St. Ambrose

St. Ambrose was born around 339 at Trier, where his father held high imperial office as praetorian prefect of Gaul. Trained in Rome for public life, Ambrose rose quickly and was appointed governor of the province of Aemilia-Liguria, with his seat at Milan. In 374, when the death of the Arian bishop of Milan threatened to plunge the city into riot, Ambrose entered the cathedral to keep the peace — and, according to the ancient account, a voice cried out 'Ambrose, bishop!' Though still an unbaptized catechumen, he was acclaimed by the whole people. Within a week he was baptized, ordained, and consecrated Bishop of Milan on December 7, 374 — the day on which his feast is still kept. Ambrose gave his wealth to the poor, placed himself under a rigorous program of theological study, and became one of the great pastors of the ancient Church. He defended the Catholic faith in the Trinity against Arianism, famously refusing to surrender Milan's basilicas to the Arian court in 385–386, when he and his people occupied the churches singing hymns. He was equally fearless before Catholic emperors: after the massacre at Thessalonica in 390, he required the emperor Theodosius to do public penance before being readmitted to communion — a defining moment in the Church's freedom before earthly power. 'The emperor is within the Church,' he taught, 'not above it.' Ambrose was also a preacher of extraordinary power. His sermons on Scripture drew a skeptical young professor of rhetoric named Augustine, whose conversion Ambrose helped bring to completion; he baptized Augustine at the Easter Vigil of 387. His writings on the sacraments, on virginity, and on the duties of the clergy, together with the hymns he composed for his people — the root of the Ambrosian chant and the distinctive Ambrosian liturgy still celebrated in Milan — earned him a place among the four great Latin Doctors of the Church, with Augustine, Jerome, and Gregory the Great. He died on Good Friday, April 4, 397. Venerated as a saint from the moment of his death, long before formal canonization processes existed, Ambrose rests today in the crypt of the Basilica of Sant'Ambrogio in Milan, vested in white between the martyrs Gervasius and Protasius, whose relics he himself discovered. Pilgrims to Milan still venerate him there, and the Church commemorates him on December 7. He is honored as a patron of Milan, of beekeepers — from the legend of the bees that settled on his infant lips, foretelling his honeyed eloquence — and of students and learning.