Homily for Thursday, 28 August 2014– Memorial of St. Augustine

Thursday of the 21st Week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: 1 Corinthians 1:1-9; Psalm 145:2-3, 4-5, 6-7; Matthew 24:42-51 

What is the good news for today? The good news is that “at an hour [we] do not expect, the Son of Man,” Jesus Christ, “will come” again in glory. The bad news is that “at an hour [we] do not expect, the Son of Man will come.” Perhaps, though, this is only bad news if we think of it as bad news.

But what if I am not one of the “faithful and prudent” servants of whom Jesus speaks in our Gospel reading, at least to God’s satisfaction to gain entry into the Kingdom of heaven? What if I am not as “awake” as Jesus asks us to be in our Gospel reading? All of us have fallen short. All of us have sinned. Some of us might have fallen, even without thinking, into the complacency of the servant who says, “My master is long delayed.”

Yes, “at an hour [we] do not expect, the Son of Man will come.” This may scare some of us. But the good news is that, while we await the definitive second coming of Jesus Christ at the end of time, the Kingdom of God is already here. However, God’s Kingdom is already here in ways we may not expect. God’s Kingdom is among us in our spiritual and other gifts as individuals and as a community of faith. God’s Kingdom is among us in our worship; in our works of kindness and mercy toward one another; in our desire to repent when we have sinned.

Unless we have completely denied the “grace… and peace” of God, that is, the Kingdom of God among us, I believe that we can greet the news that Jesus Christ will return at the end of time, even if “at an hour [we] do not expect,” as good news. I think I can say boldly that none of us here has denied or will ever deny that God’s Kingdom is present among us here; now; forever.

Today we celebrate the feast day of St. Augustine, one of the Church’s most famous sinners. Nevertheless, even in the depth of his sin; his complacency that once led him to “pray” to God, “Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet,” Augustine still searched for truth; still searched for God. St. Augustine writes beautifully of God in his Confessions: “Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new… You were within me, and it was there that I searched for you… You were with me, but I was not with you.”

God met Augustine where he was, as a sinner; as a searcher, and then transformed Augustine from one who looked on God and the unexpected coming of God’s Kingdom “with love” but also “with dread” into one who greeted the presence of God’s Kingdom as good news and with the desire for more of God and God’s Kingdom.

What, then, is our good news for today? Perhaps we can make St. Augustine’s prayer our own as we experience God’s kingdom; the good news among us here and now: God, “you breathed your fragrance on me. I drew in breath and now I pant for you. I have tasted you, and now I hunger and thirst for more. You touched me and I burned for your peace.”