Homily for August 28, 2019

Homily for the Memorial of Saint Augustine, Bishop & Doctor of the Church - August 28, 2019

Jesus seems to be on a roll in His righteous anger toward the Pharisees. We continue yesterday’s scene where He chastised them for their focus on details of the law (again, as they interpreted it), all while ignoring the core values of the Torah.

In today’s, passage, Jesus points to the importance of our inner reality over the image we portray to others. What matters most, He tells us, is who and what we are in the deepest recesses of our being.

Jesus was swollen, bruised and bleeding as He hung dying on the Cross – a gruesome image – but it was at that moment when His love for us was most intensely and powerfully visible.

The widow who put two small coins into the Temple treasury seemed insignificant with her tiny contribution. However, Jesus recognized her generosity of heart; He saw that she was prepared, like Him, to give everything she had.

Indeed, appearances can be very deceiving. The scribes and Pharisees had far less substance than outer image. In the widow in the Temple and in the crucified Jesus, there was far, far, more than met the eye. Jesus tells us to be not so much concerned with how we appear to others as with the quality of love in our heart.

So, let us pray, today and always, that God’s Holy Spirit will kindle in our hearts the fire of His love; that we may be recreated to become the people He created each of us to be in the first place. +