Honoring St. Augustine, the "Great Sinner"

Today in the Church we memorialize one of the most influential thinkers in the history of the world and a Saint whose battles with sin ought to be especially present to childlovers who also battle. His life gives us an example of overcoming the odds within ourselves by the grace of God.

St. Augustine is known as the "Great Sinner," for he lead half his life in 4th century Algeria in the shadow of his own vanities and despair, lusts, drunkenness and excess, self-centeredness, thirst for power and the unresolved issues against his parents (mostly his father, whom he ended up following into a life of similar dissipation anyways). He was "restless," according to his own later description, always looking for happiness in all the wrong places, seeking and never finding. This "great sinner," not unlike each of us, was a creature of pleasure-seeking and habit who sought a rhetorical kind of self-advancement over truth and often faced the consequences of such. He was even a part of the Manichean religion at one point, a very dualistic path that emphasizes the "evil" of the created world and the passions. He was indeed a very divided, despairing, and ultimately fruitless man in his youth. He even famously wrote on how his prayer life was something along the lines of: "God, grant me chastity and continence, but not yet." (Confessions)

So why is he now among the greatest minds who ever lived? Why do we reverence such a man? How much different was he than any of us? The point is he wasn't. In short, he came to know God, came to confess Christ as savior, became a priest, founded an order of monks, became the bishop of Hippo, wrote a lot of influential books and died defending his order and fellow believers from vandals. He has since been canonized and declared a Doctor of the Church for his life and writings. These are all very impressive things, but the greatest gift this man gave out of his own life was completely God-given. It was the eternal wisdom of God. 

Very much like ourselves as childlovers, St. Augustine struggled with bad habits, but came to understand by the grace of God in his life that simply struggling with sin is not what makes us, for all struggle under various sins. The difference between a mere sinner, or even a "great one," and a saint is that a mere sinner is ultimately hurt by his sin while a saint overcomes his sin by the grace of God. But how does this happen? How do we overcome our bad habits? St. Augustine wrote much of his own life in the long prayer to God that is his book Confessions, saying that: "Because my will was perverse, it changed to lust, and lust yielded to become habit, and habit unrestricted became necessity. Thus I came to understand how the flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh." (Confessions)

Your choice defines you.

Taking the cue from the writings of St. Paul (Galatians 5:17), automatically is set up here for us two different "wills," the perverse and the holy. The perverse will encounters lust, for example, feels its feelings, consents to them, acts on them, and feels the consequences in some way (and death results, ultimately). A holy will encounters the same lust, feels the same feelings, doesn't consent to them, doesn't fear them, but uses them for the glory of God instead, and then feels the blessings that result after time and perseverance, as St. Paul writes: "Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope" (Romans 5:4). The perverse will can not become holy on its own (how can it?) and the holy will likewise can not become perverse, for the perverse will pursues lust exclusively for its own sake, which produces sin (and death, a "wage of sin"), and the holy will makes use of lust for the glory of God, which produces righteousness (a gift of God... Romans 6:23). 

But there is no battle between these two wills over the destiny of our souls that we are merely caught up in and can't do anything about, only choices and how we respond to the things we feel and see. We need not fear lust, nor pursue any gift or blessing, but always seek the will of God in all things. Just like the "desire" and "intention" to pray does not equate with prayer, but only the consent and action of prayer does, the mere "desire" and "intention" toward lust does NOT equate with "sin," but only the consent and action of lust, which is born in the "heart" (as Christ spoke in Matthew 5:27-28). Therefore, the mere feeling of "lust" is like all things a neutral feeling and NOT inherently "evil" (as the Manicheans believed), because a perverse will will use it as an opportunity to sin (as we all do at times), but a holy will will use it as an opportunity to pray and practice charity, which is righteousness. How can that which can be used to provoke righteousness be inherently evil? With a holy will, it can't. This St. Augustine came to understand. 

But how do we make the leap between the "downward" spiral (or bad habit) of a perverse will occasioning sin encouraging a perverse will...etc, to the "upward" spiral (or good habit) of a holy will occasioning prayer and charity encouraging a holy will...etc.? And especially, how can it be done if the one can never lead to the other by natural, logical, or human means? For that we need super-natural means. For that we need Jesus Christ. Not just His Teaching, but Jesus Christ Himself. But how is this leap accomplished? Paradoxically, it is occasioned in the very experience of imperfection itself, the one thing common to the experience of every will whether "perverse" or "holy." The "lust desire" on its own, like the inclination to sin itself, is the ONLY common variable, the only common experience between the upward (holy) cycle and the downward (perverse or "vicious") cycle. So just as this point is where a holy will can become perverse by inclination (temptation) and lead to sin and the downward cycle, it is also the point at which a perverse will can become holy by inclination (God Himself) and lead to righteousness and the upward cycle. 

Basically, when one encounters a lust desire, or any sin, one can make the choice to use the occasion as a call to sin and declare "party time!" or, one can make the choice to use the occasion as a call to righteousness and declare "prayer time!"

"Party time" pleasures the body immediately but is ultimately full of consequences that end up ensnaring and enslaving us or at least making us unfruitful both immediately and in the long run (by the creation of bad habits). "Prayer time" often deprives the body but causes fruitfulness and avoids the consequences by establishing good habits wrought in labor and devotion and the love of God and neighbor. 

The good news St. Augustine teaches in his writings is that of Christ, namely that: "In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world" (John 16:33). This is especially emphasized in Augustine's book City of God. His great contribution to the history of human thought is that ultimately the choices before us are a gift from God and that they influence our will, which in turn influences our choices. In the moment we feel lust or any fleshly desire, no matter how intense (and often because of its intensity!), both wills become available to us and the action is what is chosen and the result is what is in the judgement of God. Our experience of any inclination to sin and how our choices affect us are unchosen and unchangeable, but our will and our action is always chosen and changeable.

Let us echo the words of Augustine in our prayers: "[Lord] You have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they can find rest in You" (Confessions). Remember, lust and desire for sin is an opportunity permitted by God for you to choose righteousness (like He permitted the "fruit of knowledge" to be in the garden so man could have a choice), not a thing to be feared or to run away from. So use it for good! Desire it! And thus, the life of St. Augustine, and our own lives, bring to mind the words of the teacher in Ecclesiastes, the eternal wisdom of God: 

"However many years anyone may live, let them enjoy them all. But let them remember the days of darkness, for there will be many. Everything to come is meaningless. You who are young, be happy while you are young, and let your heart give you joy in the days of your youth. Follow the ways of your heart and whatever your eyes see, but know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment. So then, banish anxiety from your heart and cast off the troubles of your body, for youth and vigor are meaningless. Remember your Creator in the days of your youth before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, "I find no pleasure in them" (Ecclesiastes 11:8-10, 12:1). 

St. Augustine, pray for us.  

Praying for Children in Iraq and Gaza

For the children suffering in the crises in the middle east:

Heavenly Father bring relief, comfort and peace to the Iraqi children and families and to other persecuted innocents in Gaza and Israel, Nigeria, and other places; pour out Your Spirit and protect them from harm, give them strength in adversity, wisdom to act and react in Your love and grace. Also Father, bind the sight of the enemy, confuse their minds so they falter and fail in their attacks, and may see the great evil of their way and turn. For those children and families who are forced from homes in Iraq or deprived of their homes, security, nourishment, and who suffer life threatenning and vunerable evacuation, we pray in the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen

Learn more about the humanitarian crisis in Iraq here. Help support Save the Children humanitarian aid in the region. Help support War Child in the region. Learn about and help support Save the Children humanitarian aid in Israel and the Gaza strip.

Satisfying the Hungry Heart

Opening Prayer (PS 145:15-16)

The eyes of all look hopefully to you,

and you give them their food in due season;

you open your hand

and satisfy the desire of every living thing. Amen.

Greetings!

Would God ever ask us to offer up something for Him that He considered to be "evil" or "bad?" Didn't God always ask us to give the best and first parts of ourselves? Those parts that were "without blemish" and "first-fruits" to be set aside and consecrated to Him that we may be filled in every other way? Why then would God ask us to offer up our sexual desires in the virtue of chastity, as childlovers, if human sexuality and desire was in itself an "evil" thing? On the contrary! God, if we are so disposed (as many of us are), asks us to offer up to Him our most holy gift, our sexuality, our faculty that allows us to share in His creative power, both so that He may empty us of it and so that He may fill us with Himself. Therefore, our lives of toil and anguish without sexual fulfillment are spent as a gift, a sacrifice, because ultimately God wants to be the source and summit of all our fulfillment. 

Readings and Discussion

At church I often can't help but notice families with children and feel a deep desire in my heart for a child of my own to love and to guide. This is something I do not have, only because the Lord hasn't blessed me in such a way. There are two lines of thought one can think in this situation. The first is the "me-focused" route: "Why should I have to stand here alone while others get to be everything I want to be toward a child? Why should I be denied the ability to exemplify the charity of God and "pour myself out" for another as He did for me? Surely, the Lord must want this for me, and knows that it would make me happy, and if the Lord was all-loving, He would want me to be happy." I say this is the selfish route for obvious reasons. It's all about "me" and there's no question why I'm unable to find happiness in it. But there's another route, the "Christ-like" route: "I am happy that God has dealt such with those families and blessed them with children, may they serve them as faithfully as God is faithful. God has dealt thus with them, and He hasn't dealt thus with me, but I am thankful for all His judgments, for He knows what each soul needs, and has given both them and I what we need. The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord." In this way, there is abundant happiness to be found. 

In saying this, we can't help but remember the words of Job, but remember, Job labored with intense soul-searching as any of us would when we feel we're being cheated by God. Let us consider Elihu's reprove of Job for trying to justify his own interests ahead of God's: 

"Yet you ask him, 'What profit is it to me, and what do I gain by not sinning?' I would like to reply to you and to your friends with you. Look up at the heavens and see; gaze at the clouds so high above you. If you sin, how does that affect him? If your sins are many, what does that do to him? If you are righteous, what do you give to him, or what does he receive from your hand? Your wickedness only affects humans like yourself, and your righteousness only other people." (Job 35:4-8)

Remember that nothing we "do" or "don't do" gives or takes anything away from God, but that, as St. Paul writes, "All things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose" (Romans 8:28). Therefore, as Matthew Henry explains in his Concise Commentary on the above verse in Job: "We have no reason to complain if we have not what we expect, but should be thankful that we have better than we deserve." And how much better we certainly do have it than what we deserve, thanks be to God! If we expect "justice" from God, He will give us our "justice." He will give us what we deserve! If we however acknowledge His mercy, He will give us freely what we don't deserve, His mercy, and abundantly! But how do we truly live this out and acknowledge His mercy? 

As childlovers it can sometimes seem like we are given the gift of a sexuality only for our perpetual torment, that we must "burn with passion" (as St. Paul writes) simply because (for many of us) the vocation to matrimony is not an option. But consider this, if sexuality truly were an evil visited upon us for our torment, it would neither be for God's glory or our own benefit to abstain from it, just as there is no benefit from simply "not sinning." We know that apart from God, all sacrifice is in vain, but with God, all sacrifice is for our own good and His glory. Sexuality and desire is not an evil thing then, in itself, because God would never ask us to work in vain, but it is our heart that is convicted by the words of Christ against "adultery in the heart" (Matthew 5:27-28), that it is the lust of the heart that is an evil. What we as childlovers should do in response to the Lord's mercy is cease from sin (pornography, masturbation, unlawful sexual practices...etc.), because it is fruitless, but more importantly live for God, not in perpetual torment, but in perpetual sacrifice, offering up that part of us that is inherently good (our sexuality), because ultimately doing that is fruit-full. The meaning of the virtue of chastity is not a "no, you can't be sexual, you can't use this good gift God has given you," ...instead, it's a "yes, you can live to God, and you can use this good gift God has given you, for His sake, for the Kingdom." And so we come to the promise God makes to each and every one of us, as spoken from the pen of the prophet Isaiah in today's reading: 

"Thus says the LORD: All you who are thirsty, come to the water! You who have no money, come, receive grain and eat; Come, without paying and without cost, drink wine and milk! Why spend your money for what is not bread; your wages for what fails to satisfy? Heed me, and you shall eat well, you shall delight in rich fare. Come to me heedfully, listen, that you may have life. I will renew with you the everlasting covenant, the benefits assured to David." IS 55:1-3

Note just what God promises, that His benefits He gives without cost on our part, for they are freely given. How often though do we tax ourselves with anguish and turmoil by simply failing to acknowledge the gifts that He has given us? We hunger and thirst for things He hasn't given us, which causes us despair and unnecessary, unfruitful anguish, and yet neglect to FILL ourselves on the things that He HAS given us in abundance! What has he given us though? Many things, and all the opportunities the present moment offers for us to do His will each and every second, more than we could do in a million lifetimes. One thing He's given us IS our "sexuality," which a good thing, not that it be "put to no use" and "discarded," but that we may USE it as a sacrifice at every moment of our lives in union with His own sacrifice, saying along with Christ as He gives up His Body for us: "Now this is my body, which is given up for You." 

We read in Paul's letter to the Romans that in this nothing will separate us from the love of Christ, in fact, Paul reminds us that not only does our anguish of total self-giving not separate us from God, but actually can be used to draw us all the closer: 

"What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword? No, in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through him who loved us." ROM 8:35, 37-39

And lest we think we need "great things" from God in order to be satisfied, He teaches us in His Holy Gospel how he was able to satisfy the hunger of five thousand men (along with many women and children) with only five loaves and two fish. Indeed, it is in the small things, the everyday things, the things we probably overlook, the little random acts of kindness, that God is able to use for our eternal satisfaction both in this life and the next if we cooperate with His grace regardless of our state of life. What He gives to us freely in His mercy is more abundant than anything we could ever "ask for" or "desire," and He gives it all to us every second:  

"Taking the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, he said the blessing, broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, who in turn gave them to the crowds. They all ate and were satisfied, and they picked up the fragments left over—twelve wicker baskets full." MT 14:13-21

Let us as childlovers say along with King David: "Lord, You alone are my portion and my cup..." (Psalm 16:5), and "...my cup runs over" (Psalm 23:5). 

Remember... there were always "leftovers."

Closing Prayer (PS 145:17-18):

The LORD is just in all his ways

and holy in all his works.

The LORD is near to all who call upon him,

to all who call upon him in truth. Amen.

Grace and peace be to you. 

Made Perfect in Weakness: Sts. Peter and Paul

Today we're honoring two great Saints, Peter and Paul, and what their lives can teach us about what it means to be made complete or "perfect" despite our various inclinations and weaknesses and feelings of being "incomplete" as Childlovers. St. Paul once wrote on how the Lord had told him that "My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness" (2nd Corinthians 12:9). Both Peter and Paul were made to understand their weaknesses, and yet both were then exalted in the Lord because of them in ways they couldn't have foreseen. What can their lives teach us as Childlovers about relying on God to "fill our gaps" and make us more "complete?"

Like Childlove, Christianity is often misunderstood, whether due of ignorance or malice. Christianity often gets a negative reputation among those who misunderstand it for focusing so much on weakness and "guilt" about shortcomings. Ironically, it also gets a negative reputation from the degree of "self assurance" it provides people who are notoriously faulty. Simply put, it is all too easy to condemn it outright for being one or the other of these opposite things without understanding that what it actually teaches us is somewhere down the middle. And just as we all find ourselves at the "cross" between these opposing forces, we also find Sts. Peter and Paul. It is in the union of this opposition that we all find completeness, and nothing says "Godliness" like completeness, for God is Completeness itself. 

We can not be complete without both our strengths and our weaknesses, which often run opposed to one another and keep us from being complete as God is complete. But God has a way of turning our weaknesses into strengths in ways no human being could fathom beforehand (neither Simon Bar Jonah or Saul of Tarsus would've believed you if you told them what they would go on to do as "Peter" and "Paul" respectively). God can do this with whatever tempts and weakens us, be it LUST, ANXIETY, DEPRESSION, over-zealousness, or anything that Childlovers often struggle with. Often Christianity gets a negative reputation for focusing so much on one's weaknesses, but as the lives of the Saints teach us, there is no greater strength than one that is humbled by God, and no greater weakness than one that is self-exalted, and we see that weakness breeding a common "fruitful humility" in the lives of these rather opposite men. 

St. Paul, as we all ought to know, could be said to represent in his life and mission the "dynamism" of the Church and Christian faith in general, while St. Peter represents for us the "structure." To St. Peter was given the "keys of the Kingdom" by Christ (Matthew 16:19) and to St. Paul was given the mission to the Gentiles (the non-Jews) as its most energetic spokesman. In one amazing sense though, neither of these twin peaks of Christianity, gifted in many ways, were innately qualified to become what they eventually became, and neither would've done what they did of their own ability, as we'll see, but through them God shows us how much greater He is than we are by ourselves and therefore how much more complete we can be with Him than without Him. God doesn't merely want to play to our strengths but to fill our gaps, so that we have reason to praise and be thankful and not count upon our own abilities but only count upon that which He grants. 

Saul humbled.

Becoming complete is a hard lesson to learn though because it goes against everything we're accustomed to, everything our hearts are telling us, but consider where both Peter and Paul started and where they ended up by the grace of God. Paul became the dynamic force of the early Church, bringing in the gentiles, debating doctrine, ruminating and constantly seeking new frontiers. He was a creative powerhouse, constantly adpating to new environments and conditions and making the best of what he had wherever he was (even if it was from a jail cell). This is the Pauline way. Peter became the "Rock" of the Church, one of the "pillars" (as Paul referred to him once), the source of structure, the guiding force, the shepherd of the flock, the great pastor dealing with the matters from within. This is the Petrine way.

 

Yet neither of these great men could attribute these feats to anything but God, just judging by how they started out. In fact, God couldn't have assembled two lesser qualified people for these roles than Simon Bar Jonah and Saul of Tarsus. Simon (Peter) was a simple fisherman, and not even a great one at that. He was a divided heart, "there with you" one minute and gone the next, wishy-washy, lukewarm, prone to "please men" at one minute and be over-zealous for God the next, but God saw the genuineness of his resolve wherever his heart might've taken him and said "I can work with that!" Saul (Paul) on the other hand, was completely the opposite. Raised at the feet of the great teachers of the Law, he was devoted to the Law, to discipline, to structure, even to the point that he had lost his "heart" for his fellow man and was persecuting the Church he saw as a threat to the established order. But God saw his love for the Law and the Word and said "I can work with that!" Both men allowed God to work with them in unexpected ways.

You'd think then that God would make the man of "heart" (Simon) the dynamic force and make the man of knowledge (Saul) the "pillar," but then either man could've claimed these offices were the result of their own abilities. Instead God, wanting to show His power made "great in weakness," turned each man's weakness into a strength greater than that of their own. Thus He made Peter the "Rock" of the Church and made Paul its greatest, most affecting and dynamic preacher. He sent the former fisherrman out to be the shepherd of the Jewish flock and sent the former Pharisee (a shepherd for the Jews in a way) out to be the "fisher of men" and bring the masses to the Mass. He who was strong in following his heart for the sake of men was made stronger for the structure of God, and he who was strong in structure for the sake of men was made stronger for the heart of God. Neither was this accomplished for their own sakes or by their own power "lest any man boast," but by the power and for the sake of God, so that their boast could only be in the Lord. Both were made complete by compliance, as God wills for every one of us.

At the same time, the Lord doesn't cause our natural strengths to go unused (why would He give us any strength or faculty that we couldn't use?), but rather completes them and allows them to thrive even more abundantly than they would have had we relied solely on them. You have to imagine that Paul's gift for knowledge of the Law and for discipline and structure obtained from his former life as Pharisee found its service for the Lord in greater abundance as he applied it towards the edification of the gentile churches. Likewise you have to imagine that Peter's gift of a genuine resolve and heart allowed him to better understand the heart of his fellow man when it came to his pastoral guidance within the Church, allowing him to better be the "pillar" upon which everyone turned for leadership. Thus each man also filled in each other's weaknesses with their own strenghts in a way that only God could "join together." No one could tear it asunder! 

Simon Peter humbled.

God completes us. God tells us Childlovers to go do and not do what we are most unwilling or unable to do or not do, and whatever our weaknesses tell us we can't do, and says "Just go do it. I know you don't think you're able or worthy, but guess what. It's not about what you feel or what you know. It's about what I command." Sometimes we can feel so unworthy of God that we fail to let him fill our weaknesses or humble our strengths, but this is no less prideful than if we presumed upon our worthiness. Both deny God the opportunity to "work with us." Both Peter and Paul were unworthy as men and deeply flawed, but both of them knew it, and both knew that God was ultimately greater than their weaknesses and so consented to be filled and to do what they were previously unable or unwilling to do. Because they gave that much, God was able to give them everything else. Because they gave God their weaknesses, God humbled their strengths and exalted their weaknesses beyond all reckoning. 

What are your strengths and weaknesses? Are you prone to lust? Anxiety? Depression? An over-emphasis on maintaining order or too divided in heart? Are you lead by your feelings and deny responsibilities, or are you lead by responsibility to the point of denying your feelings? Whatever it may be, God wants you to go beyond yourself, which is the essence of all true spirituality. Go beyond "you," even if it causes you anxiety, or despair, or even the pain of death or a life of self-mortification and solitude. Lose the "I" (that is ego), lose the "want" (that is desire), and what you are left with is exactly what the Lord is prepared to GIVE you: "peace," "rest," "truth," "friendship," "companionship," "completeness"...etc. All things that He alone IS. The fact is we all want to be God, but none of us are because none of us are complete like He is. The spirit He gives us is willing but our flesh is made weak. But God says to each and every one of us: "Admit the flesh is weak, and I can work on your willing spirit. Only then can I make that flesh like unto MINE." 

Sts. Peter and Paul, pray for us.