In the readings for today’s feast commemorating Saint Augustine, or San Agustin if you prefer the Spanish, there are two discussions about wisdom – which appear, at first, to point in different directions. First there is Paul saying human wisdom is foolish, while Jesus commends the “wise” virgins for their preparedness, a very human form of wisdom.
Paul is not saying stupidity is better! When he speaks of “the wisdom of the world” he has a more specific target in mind – what we might call worldly wisdom – the wisdom of those that know how to make the best of every situation, to always get ahead and come out on top, who know how to make themselves popular. Paul would be the last one to suggest that ideas are unimportant and that we don’t have to think deeply about what we do as followers of Christ and why. He provided much of the intellectual foundation that was subsequently built on by many others, including Saint Augustine. This is why Peter and Paul are often linked together as a founding couple, as it were, for the Church.
We were reflecting just recently on Jesus building his church on Peter, and noting that this church was a group of people, ourselves and all those who went before us and will come after us – the People of God. But it is also true that there is a complex structure of ideas underpinning the church – the people don’t exist in a vacuum. Those ideas come from many places and have been worked out over many centuries, and continue to be worked out. Among those who worked out these ideas, one of the most important – arguably the most important – was Augustine.
In our Creed we note two things specifically about the Church (alongside much more detail about God and His Son). We believe in a Church that is catholic and apostolic. These two ideas are the ones that are called out as most significant in defining the Church. The apostolic one is not so surprising – the Church is founded on the apostles, the first followers of Jesus, who then communicated their experiences and consequent beliefs and understanding on to those who came after, and so on. But what about the ‘catholic’ bit?
It is not saying that we believe in the Catholic Church! That capitalization, or lack of it, makes all the difference.
This is not some clever word game. The Creed is saying that our church is defined by being catholic i.e. all inclusive – just as in “she has a catholic taste in music, food, …” (not a very common expression now, but not totally unheard of). The fact that the church is defined by being inclusive might come as a surprise to many, despite Isaiah’s many prophecies about the inclusiveness of the People of God, and the teaching of Jesus himself. The early church was not exclusive, it clearly tried to include as many as would listen – but it obviously wasn’t catholic, the vast majority of people were outside it. In later generations the Church, in its many fragments, was often explicitly and intentionally exclusive – more concerned to define its boundaries and criticize those ‘outside’ than to find ways to be more inclusive.
So where did this crazy idea of catholicity come from? Yes, as you might have guessed, from Augustine. He was the one who established the idea that the inclusivity of Jesus, Isaiah and other prophets, wasn’t just some nice metaphor or cosy aspiration, it defined the fundamental nature of the Church – as he said, a Church that was exclusive or exclusionary was not true to it own nature. And this was not an easy or obvious claim – the church of his days was just as bitterly divided as it would be in other times.
This may sound a bit abstract or philosophical. We can perhaps better appreciate just how significant it is by comparison to another human institution – the United States of America, also founded on a set of ideas (also struggled over both at its inception and ever since). One of those ideas is democracy. I think we would find it very hard to accept that a non-democratic State could be considered the USA – it is a foundational principle. And that is true regardless of the fact that its democracy has been flawed right from the beginning by limitations in suffrage (covering women, slaves, felons, a majority of the population until quite recently!).
The story of how Augustine came to this mind-blowing conclusion and how it became accepted by the Church is too complex to be covered here. Maybe somebody could make a rap musical out of it! If you want to find out a bit more about Augustine and the incredible range of ideas that he contributed to the Church, and the world (some still quoted by modern physicists!), you can take a look on my Website.
For this feast day let us just remember that the wisdom of Augustine is part of the foundation of our Church, a wisdom that is both human and divine, but definitely out of this world! And just as our American Republic has often failed to live up to its founding ideas and ideals, so our Church has often failed to be catholic – but catholic it still is – it can’t be anything else. So Augustine figured out.