Augustine and Monica keep shaking up the world

Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, August 28, 2022

(normally the Memorial of Saint Augustine of Hippo, but not this year for some reason)

(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)

Augustine and Monica keep shaking up the world

Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.

As Augustine with his own fingers closed his mother’s eyes (see yesterday’s devotion), at last he let his grief flow over him.

Pouring into my heart was a vast sorrow that overflowed into tears, though my eyes, under the strict command of my mind, redrank the fountain dry, the struggle causing great strife within me. At her last breath my son Adeodatus broke into laments but, checked by us all, fell silent. In the same way, the child within me strove toward weeping … My soul was wounded, losing such a great solace in her. It was as if my life were torn in two, since her life and mine had been as one.

Augustine struggled to maintain his composure in public, but once he was alone, he prayed fervently and wept for his mother Monica.

I shed great deep tears for Your maidservant, tears flowing from a spirit shaken by the thoughts of the danger every soul that dies in Adam faces, though she had been made alive in Christ even before she was released from the flesh; for she had lived so that Your name would be praised in her faith and the life she led.

But I do not dare claim that from the moment You regenerated her through baptism no word against Your precepts issued from her mouth. Your Son, the Truth, has said, “Whoever shall say to his brother ‘you fool’ shall be in danger of the fire of Gehenna.” And woe even to commendable lives of men, if You should examine their lives casting mercy aside.

Do not cast mercy aside! God does not, we must not.

But You who do not fiercely scrutinize our sins, we hope with confidence to find some place in You. Therefore, God of my heart, my Praise and my Life, laying aside for a while my mother’s good deeds for which I give thanks to You with joy, I now beseech You for her sins. Hear me by the Healer of our wounds Who hung upon the cross and sits at Your right hand interceding with You on our behalf!

 I know that she always acted with compassion, and from her heart forgave her debtors their debts. Forgive her debts too, Lord, if she contracted any in the many years since she received the water of salvation. Forgive, Lord, forgive, I beseech You, and enter not into judgment with her.

May mercy exalt above justice, since Your words are true and You have promised mercy to the merciful. (Confessions, Book IX, Chapter 13)

You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire; to darkness, gloom and storm; ¹⁹ to a trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them, ²⁰ because they could not bear what was commanded. No, you have approached Mount Zion and the city of the living God.

In 2006 a New York playright defended Monica in her own voice, laced with strong profanities and certain of itself. In The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, she spoke in purgatory at a trial for Judas, and she wanted everyone to know she had earned the right to be heard.

My name is MONICA—better known to you mere mortals as SAINT Monica. Yeah, dass right, SAINT—as in “better not don’t get up in my grill ‘cuz I’ll mess your shit up, ’cuz I’m a Saint and I got mad saintly connects,” okay?

You ever drove down Santa Monica Boulevard? You ever ate some sushis down the Santa Monica Pier? Well dass my boulevard and my pier, and dass all I gotta say about that – word to the wise.

Anyways, up in Heaven, a lotta peoples don’t wanna hang with me ‘cuz they say I’m a Nag. It’s true. If I wasn’t a Nag, I wouldn’t never made it to be no Saint, and the church wouldn’t a had no Father of the Church named Saint Augustine!

Cuz when he started messin’ up, like, all the time and constantly, I nagged God’s ass to save him! And He did, and then my boy got so learn-ed that he’s known as one of the Fathers of the Church, and you could look that shit up! Got a plaque and everything!

Her son must be smiling at this outburst, embarrassed but mostly proud. This was the woman who absolutely would not let her son go to the dogs, or to the whores, or anywhere … except to Jesus.

I got a calling, y’all—you should try giving me a shout if ya ever need it, ‘cuz my name is Saint Monica, I’m the mother of Saint Augustine, one of the Fathers of the Church, and ya know what? My ass gets results!

Sitting in a booth on the pier across from Saint Monica watching her eat ice cream, the server asks me what I want and I say, “I’ll have what she’s having.” Oh, yeah, and then I can stand up, stand up for Jesus too, and not care much at all about how I look. I can be a soldier of the cross, like how Augustine himself lived his life, year after year, after saying goodbye to his mama.

When you hold a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind; blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.

(Sirach 3, Psalm 68, Hebrews 12, Matthew 11, Luke 14)

(posted at www.davesandel.net)

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