Late have I loved thee.

August 28, 2017

Memorial of Saint Augustine, Bishop and Doctor of the Church

Lectionary: 425

1 THES 1:1-5, 8B-10

PS 149:1B-2, 3-4, 5-6A AND 9B

MT 23:13-22

St Augustine lived a very rough life.  He did everything that one can think of, including having a child out of wedlock.  Eventually, he came to see who God was and exactly what it means to be truly human.  The life of hedonism no longer held any beauty for him.  Life had become precious. God had become the goal of every breath.  In his confessions, he wrote,

Late have I loved you, Beauty so ancient and so new, late have I loved you!
Lo, you were within,
  but I outside, seeking there for you,
  and upon the shapely things you have made
  I rushed headlong – I, misshapen.
You were with me, but I was not with you.
They held me back far from you,
  those things which would have no being,
  were they not in you.
You called, shouted, broke through my deafness;
  you flared, blazed, banished my blindness;
  you lavished your fragrance, I gasped; and now I pant for you;
  I tasted you, and now I hunger and thirst;
  you touched me, and I burned for your peace.

So many have failed to experience life.  There is an overarching theme to discussions, especially on the internet with young college aged kids, where the demand to believe anything must be backed up with "peer reviewed scientific literature."  That's great in a laboratory.  I don't need it to know some things though.  I don't need a scientific article to prove to me that life is beautiful.  I don't need a man with 8 years of college studies to tell me my daughter is precious to me.  There is no scientific journal out there that I trust enough to determine if I love my wife fully enough to avoid contraception and give myself completely to our marital embrace, life giving creation intact.  No man will ever convince me that abortion is not murder, nor that "condoms are the greatest invention in all of human history."  

I also don't need science to tell me that Jesus is present in the Eucharist.  I have experienced it.  That's something so many have stopped doing.  Instead of sitting in the silence of Adoration and asking God to speak to them, they demand proof.  Instead of climbing a mountain they want to know what the rationale and benefit of doing so, is.  I'm all for reason and logic.  But I'm human.  I'm not a machine.  I have feelings, emotions, and a soul.  There is so much more to this world that science cannot address because of the nature of what science is.  Science observes.  It records.  It does not create or interpret meaning.  So keep your science for when I want to build an electronic device in my basement out of old modems, printers, and routers... that's when I do science.  When it comes to matters of life?  I'll stick to love.  Real love.  The kind that doesn't hesitate to tell you when you do something dangerous with your life, something detrimental to your spirit.  The kind of love that Jesus Christ shows in today's Gospel when he rebukes not to drive away, but to draw to Heaven. 

There are places and times to use your eyes and ears to listen and record the events going on around you.  There is another time to use your heart, to listen with your soul.  To allow the Spirit of God to speak directly to the person He created and give you insight into what it means to be human.  Fully human.  To be able to participate in the life giving act of creation with nothing held back.  To give yourself so completely to another person that what results is life itself.  No amount of science will ever convince me that that kind of love is wrong. I don't need an equation to tell me my wife is beautiful, my children dear to me, or my heart is overflowing with the sheer enormity of what it means to be a father.  Science just can't do that, nor should it try.