St. Augustine: From Sinner to Saint

In today's first reading, 1 Thes 2: 9-13, St. Paul exhorts and encourages the Thessalonians to "walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you into his Kingdom and glory!"    "The word of God," which St.Paul preached, "is...at work in [those hearers] who believe," then and now!

Like the Thessalonians, you and I are also called to enter God's Kingdom and glory.  We received that call at our baptisms.  St. Paul asks us to "walk in a manner worthy of... God."  Who, we might ask ourselves, comes to our mind when we think of someone who walks in a way worthy of God?  In today's feast, that of St. Augustine, we are given an example of two persons--St. Augustine himself and his mother, St. Monica. Both walked worthily of their calling to enter God's Kingdom and glory.

"Walking in a manner worthy of the God who calls us into his Kingdom and glory" does not, obviously, mean always living an exemplary life! It does mean, however, turning from evil and choosing good, which St. Augustine did!  Before his conversion, St. Augustine's life was anything but saintly.  And some aspects of his life following his conversion have also been difficult to swallow, so to speak, namely, his use of "force to compel orthodoxy; his tendency to disdain sexuality, the body, and women's body, in particular" (Ellsberg, Robert, All Saint, the Crossroad Publishing Company,  New York, 2004, p.372) taint his saintliness.

However, if Saint Augustine can turn from evil and do good, so, too, can you and I!  Sinners, we all are!  We are on a journey of faith, knowing that  the "word of God is at work in those who believe."  Isaiah tells us that God's Word does not return to God until it has done the work God sent it to do, that is, to turn our hearts from evil to good and to deepen our intimacy with the Lord.  God waited for Augustine to turn to that which truly saves, God himself who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. God-substitutes do not work!

Walking in a Manner Worthy of the Lord

Today’s responsorial psalm, Psalm 139, acknowledges that God has searched me and knows me and that there is nowhere or  way, in the long run, that  I can actually flee from God’s presence.  However, I can spend a lifetime closing my mind to God’s messages and refusing to look for God in my experiences.  Yes, I can spend my life’s energy avoiding the “empty tombs” of my life, avoiding the darkness to find the Light, climbing “Mount Tabors” and refusing to come off the mount (of pride, self-righteousness, erecting tents for myself and like-minded individuals. I can also spend all my energy making excuses when confronted  by the Lord.  For example, like Jeremiah, I can try to shut out God’s call to be a prophet by saying:  “I am too young, Lord.”  Like Isaiah I can object to God’s will by saying: I can’t do what you are asking; I come from a people of unclean lips.” With  Peter  I can say: “Depart from me, O Lord, I am a sinful [person].”  Like the apostles on the road to Emmaus, I can leave places with which  I do not want to deal, places that rattle my comfort zone.   Like Paul, who persecutes others different from Himself and following other beliefs, I can mount thrones of passionate pursuits that leave me blind, as I resist interventions.  Yes, we can run from our experiences  in whatever ways we choose to run from them even to the point of death. How sad if we turn to Truth only on our death beds!

In today’s first reading,  1 Thes 2: 9-13, Paul confronts the Thessalonians, “insisting that [we] walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls [us] into his Kingdom and glory”—so, too, are we invited to “walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls [us] into his Kingdom and glory.” That means facing our truth, a truth that comes to us in being open to others, especially to those persons, perhaps, whom  we avoid in our personal lives.  In order to walk in a manner worthy of God, we need to bare our souls to the Lord Himself, facing our “demons,” going into the darkness  of our lives to find the Light, coming down from our “Mount Tabors” and walking with Christ to that place where we die to our sinful ways (our  pride, our lusts for power and control, our selfish ways, our self-righteousness, etc.) and resurrect to new life in Christ Jesus. And, finally,  as did Mary Magdalen, we need to  enter  our “empty tombs” to encounter the Risen Christ and risk being fully transformed by Him, no longer afraid to take the message of the Risen Christ to whomever we are sent.