17th Sunday of Ordinary Time 2023 - The Pearl of Great Price and the Conversion of St. Augustine

 

Last week, we considered the wisdom of the parable of the weeds and the wheat and how many of the saints throughout history, if you would had met them in their teenage years, didn’t always resemble the wheat for Christ that they would later become. Many of them looked like weeds. Some of them were thieves, murders, persecutors of the Church, and even devil worshippers. 

But thanks be to God’s grace, they experienced the desire for conversion and sought out Christ, the pearl of great price. God’s grace helped them to see that they were pursuing nothingness, they were pursuing emptiness, lifeless idols, and beckoned them along a new path—the path of life. 

One of the great conversion stories of Christian history, one who spent many many years looking for that pearl of great price in all the wrong places, is that of St. Augustine. Augustine was born in a rural town in modern day Algeria in North Africa, the land of the Berbers. His mother, Monica, was a Berber Catholic and His father, Patricius, was a landowner, a Roman citizen, and a pagan, though he did not object to his wife raising their children as Catholics. 

However, at the time, baptism was delayed to later in life. Catholics would put off the sacrament often until their deathbeds, when they could receive the forgiveness of the sins of their whole life. So, Augustine was not baptized in his infancy or youth. 

But, even in his youth, Augustine’s restless hunger for truth was apparent. Like many young people, he foolishly disregarded the faith of his mother. And his search for truth led him to the worldly philosophers of his day, but their worldly wisdom did not satisfy him. 

At the age of 17, the same year his father died, Augustine went to Carthage to attend the great university there. He had barely arrived when, he began to look for the pearl of happiness in carnel sins; he took a mistress and they moved in together. A year later, a child was born out of wedlock. His search for Truth led Augustine to join a cult called the Manicheans who regarded themselves as the spiritually elite of the world. And he even tried to convince his mother to join the cult. His widowed mother wept for her wayward son, so much that a kindly bishop told her, “Do not worry. It is not possible that the son of so many tears should be lost forever.”

As a member of the Gnostic Manichean cult, Augustine adopted the belief that the universe was ruled by two warring cosmic powers—a demigod of Good who ruled over the realm of the spirit, and a demigod of evil, who ruled over the physical world and the flesh. So Augustine would have denied that Jesus was God in the Flesh who had conquered sin and death.

At the age of 29, Augustine decided to go to Rome to look for a position teaching philosophy. But unsuccessful there, he went on to Milan, and he took his mother. And it was there in Milan that Augustine encountered the great bishop, St. Ambrose. Augustine had heard how the bishop courageously refused to give in to the political pressures of the Emperor and give over his churches to the Arian heretics. Impressed by the bishop’s courage, Augustine began accompanying his mother to Mass to hear Bishop Ambrose preach. And what a beautiful stroke of providence, for God had led Augustine, this intellectually hungry soul to a bishop who would later be known as a Doctor of the Church. Augustine was beginning to realize that he had been searching for God in all the wrong places. 

Sitting in a courtyard one day, Augustine heard the voice of a child saying, “Tolle et lege. Pick up and Read”. Now open to the possibility that God might be trying to get his attention, his mind and heart went to the Holy Scriptures. He picked up and began to read the first passage he came to, from Romans chapter 13 verses 13 and 14: “Not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual excess and lust, not in quarreling and jealousy. Rather, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the desires of the flesh.”

Reading this scripture, Augustine felt as if his heart were flooded with light. He sought instruction in the faith from the bishop Ambrose, and was baptized during the Easter Vigil on April 24, 387, along with his son. Later in life, reflecting on this whole experience, Augustine wrote, “You have made us for yourself, Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”

For decades Augustine wandered in the darkness. He sought happiness in the pleasures of the flesh. He sought happiness in worldly philosophers. He sought happiness in strange sects. But they failed to satisfy and left him restless. But upon finding the Truth, the pearl of great price, the Truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Augustine gave his life entirely to Christ. 

There are countless stories like Augustine’s up and down the centuries. Men and women who sought happiness, sought truth in a hundred thousand ways, but came to discover truth and goodness here in the Catholic Church. One of the great joys of my priestly ministry is working in the RCIA, with such men and women, some of them who began life with no faith, or impartial faith, or even hostility toward the Catholic faith.

In many cases, it was the witness of Ordinary Catholics that led them home. “Look at how we love one another.” Our faithful witness helped them open their hearts to the possibility that herein lies goodness. 

For some, conversion comes after a similar tolle et lege experience. They picked up the Bible, they picked up the writings of the early church fathers like St. Ignatius, St. Justin, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, and found them not simply eloquent, but in possession of Truth. 

For some, their conversion came at the simple question: Have you ever thought of becoming Catholic? One women, here in Cleveland, said that she had been looking and looking and looking for God for years and years. “Why did you never become Catholic?” she was asked by a priest. To which she responded, “because no one ever asked me.”

Folks, you know people who aren’t Catholic. Please ask them. Promise them, they’ll be happier. And to anyone here who is not Catholic, I’m asking, “Why have you never become Catholic?” Come and talk to me about it. I’m no St. Ambrose, but maybe there are some things we can clear up. 

In our world today there are a lot of people who haven’t even considered the fact that they would be happier, their lives would be more fulfilled, they would have guidance in their confusion, and strength in their challenges. There’s more to life than the world has to offer. And we have to be the Monica’s and Ambrose’s the world needs right now. 

But also, we need to seek our continued conversion, our growth in holiness, with the same zeal as the one who sells all that he has to obtain that pearl. Christ is the pearl, the life God wants for us is the pearl, active membership in the church is the treasure worth everything to obtain because it offers the perfection of our souls, and if you aren’t pursuing that, it’s time to start…for the glory of God and salvation of souls.