Augustine Baker

Fr. Augustine Baker OSB (9 December 1575 – 9 August 1641), also sometimes known as "Fr. Austin Baker", was a well-known Benedictine mystic and an ascetic writer. He was one of the earliest members of the English Benedictine Congregation which was newly restored to England after the Reformation.

Augustine Baker was born David Baker at Abergavenny, Monmouthshire on 9 December 1575. His father was William Baker, steward to Baron Abergavenny, and his mother was a daughter of Lewis ap John (alias Wallis), vicar of Abergavenny. His parents were "church papists" , meaning that although outwardly they conformed to Anglican worship, they remained Catholic by conviction [1]

He was educated at Christ's Hospital and at Broadgate's Hall, now Pembroke College, Oxford, afterwards becoming a member of Clifford's Inn, and later of the Middle Temple. In 1598 he was made Recorder of Abergavenny.

At Oxford he lost his faith in the existence of God, but after some years, being in extreme peril of death, he escaped by what appeared to him a miracle. Following this, he was led to the threshold of the Catholic Church, and was received into its fold.

In 1605 he joined the Benedictine Order at the Abbey of Santa Giustina, taking the religious name "Augustine", but ill health obliged him to postpone his religious profession, and he returned home to find his father on the point of death. Having reconciled him to the Catholic Church and assisted him in his last moments, Baker hastened to settle his own worldly affairs and to return to the cloister. He was professed by the Italian Fathers in England as a member of the Cassinese Congregation, but subsequently aggregated to the English Congregation.

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