The Villanova House System: Ambrose

One of Ambrose’s biographers observed that at the Last Judgment, people would still be divided between those who admired Ambrose and those who disliked him. He emerges as the man of action ... Even royalty were numbered among those who were to suffer crushing divine punishments for standing in Ambrose’s way ... "

"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 ... "

"It has been said that no one had more influence on Christianity between the time of the Apostle Paul and the Reformation than Augustine of Hippo. In his time, he played an important role by leading the theological battle against the Donatists, the Manichees and the Pelagians ... "

"In Milan, Augustine came under the influence of Ambrose the bishop. He began to go to the bishop's sermons, not so much with an expectation of profiting by them as to gratify his curiosity. For Augustine’s unhappy time at Rome in the year 384, the chair of rhetoric at Milan was to prove a godsend for him - literally. This was not because of the fact that Milan was then the city of the Emperor and his court but because it was the home of the bishop, Ambrose. At that time, the name of Ambrose was ever on the lips of any master of oratory and rhetoric ..."

Bishop Heavey OSA is the modern patron for Alypius House. "John Heavey OSA was the youngest and the last of the six Augustinian bishops in Australia; he was born in 1868, which was fifty-six years after the birth of James Goold, who was the first of the six Augustinian bishops in Australia. He was the first Bishop of Cairns (1914 – 1948) ... "