August 28, 2019 (Wednesday of Week 21: St Augustine)
Blind guides…
Dear friends in Christ, today we celebrate the memorial of St Augustine. He was born in Thagaste in Africa and was brought up a Christian but left the Church and embraced the Manichaean heresy. When he saw how nonsensical that was, he became a Neoplatonist. He led a wild and dissolute youth, had a concubine by whom he had a son. He was brilliant in his legal and academic career. Through the prayers of Monica his mother and his encounter with St Ambrose, the Bishop Milan, he was converted back to Christianity, baptised in 387 and returned to Africa to lead an ascetic life. He later became the Bishop of Hippo and had great care of his flock teaching them and protecting them from errors. He wrote many works including his ‘Confessions’ and the ‘City of God.’
In our first reading (1Thessalonians 2:9-13) Paul continues to give an account of his mission among the Thessalonians. Wherever he went, he did not depend on the community to provide his sustenance, he worked with the tools of his trade to make a living while preaching the gospel. He said, “We worked night and day, that we might not burden any of you, while we preached to you the gospel of Christ. You are witnesses, and God also, how holy and righteous and blameless was our behaviour to you believers…” Paul’s defence of his apostolate, calls today’s messengers of the gospel, to do a soul searching on how we are carrying out the same mission among the people of God in our time.
In the gospel (Matthew 23:27-32) Jesus compares hypocrites with white washed tombs. What is bad cannot be preserved, it is only a matter of time before the whole truth comes to the fore. “Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you are like white washed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within, they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness.” When people live differently from what they profess, they become a disgrace to themselves. Jesus has come down this hard on them because they only pretend to know what is right, they do not live out the justice and mercy that is demanded of their religion. Their focus is more on other people while they cover their own deeds with the garb of being Pharisees and scribes. They say, “If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.” It is easier to build the grave of a dead prophet, than to listen to a living one and change one’s life. It is possible to claim that you would not have done the same thing if you lived at so and so a time, but examine what you do now in your own time, are there similarities with what you condemn of previous generations? Is it possible you are doing what you condemn in public officials at your family or office level? Because you know so much as to condemn others for doing what is wrong, you become a witness against yourself before God.
Let us pray: Lord, you are good and your ways are perfect, give us the grace to model our lives on your commands. Amen. May the Almighty God bless you, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen
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