ORDERED BY THE LOVE OF GOD

SAINT AUGUSTINE, BISHOP, DOCTOR

1 Jn 4:7-16; Ps 119:9-14; Mt 23:8-12

You have Only One Teacher

We celebrate Saint Augustine of Hippo, whose life holds so many lessons for us. In his life, we see what is required to learn and live out the heavenly tradition. He was not born a saint, but a sinner like any of us. Conceived and born in sin, he was drawn to a sinful lifestyle like ours, and he let his soul drink in vanity, becoming vain in his thoughts and life. It is always true that we become what we desire and love; for desire is love in flight to its object. By desire we conceive a thing and become one with it in loving it. Therefore, we are gradually transformed into the likeness of what we desire and love. Such is the operation of God’s image in each of us. God is in all things by his infinite and creative power, but man is all things by knowledge and love. The power to know and to love comes from God, for we understand the human intellect and will as spiritual powers. They are spiritual in the sense that they are not the sole activities or operations of our bodily parts, but those of our souls, which continue even after we leave the body.

These spiritual powers can be made gross and materialistic by the objects of our desire, as they can be wholesome and spiritual. When our minds understand and know a good, and our hearts desire it proportionately, then it is said to love the good. When the love is inordinate or disproportionate, it is said to lust after the good. Love comes from God, but lust is evil and sinful. So, for us to know what love is, there must be an ordered priority of desires for goods in us. This important ordering of our desire for goods is what the heavenly or Gospel tradition brings to our souls. Saint John proposes the heavenly tradition to us when he urged us to love our brothers and sisters. “My dear people, let us love one another since love comes from God and everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. Anyone who fails to love can never have known God, because God is love.” God is love because he is the source of order in our knowledge of goods. Thus, the coming of the Eternal Word of God in our nature is the revelation of Truth, the ordering of goods, and therefore, of love. John affirmed this, adding: “God’s love for us was revealed when God sent into the world his only Son so that we could have life through him; this is the love I mean: not our love for God, but God’s love for us when he sent his Son to be the sacrifice that takes our sins away.” God’s revelation of his Son was his offering of truth/light and love to order our disordered life.

Subsequently, God is love because he is light and truth. The introduction of order and harmony in us through knowledge of truth and ordering of goods is the coming of God into us. John affirms this, saying: “No one has ever seen God; but as long as we love one another God will live in us and his love will be complete in us.” Since love is different from lust, we love one another when we give to each what is his due in the light of the Gospel. This is living the heavenly tradition. We learn what is due to our brothers and sisters from Jesus Christ, for he is the Truth. He, therefore, commands us not to call anyone master or teacher. “You must not allow yourselves to be called Rabbi, since you have only one master, and you are all brothers. You must call no one on earth your father, since you have only one Father, and he is in heaven.” Since all good things come from the Father, their ordering also comes from him. The knowledge of these goods and their ordering is given in Jesus Christ, our Lord. Hence, if, as we have noted above and John’s words affirm, the knowledge of all goods and their ordering is revealed gradually to us in Christ through the Holy Spirit, we are transformed into Jesus Christ by these revelations and corresponding love.

Therefore, the greater among us is the one with greater likeness to Jesus Christ, who is the knowledge of the Father. Hence, our reference to those sacramentally ordained to the Person of Jesus Christ in the Church as Father is based on this teaching. Our Lord is present and serves the community through them. They enter into this role more perfectly through knowledge of the Gospel and love of God. “The greatest among you must be your servant.” Saint Augustine learnt this mystery and soaked it in, rising to be a bishop and a doctor of the Church. He was born in Thagaste, North Africa, of a Berber family. He was brought up as a Christian but left the Church early; he spent a great deal of time seeking the truth in various heretical traditions: Manichaeism and Neoplatonism. He abandoned these traditions due to the illogicality of their teaching and the disordering of their goods. His mother’s prayers and the teaching of Saint Ambrose of Milan brought him back to the Church. He had a brilliant legal and academic career, which he abandoned after his conversion to return to Africa, where he led an ascetic life. He was elected Bishop of Hippo and spent 34 years looking after his flock. He wrote many philosophical and theological works. He is known as the father of Catholic theology, especially the theology of grace.

Let us pray: Renew in your Church, we pray, O Lord, the spirit with which you endowed your Bishop Saint Augustine that, filled with the same spirit, we may thirst for you, the sole fount of true wisdom, and seek you, the author of heavenly love. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.