St. Augustine

April 29, 2019

By almost any measure, I have it pretty easy. Neither I nor any of my immediate family are facing imminent trauma. We are healthy, reasonably functional, living in relative peace and prosperity when compared with most of humanity past and present. There are certainly momentous issues of our day that will likely affect my children and grandchildren more than myself, issues about which I pray, but also about which I can do little else. Our society is increasingly polarized, its institutions are collapsing, and I hear people pronouncing doom and gloom all the time.

Then I remember St. Augustine, bishop of Hippo (354-430 AD). He lived in North Africa during the time when the old Roman Empire was collapsing. People were afraid then, just as they are now. They could not imagine anything surviving the invasions of the pagan hoardes from the East; all that was familiar to them was being destroyed right before their eyes. As is usually the case, it wasn’t really the invasion from the outside that spelled the doom of Rome; it was the moral collapse from within. After generations of decadence, Rome was unwilling and unable to defend itself, hoping somehow that appeasement would save them. Sound familiar?

In response to all this, Augustine penned one of his most famous works in which he actually spoke of and compared two competing world views—that of his contemporary society, and the vision of a completely different order which he called the “City of God.” It is a lengthy tome, not light fare by any stretch of the imagination, but it framed the fear of his generation in an entirely different manner. The destruction of Rome, he argued, didn’t signal God’s abandonment of his people, but his establishment of an entirely new order of life based on the Gospel.

We are in desperate need of an Augustine today. It is all too easy to limit our vision to the things we see happening all around us; things over which we seem to have little control. The forces of evil are rampant, those of good seemingly powerless. But like St. John the Divine whose Apocalypse or Revelation was a banner of hope and a shout of triumph in the face of 1st Century withering persecution, Augustine has much to teach us. We would do well to drink deeply at the well of his wisdom and ponder the Revelation of John not as some science fiction escapism tale for a future generation, but as Almighty God’s pronouncement of judgment upon the powers of this world, and the victory of our Lord Jesus Christ over that which appears to be winning today. Jesus Christ is Victor, not just in some far off time and place, but right here and now. For that, we should all give thanks!