Homily | 18 September - CGO 2025 Closing Mass

HOMILY, THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 18, 2025
CLOSING OF THE CGO2025

Dear brothers,

As we come together to celebrate the Eucharist in our closing liturgy of the Ordinary General Chapter of 2025, the scripture readings today offer challenges and encouragement. If we pay close attention to what we heard in the Letter to Timothy, we can see a real challenge that Timothy receives. He is directed to: Attend to yourself and to your teaching; persevere in both tasks, for by doing so you will save both yourself and those who listen to you.

Timothy was reminded of the importance of persevering. He was called to persevere in paying attention to what is going on in the depth of his heart and soul, and persevere in responding to the need to attend to what he is called to accomplish in his ministry. Both are important and both need attention. As sons of Augustine, we are called to make room for silence and reflection in our lives. Our lives can become very busy and at times, even frenetic. As counter intuitive as it may seem, it is during those busiest times that we need to slow down and stop. It does not make sense, I know, but it is what works. I am reminded of when my father was teaching me how to drive an automobile on a slippery road, when you are sliding in a direction you don’t want to go, you must first turn the steering wheel into that same direction in order to regain control of the car. Counter-intuitive… but it works. Same too with those times when we may feel we are slipping out of control, turning our attention to the quiet silence of reflection is what gives us the ability to re-direct us on the correct direction.

This takes working on creating balance in our lives. We know that it is not always easy to maintain the balance between our interior contemplative side and the active side of ministry. We are being called to respond to the cries of the poor in our world, and we are being called to attend to the inner dwelling of the Spirit within us. The challenge here is to seek balance. Some days you may feel like a circus acrobat walking along a tight rope. To seek balance, the acrobat must find an equilibrium in his or her very core. Finding one’s equilibrium, one’s inner balance, is what makes it possible for the acrobat to reach the goal of getting to the other side. In the City of God, Augustine reminds us: No one ought to be so completely at leisure that in his leisure he takes no thought for serving his neighbor, nor should anyone be so fully active that he makes no room for the contemplation of God. (City of God IX, 19)

The scriptures do not leave us without a guide to assist us on this path of sometimes walking that fine line of balancing the internal and the external realities of our Augustinian lives. We heard a few moments ago of a checklist that can help: Timothy was exhorted to: “set an example for those who believe”, And then this check list was provided, “ in speech, conduct, love, faith, and purity.” If we use this list as a type of daily examination of conscience, we are on our way to live as authentic ministers of the vows we profess. We are called to be faithful witnesses to the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience we professed.

Due attention and care must be paid to how we live our lives. I encourage all of us to spend time each day examining our lives. We are aware of what can happen when we begin to neglect a plant that depends on us to give water. The plant eventually becomes weak and begins to wither. So too with our very lives. Let us not neglect the due attention that must be given to our souls, to our interior Castle, of which St. Teresa of Avila wrote so beautifully.

When we neglect what is going on interiorly, then our exterior lives become weak and fragile. We are more prone to fall off the desired path toward God. When we become fragile in spirit it is then that speech becomes offensive, conduct becomes divisive, love becomes possessive, faith becomes weak and purity becomes stained. Being authentic to our vows and joyful in our prayer and ministry as Augustinians is the answer to living our vocation. All of this, we know, does not depend upon us. It is God’s gift of grace which allows us to be true to the call we have received. Pope Leo XIV reminded us in the very special encounter we shared with him during our Chapter that, “the ineffable gift of divine charity is what we must look to if we want to live our community life and apostolic activity to the fullest.”

When our inner selves are strengthened and nourished by divine love, responding to the cry of the world around us is more easily achieved. When we meet our sisters and brothers in ministry, we meet Christ. Today’s Gospel invites us into an encounter with Christ that is filled with great significance. The woman who approaches Jesus after he entered the house of the Pharisee is aware of her own sinfulness and comes to be forgiven through an encounter with the Son of God. Her tears provide the water to wash the feet of a man who was a missionary bringing the Good News of the Kingdom of God to the world around him. She then continues to use her hair to dry the feet of the one whose whole self is drenched with the tears of those who suffer from the tragedies of war, violence, and injustice. And then, to add even more significance to this encounter, she begins to anoint the anointed one, the Christ. Her encounter with Jesus, was an encounter with the whole Christ and that changed her life. In Sermon 49 on the New Testament, St. Augustine shared with his congregation that the woman, “approached the Lord in her uncleanness, that she might return clean: she approached sick, that she might return whole: she approached Him, confessing, that she might return professing Him.”

We close our Ordinary Chapter proceedings today, and yet we know the work continues. In fact, many of us may already be thinking of all that needs to be done to address the priorities we highlighted throughout our weeks together. We do not rush right into work, however, because we value the need to be nourished along the way. That is why we are here at the altar, to be nourished by the body and blood of Christ. The one encountered, washed and anointed by the penitent woman in the house of the Pharisee.

A chapter of the story of who we are as members of the Order of Saint Augustine at this moment is coming to a closure. New chapters wait for us to see how the story continues. Let us always remember to persevere in attending to our interior lives, to the vows we profess to live as Augustinians, and to the dedication of serving Christ in our sisters and brothers.