Partners in Sin, Partners in Grace
Homily on the Memorial of St Augustine, 28 August 2024, DBPH Chapel, Talamban
Once upon a time there was a little boy who went with friends to steal a fruit from a neighbour’s tree. When he got what he wanted, he and his friends run away with it scot free. Later on, after recalling what he did, he said he was driven to steal not because he was hungry but simply because he knew stealing was bad. The boy’s name was Augustine who would later grow up and become a priest, a bishop and a great saint.
Augustine was born in the year 354 in Tagaste (Northern Africa) at a peaceful period of time when the persecutions against Christians have been put to an end, and the Roman world was slowly embracing Christianity. While many people were being drawn to the Church to ask for baptism, Augustine grew up as a pagan. And despite having a devout mother who daily prayed for his conversion, he was never baptized until he reached thirty.
Nevertheless Augustine was lucky to have had a good education. As a brilliant student he excelled in Latin Literature, in Rhetoric and very soon also in Philosophy until he became a great teacher and a renowned philosopher expert in Platonism. Unfortunately while going up the social ladder, he started embracing other beliefs contrary to the Christian faith. Moreover contrary to his mom’s wishes he fell in love with a girl with whom he had a son, named Adeodatus born out of wedlock. After about fifteen years, he broke up with his girlfriend, and wanted to marry another girl much younger and more beautiful. But something happened. It was exactly at this point in his life when God finally intervened in answer to the earnest and persistent prayers of his mom for his conversion.
Augustine’s quest for the truth soon brought him to Rome and then to Milan, where he would finally find Christ. While listening to Bishop Ambrose deliver his homily inside the Cathedral of Milan, Augustine felt the power of his words and started to be drawn to the Christian faith. So he started to call on God for a change of heart but the prayer he uttered betrayed his second thoughts: “Lord, grant me chastity and continence, but not yet” not yet now.
One day while having a chat in the garden with Alipius, his best and long time friend, and still disturbed by the sinful lifestyle he had been living up to that time, he heard a mysterious voice telling him repeatedly “Tolle, legge” meaning, take up and read. So he approached the table from which direction he was hearing the voice and took the Bible lying there. When he opened it he found the passage that said “Let us conduct ourselves properly as in the day, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in promiscuity and licentiousness, not in rivalry and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the desires of the flesh” (Rom 13:13-14).
Alipius his best friend and partner in sin, read the same passage after him, and on that day both of them got converted. After several months of preparation and bible study, Augustine was finally baptized, to the great joy of his mom who never gave up praying and weeping for a wayward son. Together with him also his friend Alipius was baptized. Their partnership in sin soon turned out to become an amazing partnership in grace. Very soon both friends would be ordained priests and then as bishops and later on after their death both of them would became saints in the Church. But it was really their quest for the truth that bound them together as friends and it was God’s grace that enabled them to finally find Christ, the ultimate truth, the satisfaction of all their passion, and the joy of their heart.
May the Eucharist we celebrate in honor of St Augustine awaken in us a deep sense of longing for the true joy of our heart and the ultimate truth about life. May it encourage us to persevere in praying tirelessly for young people esp. the wayward and the delinquent. And may the friendships we forge with one another be truly an amazing partnership in God’s grace towards holiness of life. GiGsss!
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