Another window in the series depicts St. Augustine’s baptism. Augustine is standing in a shallow bowl, in the process of being baptized. His teacher, St. Ambrose, his mother, Monica, and his son are standing in a triangle around him. This triangle represents the people that are most important in Augustine’s life and conversion.  We spoke to Kathy Overturf, the Associate Director of Campus Ministry, who works with students at Villanova who are preparing for adult baptism. She told us that “Augustine is wearing the white garment of innocence; which portrays his overcoming of the darkness that enveloped his life.” The window is significant to all who look upon it, because it symbolizes the changes that have occurred in Augustine’s life, and the point at which he finally accepts God.  Fr.  Joe Farrell, an Augustinian at Villanova, believes that the window is there so that students “may reflect on their own lives and baptism.” He sees the window as a sign of hope and inspiration for change in people’s lives.

Augustine’s Conversion as Viewed through his Encounters with Baptism

 Augustine’s journey through life was not the easiest. All through his life, he struggled in his relationship with God, and his relationship to the sacrament of baptism mirrors the three main stages of his development. The first period was naïve dependence, the second was his rejection of God, and finally, the third, his acceptance.

As a child, Augustine believes that baptism and God can save him from all of his sin. He “earnestly begged to be baptized into Christ,” (Confessions 1.11.17) not because he wants to be a devout Christian but rather because he believes Baptism could remove sin from his soul. He sees baptism as an outlet that allows him to do whatever he wants, such as stealing pears and other mischievous acts. Similarly, his view on God is that of an “aid and refuge” (Confessions 1.9.13). God is here an escape route that could save him from hell. This approach does not prove satisfying to Augustine, and he moves farther and farther away from God when his wishes are not answered.

As Augustine becomes older, he feels secure enough in his rhetoric to mock God and baptism. When a sick friend is baptized while unconscious, Augustine attempts to “chaff him, expecting him to join [him] in making fun of the baptism he had undergone” (Confessions 4.4.8) and is shocked when his friend shuts him down.  Despite his rough childhood, he claims to God that, “Even in that dire peril, [he] had no desire for your baptism, better had been my state in boyhood” (Confessions 5.9.16). At this point in his life, while in utter darkness to God and to baptism, his search for the light begins.

 As Augustine starts to seek God, his opinion of baptism changes. After a difficult and long period of unknowingness, he finally embraces both the sacrament and God and is baptized. He finally feels a sense of relief as “all of [his] dread about our earlier lives dropped away from [him],” (Confessions 9.6.14). He has found the missing part of his life, as he reunites with God through baptism. At this time, Augustine both accepts baptism and God and reaches his fullest in regards to both of them.    

Baptism Today

Many students who attend Villanova University have been baptized as infants, unlike Augustine who makes the choice to be baptized later in his life. The students who received the sacrament of Baptism at birth do not remember it, and therefore it has little significance to them.  Dane Couch, a baptized freshman at  Villanova University says he likes “the idea of baptism at an early age for the initiation into the church, but not for the healing aspect because you cannot fully understand it.” Augustine’s journey to baptism was quite different, the turmoil he felt within himself during the conversion made his baptism very meaningful. It is absurd that today baptism is more of a celebration for the guardian of the baptized child than for the actual child. The reasoning the Catholic Church baptizes at an early age, according to Fr. Joe Farrell, is to purify one’s soul. However, the purifying of one’s soul to an infant goes unnoticed, where as to an adult, it is life changing, as shown by Augustine in Confessions.