| Sumario: | The article provides an insight into the pastoral experience of one of the famous and highly respected Fathers of the Church, St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430). From a worldly and highly ambitious young man who showed no interest in becoming a Catholic (and more so an ordained minister of the Catholic Church), we see how God, at a certain point, touched his life and converted him. Shortly before and immediately after his baptism in 387, Saint Augustine started founding communities to satisfy his monastic inclinations. Thus, he founded a community in Cassiciacum near Milan in Italy (386) and later on, upon his return to Africa, a community in Thagaste (388) and two more in Hippo (391, 395). He was ordained priest in 391 and was consecrated bishop four years later (in 395). He spent the last four decades of his life actively working as a minister of the Catholic Church, preaching, teaching, engaging himself in polemic with heretics and schismatics of his time, administering the sacraments, assisting the needy, sitting at ecclesiastical tribunal, and so forth. His pastoral experience has much to teach us today, both as church leaders and as lay believers.
Palabras clave: Saint Augustine, pastoral ministry, contemplative life (otium), active life (negotium), monasticism, theology
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