempts
to impose heretical bishops in Italy, along with her efforts to seize
churches in the name of Arianism.
Ambrose also displayed remarkable courage when he publicly denied
communion to the Emperor Theodosius, who had ordered the massacre of
7,000 citizens in Thessalonica.
The chastened emperor took Ambrose's
rebuke to heart, publicly repenting of the massacre and doing penance
for the murders.
“Nor was there afterwards a day on which he did not grieve for his
mistake,” Ambrose himself noted when he spoke at the emperor's funeral.
The rebuke spurred a profound change in Emperor Theodosius.
He
reconciled himself with the Church and the bishop, who attended to the
emperor on his deathbed.
St. Ambrose died in 397.
His 23 years of diligent service had turned a
deeply troubled diocese into an exemplary outpost for the faith.
His
writings remained an important point of reference for the Church, well
into the medieval era and beyond.
At the Catholic Church's Fifth Ecumenical Council –which took place
at Constantinople in 553, and remains a source of authoritative teaching
for both Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians– the assembled
bishops named Ambrose, along with this protege St. Augustine, as being
among the foremost “holy fathers” of the Church, whose teaching all
bishops should “in every way follow.”
SIC: CNA/INT'L