Memorial of Saint Augustine, bishop and doctor of the Church
Today’s readings reflect on God’s people—both their character and God’s expectations of them.
In today’s psalm, we hear the refrain “Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own” (Ps 33:12) We know that God chose the Jewish people to enter into a covenant with Him; he expected that they honor Him alone as God in return for His protection. But notice who does the choosing. It’s God who first chooses them, not they who choose God. Indeed they are “the chosen people,” not “the people who made a choice.” Of course, the covenant required that the people uphold their end of it, that they respond to God’s choice. They dedicated themselves to responding to God’s call.Late have I loved you, Beauty ever ancient, ever new. Late have I loved you!
Acknowledging our Jewish heritage, one of the descriptors for the Church is the “People of God.” In Eucharistic Prayer III, we claim the designation of God’s people, which has come to us through Christ: “Through His cross and resurrection He freed us from sin and death and called us to the glory that has made us a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people set apart.” We are a part of the Church because God has chosen us. We may, as Paul tells the Corinthians, not be numbered among the elite of the world (see 1 Cor 1:26-27), but God has called us. We are left not with that fundamental choice to make, but rather we are left with how to respond. The gospel parable, then, illustrates various responses of those who had been chosen by the master to tend to his talents. How will we respond to God’s choice?
The great St. Augustine, who’s memorial we celebrate today, has left us we a profound reflection upon his conversion, called his Confessions. The story is really one in which God is continually calling Augustine and Augustine struggles to respond. When he does, his whole life snaps into focus—it all now makes sense. Here is the moving prayer that Augustine offers in Book 10 of the Confessions. Let us reflect upon it together:
Lo, you were within me,
but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you.
In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created.
You were with me, but I was not with you.
They held me back far from you,
those things which would have no being,
were they not in you.
You called, shouted, broke through my deafness;
you flared, blazed, banished my blindness;
you lavished your fragrance, I gasped; and now I pant for you;
I tasted you, and now I hunger and thirst;
you touched me, and I burned for your peace.
- Tim Gabrielli