The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary invite us to contemplate our response to encounter with the Word as we recall the life of St Augustine of Hippo.
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| Journey to faith |
The reading from the first letter to the Thessalonians describes Paul’s ministry among them.
Further Thanksgiving Paul’s Ministry Among Them1
Psalm 139 praises God’s presence in every part of the universe.
* [Psalm 139] A hymnic meditation on God’s omnipresence and omniscience. The psalmist is keenly aware of God’s all-knowing gaze (Ps 139:1–6), of God’s presence in every part of the universe (Ps 139:7–12), and of God’s control over the psalmist’s very self (Ps 139:13–16). Summing up Ps 139:1–16, 17–18 express wonder. There is only one place hostile to God’s rule—wicked people. The psalmist prays to be removed from their company (Ps 139:19–24).2
In the Gospel from Matthew, Jesus declares scribes and Pharisees are true children of their ancestors.
* [23:29–32] In spite of honoring the slain dead by building their tombs and adorning their memorials, and claiming that they would not have joined in their ancestors’ crimes if they had lived in their days, the scribes and Pharisees are true children of their ancestors and are defiantly ordered by Jesus to fill up what those ancestors measured out. This order reflects the Jewish notion that there was an allotted measure of suffering that had to be completed before God’s final judgment would take place.3
Kimberly Grassmeyer comments that today’s Gospel reading from Matthew reminds her more than anything else that she is both sinner and hypocrite.
In Matthew, Jesus was talking to ME. I am a faith hypocrite. And while I can’t know what Jesus meant when he said “fill up what your ancestors measured out”, one way I can make sense of that is to own my white, educated, middle-class privilege. To actively live out – in daily intention and action – my faith words, and to love my neighbor as I love my God. To be less of a hypocrite.4
Don Schwager, in his daily quote from the early church fathers, shares “Good deeds done for God,” by an unknown author from the 5th century A.D.
"Every good deed that is done for God is universally good for everything and everyone. Deeds that are not seen to benefit everything and everyone, however, are done on account of man, as the present matter itself demonstrates. For example, those who build reliquaries and adorn churches seem to be doing good. If they imitate the justice of God, if the poor benefit from their goods and if they do not acquire their goods through violence against others, it is clear that they are building for the glory of God. If they fail to observe God’s justice... and if the poor never benefit from their goods and if they acquire their goods from others by means of violence or fraud, who is so foolish not to understand that they are building for human respect rather than for the glory of God? Those who build reliquaries in a just manner ensure that the poor do not suffer as a result of it. For the martyrs do not rejoice when they are honored by gifts for which the poor paid with their tears. What kind of justice is it to give gifts to the dead and to despoil the living or to drain blood from the poor and offer it to God? To do such things is not to offer sacrifice to God but to attempt to make God an accomplice in violence, since whoever knowingly accepts a gift which was acquired by sinful means participates in the sin." (excerpt from an incomplete Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, HOMILY 45)5
The Word Among Us Meditation on 1 Thessalonians 2:9-13 shares that when St Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, took Augustine under his wing and treated him like a son, the walls around Augustine’s heart began to crumble. “I began to love him at first not as a teacher of the truth . . . but simply as a man who was kind and generous to me” (Confessions, 5.13). Clearly, it was the love that Ambrose showed him that made the biggest difference. For Augustine, Ambrose had become a living word of God. Similarly, the word was at work in the witness of Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy as they ministered to the Thessalonians. The way they loved the people, their dedication to the gospel, and their hard work moved the people to hear and embrace the good news of Christ.
Can it be any different for us? It’s through our actions that we show people what it means to live the good news. It’s in the rough-and-tumble of everyday life that the Spirit can make us into living words of God.
How does this happen? Think about your own experience of faith. Recall the people who have taken you under their wings, especially when you were struggling or felt directionless. God gave them to you so that you could see what it looks like to live for him. Their commitment to prayer and their willingness to care for you touched you and drew you to the Lord.6
Friar Jude Winkler connects the work of Paul to support himself to encounters with Stoics and Sophists in the marketplace. Fatherly love for the Thessalonians is declared today. Friar Jude observes that the heart of the Pharisees was not in their religious action.
The Franciscan Media Reflection on St Augustine of Hippo notes that he is still acclaimed and condemned in our day. He is a prophet for today, trumpeting the need to scrap escapisms and stand face-to-face with personal responsibility and dignity.
Having been so deeply immersed in creature-pride of life in his early days and having drunk deeply of its bitter dregs, it is not surprising that Augustine should have turned, with a holy fierceness, against the many demon-thrusts rampant in his day. His times were truly decadent: politically, socially, morally. He was both feared and loved, like the Master. The perennial criticism leveled against him: a fundamental rigorism.
In his day, Augustine providentially fulfilled the office of prophet. Like Jeremiah and other greats, he was hard-pressed but could not keep quiet. “I say to myself, I will not mention him/I will speak in his name no more/But then it becomes like fire burning in my heart/imprisoned in my bones/I grow weary holding it in/I cannot endure it” (Jeremiah 20:9).7
Bishop Michael Campbell, the first Augustinian Friar to be ordained in England since the Reformation, looks at the Saint of Hippo’s continuing influence on the Church today.
Augustine lived in an age different in so many respects from our own, yet also with remarkable similarities. There were many dubious offers of salvation and happiness on offer, remedies which were and are ephemeral; yet none of them addressed or could satisfy the deepest needs of the human person, or the desire of the human mind for a truth which would not deceive. Augustine of Hippo stands as a witness to every age that in God alone do we find the answer to our most profound longings. That, I feel, is his outstanding contribution to subsequent generations both within and beyond the boundaries of the Church.8
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, shares that for indigenous people, the stories (of the ineffable) hint of something unspoken. Theologian Megan McKenna and storyteller Tony Cowan refer to this element as “the thing not named.”
In more theological or religious terms it is the Midrash, the underlying truth, the inspired layers that are hinted at, that invite but do not force themselves upon us. They must be searched out, struggled with and taken to heart. It is, at root, the mystery that makes the story memorable, worth telling over and over again, and staking your life on it. [4]
Hopi elders engage multiplicity by referring to the ineffable as “a mighty something [a’ni himu].” [5] Wisdom instructs the elders that one cannot stake life on limited human perspectives; there must be more. And so the elders inquire into the nature of ontology, social location, and the universe with the humble acceptance of an abiding wonder for “the thing not named.”9
The journey of St Augustine and his response to encounter of the living Word continue to inspire our journey today as we wrestle with the mystery of our place in the universe.
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