On arriving at Tagaste, he took up his abode in a country-house, where, in company with some pious friends, he devoted himself to the exercises of prayer, study, and penance. After his ordination to the priesthood he removed, to Hippo, where he founded another Monastery, and later on a Convent for nuns, of which his sister became the first Abbess. Valerius, Bishop of Hippo, employed him in the office of preaching, and made him his coadjutor, A.D. 395; and, when that prelate died in the following year, the Saint, sorely against his own will, became his successor in the Episcopate.  He induced all his clergy to renounce their property and live with him in community. He spent great part of the revenues of the Church in relieving those in distress, and succeeded in establishing amongst his flock the charitable custom of clothing all the poor of each parish once a year. He would suffer no one to defame his neighbor’s character, and, to show his disapproval of the vice of detraction, would withdraw from the company as soon as any injurious words were spoken in his presence.

Besides the admirable book of his "Confessions," Saint Augustine has enriched the Church with a vast number of learned works, sermons, instructions, and letters. In spite of habitual weak health and frequent suffering, he was indefatigable in his labors for the exaltation of the Church and for the extirpation of heresy and schism, especially directing his efforts against the Manichees, Pelagians, and Donatists. He was the oracle of his day, and is generally regarded as the greatest of the Latin Fathers.

The closing years of this Saint were saddened by the incursions of the Vandals into Africa, and his holy death took place in the year 430, whilst his Episcopal city of Hippo was being besieged by these barbarians. Humility had ever been his characteristic virtue, according to his own beautiful maxim : "Attempt not to attain true wisdom by any other way than that which God has enjoined. This is, in the first, second, and third place, humility; and this would I answer as often as you ask me. Not that there are no other precepts ; but, unless humility go before, accompany, and follow after, all that we do will be snatched out of our hands by pride. . . . Our Lord Jesus Christ was made so low in order to teach us humility."

This illustrious Doctor of the Church has a special claim on the love and veneration of the children of Saint Dominic, as they serve God under the Rule which bears his name, and which he wrote for the nuns of the Convent which he had founded. When, in the year 1215, the holy Father, Saint Dominic, applied to Pope Innocent III. for permission to found his Order, the Council of Lateran had just decreed that no new Orders were to be established in the Church ; but that, if any one desired to found a new religious House, he was to observe the rule of one of the approved Orders. The Sovereign Pontiff; therefore, though convinced of the Divine will as regarded the institution of the Order of Preachers, was unwilling to act in direct contradiction to a principle so recently laid down. Hence he bade the holy Founder return to France, and, in concert with his companions, choose one of the ancient rules which should seem best fitted for their purpose.  Saint Dominic accordingly assembled his Brethren at Prouille, and, after earnestly invoking the Holy Spirit, they made choice of the Rule of Saint Augustine, under which the holy Patriarch had himself lived ever since he had assumed the habit of a Canon Regular at Osma, and which they had all hitherto observed.  The simplicity of this Rule, which merely enjoins the essential virtues of poverty, chastity, obedience, and fraternal charity, rendered it a suitable basis for the Constitutions by which Saint Dominic was to mould the religious life of his sons and daughters.

Prayer
Give ear, O Lord, to our prayers, and, by the intercession of Blessed Augustine, Your Confessor and Bishop, favorably bestow the effects of Your accustomed mercy on us, to whom You have given reason to trust in Your goodness. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.