27 August 2021 - Friday of 21st week of ordinary time – St Monica - 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.  Paul encourages us to remain true to our Christian values, to live out the values of our faith in the reality of our lives.  When I was a missionary in Ecuador, I remember Brother Francisco, a brother with the Comboni Missionaries with whom I worked, used to tell the youth there at our mission site that their lives at that present moment were the fruit of how they lived in the past.  He told them that they needed to make decisions in their lives 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, as we hear this call to holiness, we are called to recognize that we are not called to make decisions just 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.  It is important to note that the Thessalonians were not coming out of a strong Jewish background, but rather, they had worshipped pagan idols 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.

        As we hear this wonderful reading from St Paul today, we celebrate a great saint in our Catholic faith from the 4th century: St Monica.  Born in the present day country of Algeria in northern Africa, Monica’s faith journey is intrinsically linked to the faith journey of her son, St Augustine of Hippo, whose feast day we celebrate tomorrow. Perhaps it is through learning about Monica and her journey that we are able to appreciate St Augustine all the more. In seminary, it seems like St Augustine and Thomas Aquinas are the two philosophers and theologians that stand out amongst all the rest in the history of our Catholic faith.  Many mothers can relate to Monica in that they pray that their children return to the faith that they hold dear much like Monica did until the conversion of her son.  Let our prayers join with Monica’s today in praying for all those who have strayed from the Church to hear her beckoning them back.  May Monica’s devotion and faith, both to the Church and to her son, be a witness to us all.