Saint Stories: St Ambrose (as told by Natalie Ambrose)
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REFLECT
- How can I be a good example to my friends who may be a little wayward and ‘off track’?
- Do I believe I can be a Saint one day?
Prefer to read than listen? Read the transcript below:
Saint Ambrose is a legend. He’s one of the four original doctors of the church. He was the bishop of Milan and became one of the most important theological figures of the Fourth century. He grew up in a placed call Gaul, which is present-day Germany.
There’s this folk tale of Saint Ambrose that when he was an infant, a huge swarm of bees landed on his face and left behind one drop of honey. This was meant to be a sign that he would become a great orator. It’s a pretty weird story. I don’t know how it connects to him being a great orator but that’s what the folk tale is!
Saint Ambrose studied in Rome, and worked his way up to becoming a governor of a place called Liguria and Emilia. So kind of like how Arnold Schwarzenegger was the governor of California, he was a politician.
So he became the Bishop of Milan in like this awesome story. Basically, after the then Bishop of Milan died, Ambrose was at the election to vote for a new bishop. It was a really contentious time in the church, as he was there to prevent a fight and a riot exploding between the Nicene dudes and the Aryans. While trying to calm the masses, as things started becoming really heated, a riot was about to break out, it is said that a small kid yelled out “Ambrose for Bishop!” as everyone was actually listening to him and he was calming the possible riot down. Suddenly after this kid said this, everyone else there starts chanting “Ambrose! Ambrose! Ambrose!” It’s probably something else like “Ambrose for Bishop” but I think chanting “Ambrose” is more fun.
Saint Ambrose at this stage wasn’t baptised. He wasn’t Catholic or trained in theology at all, and he just refused flat out to become the next bishop, and he did so by running away and hiding. After he ran away, all his colleagues gave him up because everyone thought it was such a great idea that he become the next bishop of Milan, and so within a week’s time Ambrose was baptised, ordained and consecrated Bishop of Milan. This happened on December 7th, 374.
As Bishop, he donated all of his land and gave his money to the poor. People loved him! Using his new education of theology and along with his old knowledge of Greek and all that time he spent studying in Rome, he took some more time to study the Old Testament and Greek authors. So his homilies and teachings were amazing. So much so, that he impressed Augustine of Hippo, who before this, had thought very little of Christian preachers. After meeting Saint Ambrose, Augustine realised how wayward and how much of a crappy kid he was, and he then decide to become baptised. So without Saint Ambrose, we wouldn’t have Saint Augustine, and without Saint Augustine, we wouldn’t have his ‘Confessions‘ and we wouldn’t have his philosophy.
Saint Ambrose is so important to the church, particularly because of his teachings, because he was such a good academic himself. He used his smarts and his studies to be a really good orator, able to present the faith in a really positive way, a way that was accessible to the local people at the time. He made the faith really attractive, and he made the faith really attractive to people like Saint Augustine, who at the time was drinking and being boozy, and being really dodgy as, i.e. sleeping with everyone.
Saint Ambrose is a Saint for modern times. That’s what we need to be doing now. Think about all the people in our lives, how our friends live their lives… and as much as we want to be friends with them, there comes a point where we need to think: How can we be good examples to them? How can we have the knowledge to be able to, every now and then, suggest something? To say something? How do we say that in a really loving and positive manner? That’s Saint Ambrose.
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