8/28/2015 – Friday of 21st week of ordinary time – St Augustine of Hippo - 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8

       In today’s reading, we continue to hear excerpts from Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians.  Today’s message from Paul is a call to holiness, asking us to remain true to our Christian values, asking us to live out the values of our faith in the reality of our lives.  I remember Brother Francisco from my work in Ecuador used to tell the youth there in our mission site that their lives at that present moment were the fruit of how they lived in the past, and how they needed to make decisions that would bring forth the fruits of their faith in the future.  In our modern world, so many people do what feels good and make choices based upon short-term pleasures.  Yet, today, Paul is calling us to a life of holiness.  We are not called to make decisions because they are the politically correct things to do, or because we just go with the flow with what everyone else is doing in our society.  We need to remember that the Thessalonians were not coming out of a strong Jewish background, but rather, they had been idol worshippers and had followed other practices that were contrary to the values that Jesus taught.  The Thessalonians also fought against so much of what was going on in the secular world around them just as we also do today.

        Our saint of the day is St Augustine who was born in northern Africa in the middle of the fourth century.  Augustine is famous for having searched for truth and meaning in different philosophies and religions and living a life searching for meaning and fulfillment in the secular pleasures of the world. While living in the city of Milan, Augustine came under the influence of the saintly Bishop there, Ambrose.  After his conversion to Christianity and his ordination to the priesthood, he desired to enter the monastic life, but he was asked to become the Bishop of Hippo.  His autobiography The Confessions is considered one of the great classics.  In that book, he wrote the famous quote: "You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they find rest in you.”  Augustine is considered one of the greatest theologians in the history of Christianity.  He was named as one of the original Doctors of the Church in 1298, along with St Ambrose, St Gregory the Great, and St Jerome. Paul and Augustine both saw us on a search for holiness.  May the light of the new life we have if Christ and the truth in God’s holy word lead us in our search for the truth we will find in God.