Christ of Saint Augustine

Transcription

1 Christ of Saint Augustine By Thomas F. Martin, O.S.A. Talk given at a retreat for the friars of the Province of Saint Thomas of Villanova (Villanova University - June, 2005). In the invitation I received to speak to you today I was asked to address: what needs to be said that hasn t been said; what do we need to hear that hasn t been heard? What immediately came to mind was a conversation of some nearly 20 years ago in all places, Ishiara, Kenya, deep in the African bush. At that time I was working in our Augustinian General Curia in Rome and I had been asked to go to Kenya and give some conferences to our sisters there. I was hosted by Venetian missionaries (we now have the mission) and I remember in particular a fiery character called Don Mario. He related to me a conversation he has just recently had with one of his Kenyan parishioners who asked him if a certain well-known (to us, at least) Catholic religious congregation was Christian. Don Mario responded in shock to the Kenyan: what do you mean? Well, his parishioner responded, they never talk about Christ, they only talk about (I will protect the name of the founder)! What struck me at the time is what would Augustine think if we only talked about him? Augustine does not point to himself (or if he does, it is only in dismay!): rather, he points us towards Christ. It is for this reason that I would like to share with you today some of my reflections on what I would like to call The Christ of Saint Augustine. To hear someone make mention of The Christ of Saint Augustine would actually startle some of my patristic colleagues. If you look at the classic studies of patristic Christology, Augustine is often described as somewhat conventional in the sense that during the time of his ministry Nicaea 325 and Constantinople 381 had already firmly defined the boundaries of orthodox Christology. Augustine places himself firmly within the framework of what we might call Nicene Christology. Interestingly, he received a posthumous invitation to Ephesus 431 and so of course was not involved in those debates. Theotokos, in Latin Mater Dei, never occurs in his extant writings. And many scholars and theologians will agree that in many ways Augustine anticipates the great Chacedonian definitions. Be that as it may, you will be hard pressed to find much accessible literature on The Christ of Saint Augustine. Why perhaps his Christ is often over-looked and under-noticed is that Christ so permeates and even drives his thinking in that sense it is present everywhere that it is easy to miss what is so obvious. It is stated boldly by one commentator as the condition, the author and the method of all his thinking. Christ is not so much an object of his speculation, but the source and method for [Augustine s] philosophical and theological thinking. 1 It also may come as a surprise to those who remember the controversy that erupted when Ted Tack was Prior General, over his statement that community was our primary apostolate. When you ask many people what is at the heart of Augustinian spirituality they might spontaneously respond community! At the very least I m convinced Augustine would retort: a Christ-community. It is perhaps because the question of Christ is so pervasive and deeply embedded at every step along the way of his writings that it also becomes a challenge to unpack the Christ of Augustine. Christ is at the center of his theology, his exegesis, his pastoral practice, his spirituality. The very first scriptural quote of Augustine in an adaptation of Paul s affirmation at the outset of his 1st Letter to the Corinthians: Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God--for God s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God s weakness is stronger than human strength. (1 Cor. 1:24-25) It occurs at the outset of Book Two of his Contra Academicos: 1 Hubertus Drobner, Studying Augustine: an overview of recent research, in Augustine and His Critics, edited by Robert Dodaro and George Lawless (London: Routledge, 2000), 29. 1

2 I pray indeed to the very Power (virtus) and Wisdom (sapientia) of the most high God, for what else is He whom the Mysteries hand over to us as the Son of God. (c. Acad. II.1) We have there a capsule statement of the entire quest and direction of Augustine s own life and journey. He found in Christ the Power of Love, God s own power of love, a love that could heal and transform and redirect all that he was and all that he had by way of talents and gifts. He discovered in Christ the Wisdom of humility, God s wisdom that appears foolish to the world (Incarnation and crucifixion were its hallmarks), that overturns all human pretensions and self-seeking. While most commentators link the opening lines of the Confessions to Psalm 146:5, I cannot help but think that Augustine also had in mind Paul s affirmation to the Corinthians: You are great, Lord, and highly to be praised; great is your power (virtus) and your wisdom (sapientia) is immeasurable. (I.1.1) The Confessions themselves are a true Christ homecoming --reaching their culmination at the Tolle! Lege! moment: Put on the Lord Jesus Christ (Rm. 13:14). When Augustine put on the power and the wisdom that was the Lord Jesus Christ, his Liberator not only restored and renewed his heart, He likewise taught him by means of the Gospels how to live with wisdom --that wisdom meant interiority, it meant service, it meant grace. It likewise did not mark the end and achievement of what he had always been looking for--at last accomplishment and attainment!--it in fact marked the true beginning of living and loving, of journeying and seeking. His restless heart would only burn more restlessly and intently as he undertook the pilgrimage along Christ the Way towards Christ the True Home. It is with this sense of dynamism and energy, pursuit and determination that he ends with Confessions with a kind of beginning (using one of his favorite Scriptural expressions for doing theology (Mt. 7:7-8): Only you can be asked, only you can be begged, only on your door can we knock (Mt. 7:7-8). Yes indeed, that is how it is received, how it is found, how the door is opened. (Conf ) Asking, begging, knocking--this activity would define the rest of Augustine s life--his Christ-ministry we might call it. Receiving, finding, entering the door that had been opened to the embrace of Christ, God s own love; helping others to ask, to beg, to knock--so that they too might receive and find and enter through that same door of Christ, God s own love. Augustine the Lover wanted to turn that embrace into an endless honeymoon of bliss, alone with the Beloved, but as he tells us in the concluding lines of Book Ten of the Confessions that was not what Christ was all about: Terrified by my sins and the mass of my misery, I had pondered in my heart and thought of flight to the desert. But you forbade me and strengthened me [here we see once again Christ the power and wisdom!], saying: And Christ died for all: that they also who live, many now not live for themselves but with Him who died for them (1 Cor. 5:15). See, Lord, I cast my care upon you, so that I may live, and I will ponder the wonderful things of your law (Ps. 118:18). You know (tu scis) my unskillfullness and my infirmity: teach me and heal me (doce me et sane me)... (Conf ) Christ here is not only Augustine s Beloved. He is equally Teacher and Healer. The real intent of his abundant writings is to encourage and challenge us to enter into that same Christ-experience. To be true to Augustine we as Augustinians must allow that love story to continue in our lives and in our ministry. It begins with Christ and in Christ as He leads us together to when God will be all in all (civ. XXII.30, see 1 Cor. 15:28). Put on the Lord Jesus Christ one way that Augustine presents the vocation or call embedded in this key biblical text is by exploring the vocationing we find in the Scriptures how Christ calls, loves, embraces, and commissions Peter, John, Paul, Martha and Mary just to name a few. 2

3 In a sermon on the psalms Augustine does a brief excursus on Simon Peter. He takes up the conversation between Simon Peter and Jesus at the Last Supper: I will be with you even if it means death. The Lord, however, who [really] knew him, predicted that he would fail, foretelling to Peter his own infirmity as if he had reached in and touched the very veins of his heart (tamquam tacta vena cordis eius). (en. Ps. 36.I.1) This reaching in and touching the very heart of Peter models not only Augustine s own experience of Christ. We ought to hear it as our own invitation to let our hearts be touched by Christ. Augustine turns often to the Johannine figure of the beloved disciple. Let me give an example from one of his sermons. Just consider those two disciples of our Lord, the great and holy brothers James and John, sons of Zebedee; we read in the gospel how they desired of the Lord our God that one of them should sit on his right in the kingdom, the other on his left (Mt. 20:21ff)... Can you drink the cup that I am going to drink? Then they were so eager for the heights that, ignorant of what they could do, ready to promise what they didn t yet have, they said, We can. He answered, My cup you shall indeed drink, because I grant you the power to drink it, because from being weak I will make you strong, because I grant you the grace of endurance so that you may drink the cup of humility; but to sit on my right hand or my left is not mine to give you, but it has been prepared by my Father for others (Mt. 20:22-23). If not for them, for what others? If apostles don t deserve it, who do? But who are the others? Among these two was that man John. Which John? The one, brothers and sisters, whom the Lord loved more than the rest, who reclined on his breast (super pectus Domini), who drank from his breast what he himself belched forth in the gospel. It s the very John who said, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. This was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was made nothing (Jn. 1:1-3). A great belching but first there had been a great drinking! Do you enjoy what he belches out? See where he drank from. He was reclining on the Lord s breast. At that banquet he had drunk everything that he was to belch forth so felicitously in the gospel. So that s how great this man was, who reclined on the Lord s breast, and yet he too was told what you, beloved have just heart: it is not mine to give you; it has been prepared by my Father for others. (s. 20A.6-8) I hoped you noticed a number of things here, especially Augustine s emphasis on grace and humility. It is the gratia Christi the grace of Christ that make our life in God possible and a Christ-community reality. And the foundation of that awareness is humility, a humility taught to us by the humble Christ who did indeed drink the chalice. But Augustine most especially goes out of his way to emphasize the beloved disciple super pectus Domini. It is a provocative image: profoundly intimate, profoundly chaste. It occurs often enough in Augustine to leave no doubt as to its importance for him I cannot but imagine that he saw himself spiritually super pectus Domini and it is what enabled him to belch out the Confessions, City of God, De Trinitate and the 5 million+ words that have come down to us. And I can t help but think that he doesn t see himself as the only one invited to be super pectus Domini besides the beloved disciple. That loving embrace is meant for us as well. Yet if there was anyone who seemed to find a special place in Augustine s heart it was the Apostle Paul. Paul s Letters were at his side when he heard the Tolle! Lege! If any figure in the New Testament gave him hope in Christ it was Paul: 3

4 The apostle Paul had been a persecutor (persecutor) before he became a preacher (praedicator), yet he received more abundant grace for the work of the apostolate than did the other apostles, because God wished to demonstrate that the gifts were from him, not derived from any human sources. Doctors like to prove their healing skills by treating desperate cases, and so did our physician and savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. He demonstrated the magnitude of his healing power in the desperate case of a man who had been a persecutor of the Church, for he made him not only a Christian but an apostle too, and not just an apostle like the others but one who worked harder than any of them, as he says himself. Paul was evidently endowed with outstanding grace. You notice, brothers and sisters, that Paul s letters are still fresh and seasonable in the Church today, more so than those of his fellow apostles, for the others did not so much write as speak of church... Others among the apostles did write letters, but they did not write as much as Paul or with such great grace. Paul then, was a man of extraordinary grace... (en. ps ) Paulus apostolus ex persecutore factus sit praedicator Paul the Apostle, from persecutor to preacher. If you track carefully Augustine s presentation of Paul and Christ there is something intensely personal about his portrayal of their relationship. Augustine was well aware than in his own way he too had been a persecutor before he became a praedicator (Augustine makes clear in the Confessions that he publicly derided the Church and dragged many of his friends with him into Manichaeism; see especially Conf ). Augustine too was well aware of the extraordinary grace of which he was recipient all of this is powerfully recounted in his Confessions. But once again we get the distinct impression that Augustine doesn t see himself peering into Paul s mirror alone: sit ipse speculum nostrum let him be our mirror (en. ps. 84.4). But Augustine knew the scriptures well enough to appreciate that it wasn t just the apostles who enjoyed such an invitation to intimacy. Let us interrupt him as he is preaching about those two famous sisters, Martha and Mary. But as for you, Martha, if you will allow me to say so, blessed as you are in your good service, for all this trouble of yours you are looking for a reward for rest from your labors. Now you are busy with many ministrations, you are intent on feeding mortal bodies, of the saints, it is true. But when you come to that home country, do you imagine you will find any traveler you can welcome as a guest? Will you find anyone hungry you can break your bread for, anyone thirsty you can give a drink to, anyone sick you can visit, anyone quarreling you can reconcile, anyone dead you can bury. There won t be any of all this there; but what will there be over there? What Mary chose; there we shall be fed, we wont be providing food. Thus what Mary chose here will be full and complete there; she was picking up crumbs from that lavish, sumptuous table, from the word of the Lord. Well, friends, do you want to know what you will find there? The Lord himself says about his servants, Amen, I tell you, that he will make them sit down and he will pass along and wait on them (Lk. 12:37). (s ) Martha and Mary represent two ways of encountering Christ, two ways of understanding life in Christ: In these two women two kinds of life are represented: present life and future life, toilsome and restful, miserable and beatific, temporal and eternal life, two sorts of life... (s ) Martha setting the table seeks to feed Christ, Mary at the feet of Jesus is being fed by Christ. Actio and contemplatio will subsequently become the hallmarks of Life in Christ: So beloved, I beg you, I urge you, I warn, command, implore you, let us desire that life together, let us run together toward it as we go, so that we may end up in it as a reward for our perseverance. The moment is coming, and that moment will have no end, when the Lord will make us recline, and will wait on us. What will he serve us with but himself? Why ask what you are going to eat? You will have the Lord himself. What will it mean, I mean, that we feed on, what but In the beginning was 4

5 the Word, and the word was with God, and the Word was God (Jn. 1:1). What will reclining be, but resting? What will feeding be, but the inexpressible delight of contemplating him? (s ) Without a blink the story of Martha and Mary welcoming Christ into their home is transformed into our own invitation to welcome Christ into the home of our heart and our love. I hope you can appreciate how Augustine effortlessly weaves together the biblical, theological, spiritual, moral, and pastoral all centered on intimate encounters between Christ and the disciples. He doesn t abstractly theologize on Christ scenarios are played out in which we are invited to see ourselves. We could explore many more examples but what I would like to do with our remaining time is step back a moment and offer you are more analytical or systematic portrait of Augustine s Christ by briefly exploring with you what we might call Augustine s favorite Titles of Christ. There are certain titles that Augustine s turns to repeatedly throughout his writing and preaching. Taken together they offer us a more comprehensive portrait of his understanding of Christ. Christus Verbum: Christ the Word! This Johannine affirmation is at the center of much of Augustine s Christological explorations. Augustine takes it up as an already richly developed theological title that took the form of what scholars call Logos Christology for him it has become a Verbum Christology. It had already seen centuries of development but Augustine adds his own unique insights. Look, now, what profit is gained that there have sounded forth the words, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God? We, too, have said words when we spoke. Was the Word with God such a word? These words which we said sounded forth and passed away, did they not? Therefore did the Word of God also sound forth and come to an end? How were all things made through it and without it was made nothing? How is that which was created by it governed by it if it sounded forth and passed away? What kind of Word is it, then which is both spoken and does not pass away? May I have you attention, my beloved people? This is an important matter. Through daily use words have been cheapened by us; by constantly sounding forth and passing away they seem to be nothing other than words. There is in all of us a word which remains within; for it is sound which goes out of the mouth. There is a word which is said truly in the spirit that which you understand from the sound, but is not the sound itself. Notice, I say a word when I say Deus (God). How brief is that which I have just said, four letters and two syllables. Is that actually the whole reality that God is, four letters and two syllables... (On John s Gospel I.8)? Augustine loves to do logos theology but he does not simply echo the tradition. Given his training, immersion, and success in the art of rhetoric (Augustine can pejoratively describe himself as a word vendor, conf ) it is not surprising that he delights in exploring the richness and potential of all that is involved in the notion of Word in order to unpack and unearth its discursive, communicative, and symbolic potential. Augustine turned to John s gospel and his theology of the Word (the only gospel that merited a full commentary by Augustine) because he found in its rich and mysterious narrative a discourse kindred to his own heart and it is this that he sought to communicate to his fellow Christians. The very elusiveness and obscurity of the Johannine narrative epitomized the profound depth of the mystery of the Word become Flesh. As we ve already noted, he found particularly striking the image of John at the Last Supper resting his head upon the bosom of Jesus: super pectus Domini. Here Augustine recognized Christian identity and task. He will note how we are to press our own hearts against the Word usque ad Verbum cor habere (en. Ps. 21.II.19). The Word is never merely letters and syllables arbitrarily placed together and discharged into human ears. Christ as Word above all speaks to human heart and thus to human condition and the deepest longings and desires that are God-placed at the center 5

6 of our being. He will tell God in the Confessions: You shattered my heart with your word--percussisti cor meum verbo tuo (conf ) but this is not destruction; it is new creation. You pierced our heart with your love, and we bore your transfixed words in our depths--sagittaveras tu cor nostrum caritate tua, et gestabamus verba tua transfixa visceribus... (ibid ) not invasive wounding but rather transformative healing. Christus Verbum announces the reorientation of all discourse even my own inner dialogue! Most especially Christ the Word speaks within and to my own heart an invitation to a life-long conversion journey of simply trying to listen to that Word that speaks to and within my own heart and respond! Christus Pauper: Augustine s insistence upon the humble Christ as Word and Healer never allowed the one spoken to and healed to turn this into a cozy self-contained spirituality. Augustine knew the temptation and dangers of privatizing Christian experience (see his remarks at the end of Book 10 of the Confessions) but the Gospels never allow for a purely interior or private journey. Augustine will remark that perhaps no other passage in the Gospels moved him as much as Mt. 25. Brothers and sisters, from time to time I have spoken to you about the Scripture passage that has made the deepest impression on me (plurimum movet) and I will continue to remind you often of it. [he goes on to explore Mt. 25 and then comments] I see that you too are moved by this text and that you are surprised (video etiam vos moveri et mirari). And it is indeed something that should make us wonder (vere mira res) (s ). The Christ of one s heart was always the Christ of every and all human relationships. Christ s becoming poor and humble demanded of the Christian to take seriously the poor and humble Christ in their midst. Augustine read Mt. 25 in the light of Acts 9:4ff: Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?... I am Jesus whom you are persecuting! Christ s own words to Paul spoke volumes to Augustine regarding Christ s solidarity and identification with the poor and gave the poor a privileged Christological status they are the empty hands and gaping mouth of Christ in need of our incarnational love (incarnation is thus bidirectional!): Christ who is rich in heaven chose to be hungry in the poor. Yet in your humanity you hesitate to give to your fellow human being. Don t you realize that what you give, you give to Christ, from whom you received whatever you have to give in the first place--esurire in pauperibus voluit [Christus], qui dives in caelo est; et tu dubitas homo dare homini, cum scias te Christo dare quod das,a quo accepisti quidquid das! (en. Ps. 75.9) Give to your needy brother/sister. To which one? To Christ. Because anyone who is your brother/sister is Christ. And because you give to Christ, you give to God... God wanted to be in need before you, and you withdraw your hand--da egenti fratri. Cui fratri? Christo. Si ergo quia fratri, Christo. Et quia Christo, Deo...Deus egere ad te voluit, et tu manus retrahis? (en. Ps ) Yet we are all God s beggars: mendici enim Dei sumus (see e.g., s ) a fact that ought to open our hearts rather than close them. Fr. Tars Van Bavel sums this up well in his description of true Augustinian Christ-centered openness: We can only live together in this world if we desire all other human beings to live within our own hearts. (Christians In the World, 41) When we are in touch with our own hearts, we will discover how much we are bound together with other hearts especially those of the poor, most in need of our compassion. Christus Totus: 6

7 The Whole Christ is one final naming of Christ that I wish to explore briefly with you. It was uniquely developed by Augustine and offers us what may be called the absolute horizon of his spiritual vision. It expresses above all the comprehensiveness of Christ, one that extends from the union of Christ with his church, to a profound sense of inclusivity that never allows me to separate love of neighbor from love of God. It culminates in a Christ-centered embrace that expresses the eschatological destiny of humanity: the One Christ: This is the consummation of all our efforts love. This is our goal: for this we run, to it we run, when we will have arrived, then we may rest--ipsa est consummatio omnium operum nostrorum, dilectio. Ibi est finis: propter hoc currimus; ad ipsam currimus; cum venerimus ad eam requiescemus (On I John X.4). The Whole Christ is in many ways simply another Augustinian reflection on love and the unity of love: By loving we become members [of Christ], through this love we are incorporated into the body of Christ; and there will be the one Christ loving himself... when you love the members of Christ, you love Christ; when you love Christ, you love the Son of God; when you love the Son of God, you love the Father. Love cannot be separated. Choose for yourself what you wish to love, the rest will follow... et diligendo fit et ipse membrum, et fit per dilectionem in compage corporis Christi; et erit unus Christus amans seipsum... cum ergo membra Christi diligis, Christum diligis; cum Christum diligis, Filium Dei diligis; cum Filium Dei diligis, et Patrem diligis. Non potest ergo separari dilectio. Elige tibi quid diligas, sequuntur te caetera...(on I John X.3). This insight into the oneness and wholeness of Christ was a wonderful by-product of Augustine s own intense engagement with the Psalms, always understood by him as the voice of Christ. Such an awareness both stimulated and nourished his rich and expansive Christological explorations. If the psalms are the voice of Christ they speak not only our solidarity with Christ and his solidarity with Him, but equally the psalms speak of our solidarity with one another. The whole church is made up of all the faithful, because all the faithful are the members of Christ. Thus our Head [Christ] dwells in heaven from whence he governs his body, and while we are separated in terms of vision, we are united in terms of love. Thus the whole Christ is head and body and so in every psalm we thus hear the voice of the head and the voice of the body. He did not want to speak in a separated way because he did not want to be separated. He says: Behold I am with you always until the consummation of the world. If he is with us, he speaks in us, he speaks concerning us, he speaks through us; and accordingly we speak in him and indeed we speak the truth because we speak in him. But when we want to speak in our own name and out of our own voice [and not Christ s], we remain in untruth-- Tota enim Ecclesia constans ex omnibus fidelibus, quia fideles omnes membra sunt Christi, habet illud caput positum in caelis quod gubernat corpus suum; etsi separatum est visione, sed annectitur charitate. Quia ergo totus Christus caput est et corpus eius; propterea in omnibus Psalmis sic audiamus voces capitis, ut audiamus et voces corporis. Noluit enim loqui separatum, quia noluit esse separatus, dicens: Ecce, ego vobiscum sum usque ad consummationem saeculi (Mt. 28:20). Si nobiscum est, loquitur in nobis, loquitur de nobis, loquitur per nos; quia et nos loquimur in illo: ed ideo verum loquimur quia in illo loquimur. Nam quando in nobis et ex nobis loquie voluerimus, in mendacio remanebimis (en. ps. 56.1) One life shared (in una vita, en. ps. 74.4) is what Augustine understands by the Christus Totus, a vision of unity and love, a vision of grace as well as grace s promise, a call for present commitment, and joyful hope for eternity. There is much more that I could explore with you to fill in and complete what I have called Augustine s Christ : Christ Humble (humilis), Brother/Sister (frater), Body (Corpus Christi), Judge (iudex), Way and Homeland (via/patria), and more! To conclude, however, I thinks Augustine would 7

8 insist that all of his preaching and writing were nothing less than an invitation to know and love Christ or better, to experience ourselves as known and loved by Christ. What do I want? What do I desire? What do I burn for? Why am I sitting here? Why do I live? There s only one reason: so that we may live together with Christ. This is my intense desire, this my honor, this my richness, this my joy, this my glory... I DO NOT WANT TO BE SAVED WITHOUT YOU--quid autem volo? Quid desidero? Quid cupio? Quare hic sedeo? Quare vivo? Nisi hac intentione, ut cum Christo simul vivamus. Cupiditas mea ista est, honor meus iste est, possessio mea ista est, gaudium meum hoc est, gloria mea ista est... NOLO SALVUS ESSE SINE VOBIS. (s. 17.2) What is at the center of Augustine s spirituality, Augustinian community, the Augustinian vocation? The answer is not a WHAT but rather a WHO: Christ, the Power and the Wisdom of God. 8