Mass readings for the parish patronal feast of St. Augustine:
Jeremiah 20.7-9 Psalm 63.1-8 Romans 12.1-2 Matthew 16.21-27
We all have our crosses to bear – that’s a common expression that alludes to our gospel today – the crosses Jesus calls us to take up. But quite often that phrase is misapplied. If understood as the suffering imposed on us by the world and our circumstances, that’s not what Jesus is talking about. Christ calls us to take up something which he likens to the cross of his own crucifixion. That is, the cross we contemplate in today’s gospel is a matter of choice; the choice to become his disciple or not.
This isn’t to dismiss the burdens we bear, put on us by our circumstances: on a personal level we can think of job loss, or ill health as something unbidden that has come into our lives, forcing suffering on us. On a larger scale, we can suffer in a society going through political instability or economic uncertainty, times of war or natural disaster. Again, this is not what Jesus is talking about, but in no way do we ask people to live heedless of these things.
No, the cross he asks us to pick up is a choice to make despite all we already have imposed on us, to take on the additional suffering of discipleship.
So, why add to our suffering?
Well, Jesus offers through discipleship something other than suffering. Indeed, we know through him we have the way to eternal life, and an ultimate everlasting joy. His resurrection serves as proof that his word is good; it is the guarantee of all his promises. Yet do we trust him? And because we struggle with that matter of trust, and indeed, the prospect of suffering when we already know we don’t like to suffer, many of us will try forestall that decision, delay that walk to our personal Calvary even as we yearn for resurrection, and the peace of God.
Our patron Saint Augustine was very adept as a young man at putting off the choice for Christ. One of his more famous quotes being, “O Lord, help me to be pure, but not yet.” A prayer he confessed to in his famous autobiography, Confessions.
We know he was catechized as a child by his mother, St. Monica. So, the offer of Christ was put to him, and repeated in his youth. But in going off to school, as tragically as we see this today with many a Christian youth going off to university, he thought he found the way around the decision for Christ, a way to avoid the cross. Augustine was too clever by half, we might say. And being a man of intellect, and a student of rhetoric – that is, the art of argument, he argued himself out of Christian faith and into putting his trust in other philosophies and systems of belief. One gets the sense from his writings, but also from the facts of his spiritual journey, that he never wanted to forsake the good of Christianity, but was looking for a way to have that good without the taking up the cross.
To his mother’s horror, he became an adherent of the religion of Mani – he became for a number of years a Manichaean.
Manichaeanism had tremendous appeal, especially to people who thought themselves clever, smarter than average. What this fellow Mani did was to take all the known religious traditions of the day: Judaism, Christianity, but also Zoroastrianism, and even the religious systems of distant India and integrate them into a single philosophy.
And Manichaeans gave alms to the poor, celebrated sacraments, and had a ritual community meal. So, Catholicism plus, plus, plus – something for everyone in this religion (however, Our Lord gets downgraded to prophet). Yet at the heart of it was the ancient and still recurring flaws that arise from human designed religion. One, way too complicated; and there was the sense that, indeed, this religion is only for clever people who can attain the sacred, and secret knowledge. And so, only clever people can be saved. This is known more generically as Gnosticism – religion that is essentially an intellectual exercise, that is about knowing rather than being. Secondly, as with all forms of Gnosticism, it creates a divide between the material and the spiritual, the intellectual and the “animal” and understands as its aim the release of the pure spirit from the material universe, escaping to a purely spiritual realm. We might ask, doesn’t Christianity teach an antagonism between flesh and spirit? Yes, but Christ came to redeem all flesh, the world, the created universe, not abandon it. A disdain for the material world can lead to all kinds of evil as we well know from history. In such thinking, the abuse of others in the flesh doesn’t ultimately matter. The destruction of the environment really isn’t that consequential since the aim is to escape it anyway. Morality grows fuzzy, vague, and our sins can be rationalized away – yes, I’m a glutton, a lustful creature, a person of violent temper, but all these arise from the flesh, from the physical body, how wonderful when I cast aside this body that so torments me, and I can rise to a place beyond all this suffering and live a life of pure intellect, of eternal contemplation.
Our own society indulges in its own version of this conceit: we are the smartest people who’ve ever lived, the most morally good people who’ve ever lived. And while we can recognize the good of Christian faith, we just want the benefits, but not to incur the costs – that is, the suffering. So, we have our tolerant, diverse, liberal, agnostic culture with its own feast days, pseudo-sacraments, and a charitable ethos for those it regards as the deserving. It tells people they are good by going along with it. And it has an absolute horror at the prospect of suffering. And that translates into everything from never failing a poor student in our schools to the tragedy of medically-assisted suicide. No one is to be uncomfortable, ever.
Augustine lived a comfortable life: good job providing social status as well as a good income; a mistress to satisfy his sexual desires; an excellent reputation among the right people that gave him prospects for the future. And yet, it was not enough. His restless heart could find no rest. As much as ran from suffering, it came anyway.
Augustine came to value suffering. If we do not suffer, we do not change, adapt, grow. Augustine likened it to medicine administered by the divine physician. Suffering draws us to God, forces us to examine our lives to understand with urgency what needs to change, to be adapted, to be got rid of, and how we must grow. Augustine wrote,
“The trials we endure cleanse our hearts and prepare us for the eternal joy that awaits.” (City of God, Book XXII)
But why add to our suffering in taking on the disciplines of Christ?
We might recall the comforting words of our Lord, who said, “come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give your rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden light.” (Matthew 11.28-30)
That yoke is the cross to be shouldered, but it is also an exchange: the misery of our sins and the prospect of death for a sacred burden that will ultimately carry us into eternal life.
In the encouraging words of our patron saint,
“Let us bear our crosses with patience, knowing that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory to come.” (Confessions, Book IX)
Amen.