Homily | 13 September 2025

Homily, September 13, 2025

Dear brothers, we all long deep in our hearts for our lives to be a praise to the Lord, to know His will, to make it a reality in ourselves, and to bring to this world of ours the hope and light of Him who is the Light of the world, Christ.

In the Word proclaimed today, we hear Paul's confession: "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, and I am the first." Each of us can apply this phrase to ourselves. We sense that Paul does not say it with sorrow or shame but with sincere joy. God has compassion and patience with him and is graced with faith. He acknowledges himself as a sinner, but at the same time, proclaims the victory of God's love in him.
As sons of Saint Augustine, we know that conversion is not a specific moment but a profound experience of the action of God's grace throughout our entire lives as religious, and yet, too often we struggle to acknowledge our faults and sins! Consciously or unconsciously, we close our eyes to them, justify ourselves, look for culprits outside, or live in the fatality of believing that it is impossible for God to transform us and make his way into our reality.

Recognizing ourselves as sinners and in need of conversion is a necessary step that places us in the truth. It is professing that Christ triumphs over sin and death and transforms us. It allows for the conversion of heart, the work of God in us: a new life, by grace. Those who know that the Lord sustains their life with His forgiveness and love can live in a state of gratitude and joyfully praise, "Blessed be the Lord forever! Who is like Him, who raises the needy from the dust, lifts the needy from the ash heap?"

In the Gospel, the Lord calls us to authenticity of life, to cultivate a good heart, and to spread goodness from within, transformed by God's love. From the goodness stored in their hearts, a good person brings forth good, does good, and perseveres in good. To this end, He asks us to guard His Word and, in turn, put it into practice, to receive it like good soil that welcomes the seed and to bear the evident fruit that is the testimony of life.

Jesus' words touch all of us very directly because our lips so often pronounce "Lord, Lord." We are called to do what He tells us, to a coherent life that requires it to be evangelical both personally as religious and institutionally as an Order in the Church.

Our Father, Saint Augustine, knew that "the good servant of God is the one who is less concerned with hearing from God what He wants than with wanting what He hears from God" (Con 10:26). Wanting, dreaming, desiring, and at the same time putting God's will into practice in our daily lives is the radical choice for our personal and community lives. Only in this way will we be authentic people, filled with serene joy, transmitters of the peace and power of the Gospel.

We are well aware of the challenges and difficulties we must face in this time of ours. But we are witnesses to the Voice of our Lord Jesus, who comforts us and sends us to proclaim the Good News in the mission He entrusts to us, no matter how difficult it may be. Even if the winds blow strong and many, the important thing is to be well grounded.

Holding the Word in the highest regard and fulfilling it will enable us to return the love we receive from God, to be with Him and embrace His cross with Him, to stand beside those crucified and suffering the evils of this world. Carrying out the mission as a "path of presence and simplicity," far removed from any "display of self... but rather as a gift of self to the martyrdom of one who adores day and night, in joy and amid tribulations, only Jesus as Lord" (Message of Pope Leo to the 46th Rimini Meeting, August 2025). Knowing that we serve Him, because we love only Him and our brothers in Him, will make us proud, because our Order is at the service of the Church and the Kingdom. This fills our lives as Augustinians with meaning.
Today we ask the Holy Spirit to help us ground our lives in Him. We place ourselves in the loving hands of Mary, our Mother, our Lady of Charity.