Woe to you, you Scribes and Pharisees, woe to you, you
hypocrites. Jesus sees people who are
pious and whitewashed on the outside, but who don’t care much about what is on
the inside. Jesus saw past the exterior
of the Pharisees, past their empty rituals, and saw what was lacking on the
inside.
The
Pharisees thought they had all the answers, thought they had figured it
out. In the midst of that, we have St
Augustine, the saint whom we celebrate today.
He was a very intellectual boy growing up in a wealthy household in
North Africa in the middle of the 4th century. Though he had a pagan father, he had a great
Christian example in his mother, St Monica.
Yet, as much as Augustine was on a search for God, his search for the
fulfillment of his earthly desires and earthly pleasures consumed his life as a
youth and young adult. He founded his
own school of philosophy in Rome, but knew that he had not yet found the final destination
of his search for God. The letters of St
Paul and his search for spiritual fulfillment finally led him to Christianity
at the age of 32. Augustine’s teacher,
St Ambrose, baptized him during the Easter Vigil celebration. Augustine would later advise the Christian
faithful: “Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore, seek not to
understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand.”
I think
it is so appropriate today to speak about St Augustine and his spiritual quest,
because as we offer this mass for Betty Montgomery and the repose of her soul,
I think of her lifelong spiritual quest and the way she help bring others to
the a greater understanding of the faith in the tradition of St Augustine and
another one of Betty’s favorite saints – St Ignatius of Loyola. In fact, just this past spring, Betty made a
pilgrimage to Spain to follow in the footsteps of St Ignatius. I think of how Betty’s love and knowledge of
literature helped so many on their own journeys of faith, how she influenced
students, friends, colleagues, and fellow searchers in the faith on their own
journeys.
Writers
like Nathaniel Hawthorne, Flannery O’Connor, Anna Quindlen, and Ann Patchett
influenced Betty on her journey. The
Gospel that those authors taught, the Gospel that Betty and Augustine believed
in, saw our spiritual journey as being fulfilled in love rather than power, in
humility rather than arrogance, in hope rather than despair. May we all continue in that quest and
journey. And I know that the prayers of
Betty, Flannery O’Connor, St Augustine, and all and all of the community of
saints will accompany us on the way.
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