Saint of the day for December 7: the story of Sant'Ambrogio

Saint of the day for December 7nd
(337 - April 4, 397)
Audio file
The history of Sant'Ambrogio

One of Ambrose's biographers noted that at the Last Judgment people would still be divided between those who admired Ambrose and those who hated him heartily. He emerges as the man of action who has cut a furrow in the lives of his contemporaries. Even royal characters were counted among those who faced crushing divine punishments for hindering Ambrose.

When the empress Justina tried to snatch two basilicas from the Catholics of Ambrose and give them to the Arians, she challenged the court eunuchs to execute him. His own people gathered behind him in front of the imperial troops. In the midst of the riots, he stimulated and calmed his people with haunting new hymns to thrilling oriental tunes.

In his controversies with the Emperor Auxentius, he coined the principle: "The emperor is in the Church, not above the Church". He publicly warned Emperor Theodosius for the massacre of 7.000 innocent people. The emperor did public penance for his crime. It was Ambrose, the fighter sent to Milan as Roman governor and chosen while he was still a catechumen as bishop of the people.

There is still another aspect of Ambrose, the one that influenced Augustine of Hippo, which Ambrose converted. Ambrose was a passionate little man with a high forehead, a long melancholy face and large eyes. We can imagine him as a fragile figure who holds the code of Sacred Scripture. This was the Ambrose of aristocratic heritage and culture.

Agostino found Ambrose's oratory less reassuring and entertaining, but much more educated than that of other contemporaries. Ambrose's sermons were often modeled on Cicero and his ideas betrayed the influence of contemporary thinkers and philosophers. He had no qualms about borrowing from pagan authors at length. He boasted in the pulpit for his ability to show off his spoils - "the gold of the Egyptians" - acquired by pagan philosophers.

His sermons, writings and personal life reveal him as an otherworldly man involved in the great issues of his day. Humanity for Ambrose was above all spirit. To think correctly about God and the human soul, the closest thing to God, one did not have to dwell on any material reality. He was an enthusiastic champion of consecrated virginity.

Ambrose's influence on Augustine will always be open to discussion. The Confessions reveal some virile and abrupt encounters between Ambrose and Augustine, but there is no doubt about Augustine's profound esteem for the learned bishop.

Nor is there any doubt that Santa Monica loved Ambrose as an angel of God who uprooted her son from his former ways and led him to his beliefs about Christ. It was Ambrose, after all, who put his hands on the shoulders of the naked Augustine as he descended into the baptismal font to put on Christ.

Reflection

Ambrose exemplifies for us the truly Catholic character of Christianity. He is a man steeped in the culture, law and culture of the ancients and his contemporaries. However, in the midst of active involvement in this world, this thought runs through Ambrose's life and preaching: The hidden meaning of the Scriptures calls our spirits to rise to another world.

Sant'Ambrogio is the patron saint of:

Beekeepers
Beggars who
they learn
Milano