St. Augustine in the City of God makes
several comments concerning evil which help us understand what is
happening in the world today.
As we face the rise of evil in the
world, the unleashing of satanic forces not seen for a very long
time, St. Augustine reminds us that God did not take away the power
of the fallen angels, after their decision to rebel against Him. He
allowed the original power of their offices, which is the same as
their beings, in order for more glory to come out of evil. In other
words, one sees the victory of good over evil even in the most
extreme cases, such as in the lives of the martyrs so cruelly
murdered in England, for example, being hung, drawn and quartered.
That God allowed the power of the
demons to remain in their fallen state also means that God trusts His
faithful to respond to grace and overcome evil with good.
The second idea from St. Augustine, in
this context, has to do with the fact that after the Fall, God
allowed mankind to retain free will. That we are made in the image
and likeness of God involves God seeing us as free to chose or reject
Him. In our freedom of choice, we are “like God”. Remember that
St. Bernard of Clairvaux said that we kept the image (free will) but
lost the likeness (grace) in Original Sin.
St. Augustine writes that the human
race, so justly condemned to hell by the Sin of Adam, now has grace
through Christ to choose good over evil and in the face of evil.
God's glory will be seen in these victories.
We are “animals fit for heaven”
because of our free will and the grace bestowed on us by God.
Thus, the City of God is built up
daily, growing next to the City of Man, but with a difference, that
this City of God will last forever. Quoting Philippians 2:13, St.
Augustine reminds us that God works both the will and the good in us.
We cannot, contrary to the belief of the Pelagians, move our wills
towards God without His grace.
God's righteousness, notes St.
Augustine, in man comes from God, not from our own efforts. His will
dictates that we pray in His will and that we join in His will more
perfectly as we die to ourselves. This, of course, is the great
message of the perfection series.
One of the sections of St. Augustine's
masterpiece lists many of the Old Testament references to eternal
life, to heaven, to the New Jerusalem, as clearly not being simply a
messianic age on earth, but the fullness of the Kingdom of God in
heaven. Many of our Protestant brethren seemed confused on this
point.
The materialist philosophy has
infiltrated both some of the Protestant denominations and the Muslim
“faith” making heaven into some kind of Caribbean hot-spot for
vacations. The Kingdom of God, Christ reminds us in the Gospels, and
in front of Pilate, “is not of this world”, but a spiritual
Kingdom.
Sadly, too many Catholics want to
equate the City of Man with the City of God, such Catholics as those
who follow the heresies of liberation theology, or communism, or
socialism.
One is constantly, in the teachings of
the Catholic Church, brought back to individual dignity and
responsibility. The rise of evil is happening not only because God's
wrath will come upon us all for the sins of the nations, but because
of individual, daily decisions made against God's Holy Will.
What heaven resembles, outside of the
unity of our bodies and souls in the Beatific Vision, is a mystery to
us. But, we clearly cannot confuse the Kingdom of God with any
messianic ideal on this earth.
One more brief point from St.
Augustine: the spreading of the Kingdom of God was not because of the
efforts of the mk and work and work on a project of evangelization,
then wonder why this effort fails. Perhaps those involved have merely
done their own work, out of ego, rather than praying for the
acceptance of the Gospel accordissionaries but because of Divine
Intervention in preparing the Gentiles to accept Christ thousands came to Christ within a short period of time. Without this
willing of God for the coming into the Church of the Gentiles, St.
Augustine rightly notes, that no one would have accepted the
resurrection of the body from the dead, reunited with the soul
forever in heaven, as first witnessed in and through and with
Christ's own Resurrection. Such an idea would not have been accepted
without grace.
Too often Catholics, like those this morning at Mass who were not working out of humility or perfection but out of egotism (my music, my choir, my flute playing, my guitar playing, my collecting of money and so on) think that good works will save them. Holiness is service from the heart of God, not from one's own will.
NO.
to be continued...