GOLDEN JUBILEE  MASS OF THANKSGIVING

ST. AUGUSTINE PARISH - SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2003 

ARCHBISHOP MARCEL GERVAIS’ HOMILY 

I looked up the Internet for the World Events for 1953.  The Korean War had been officially ended the previous July.  Queen Elizabeth was crowned and became Time Magazine’s Woman of the Year.  In February that year Stalin died and, in September, Nikita Khrushchev became the First secretary of the Communist Party.  Louis Saint Laurent was Prime Minister; Patti Page sang, 'How Much is that Doggie in the Window?’; and a loaf of bread cost 16 cents. 

There were some important breakthroughs and accomplishments that year; Edmund Hillary and Tenzig Norgay conquered Mount Everest; the double helix structure of the DNA was discovered by Nelson Crick and James Watson; the Polio vaccine was used for the first time; and scientific proof of a relationship between smoking and cancer was established for the first time.  On November 27, 1953 this parish, St. Augustine, was officially declared opened. 

You had the good fortune of having been established by a religious community which was recognized for its links with the Great Bishop of Hippo in Africa, and with a strong notion of Christian community.  First, a word about your patron saint of which you are rightly proud, then a word about the challenges we are meeting today, and finally a word about our future. 

Saint Augustine lived from 354 to 430 in northern Africa, present day Algeria.  Though he was raised as a Christian he did not go through the catechumenate.  For some 15 years he was searching for the truth, looking into all kinds of writers, listening to all kinds of heretics, and finally landing in Milan with Saint Ambrose who was instrumental in converting him.  He had taken a wife, had a son and had separated from the mother of his son, and had taken a concubine, before he finally went through the catechumenate and accepted Baptism in 387 at the age of 33.  

He had been searching to find God through his mind alone but he found him in his heart.  He fell in love with God and God swept him off his feet.  This experience was so overwhelming that it kept him in the right path all of his life.  God for him was not ‘out there’, but was ‘in here’.  Listen to his wonderful prayer: 

“Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved You!  You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that          I searched for you.  In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created.  You were with me, but I was not with you.  Created things kept me from you; yet if they had not been in you they would have not been at all.  You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness.  You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness. You breathe your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you. I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more.  You touched me and I burned for your peace.”  (VII, 10,27) 

Saint Augustine died on the eve of the barbarian invasion of his city which fell shortly after his death.  All seemed lost, doomed to perish with his city.  But it did not.  It was preserved and his books made one of the most important contributions to life in the western world to this very day. 

This very day, very much as in Augustine’s day, general confusion is everywhere; values once held sacred are fading; and new positions are being proposed, with all the illusions of truth, enough to confound even believers.  I think I can say that ideas are valuable, but by themselves they are unstable and can become a hindrance.  Nothing can substitute for the loving knowledge of God - not the loving knowledge of a distant God, no, but of God as close to us as we are to ourselves.  To know, to taste Jesus in our hearts and to feel the Holy Spirit speaking to us have the force of conviction that no argument can withstand.  Saint Augustine found these in the Church and in its Scriptures and they are still available to us. 

Conversion through ideas is possible, but thorough conversion of the heart and mind bring to us a love that does not harden our hearts, but softens them and turns them into water within us and renders them powerless to condemn anyone. 

My friends, this is what I wish for you now and in the future: wait upon the love of God to move your hearts and then your minds.  Know that all things are not resolved once we have an intellectual answer (and we need these answers), but ‘taste and see’ that the Lord is good. Come to his banquet – receive the One who saves you, the One who loves you, and let his love transform your heart. 

We have hearts of stone that need to be made into hearts of flesh that can feel not only pain, but also joy.  And these hearts of flesh need to be further transformed into harts from which flow springs of living water that quench the thirst of many. 

Fifty years - in the Old Testament fifty years marked seven successions of seven years, plus one, which make fifty.  It was the year of Jubilee, when slaves would be set free and land would be returned to its original owners in order to make certain that the ones who had lost their land and become poor would be poor no more.  It was to be a joyful year for all.  It proposed a wonderful ideal, but it was never really put into actual practice. 

Today, however, we are still trying to let this wonderful celebration have an effect on our lives.  Today, and in the future, we are still pushing for the elimination of the debts of poor countries – across the world.  We have made a little headway, but there is so much more to be done.  We need to keep at it and I am happy to know that there are still people in this parish who want this to take place. 

In St. Luke, our Lord chose a passage from the prophet Isaiah to make the point that he was announcing a year of Jubilee – a year of favour from the Lord in which the poor would have the Good news proclaimed to them.  The Good News is that the poor, no matter what their worldly status are the ‘preferential option’ of God and of the Church.  God will reveal himself to the poor more easily than to the rich. 

In the Acts of the Apostles, we have the wonderful description of the first community that is given to us to imitate.  The community, like this very community of St. Augustine’s, looks after its poor and shares its possessions with all those in need.  You are an example for all of us to follow. 

For the future, always remember that knowing the Lord and his love for us in our hearts are the basis of all our life of faith.  The warmth of his glow is what keeps us alive.  May his love be an evermore powerful presence in your lives for the many years to come.