Don’t you love it when the underdog wins? That is what happens in this weekend’s Gospel: the last will be first and the first will be last.

Some say that Jesus was referring to the Jews, God’s chosen people, whom Jesus called first to be his disciples. When they rejected him, the call went out to the Gentiles, who became followers. Or perhaps in Jesus’ time, he was talking about the leaders of the Jews, the scribes and Pharisees. These refused to follow Jesus, while ordinary Jews who did not feel threatened by Jesus’ teaching became disciples.

You can understand why the leaders rejected Jesus. They made a nice living out of the offerings made by ordinary Jews.  As long as they could decide who could enter the temple, they had a nice income flow. They were smart enough to include the poor, by asking them for smaller offerings. And who could argue with them? They worked for God. How dare Jesus say that they would be cast out, while people from the rest of the world would enter the Kingdom of God!

And how about us? Remember that the Gospel was not written for non-believers. Are we threatened by Jesus’ message? Just as the scribes and Pharisees considered themselves important in God’s eyes because of their office, do we consider ourselves “saved” because we call ourselves Christians? Do we respect all people, or just the ones we like? Are we generous to the poor, or just to our friends? Do we give a good example to the people we work with? Do we follow our conscience, or do we follow the crowd?

Entry into the Kingdom of God is not a fashion statement. We don’t get there by looking good. We are invited by Jesus to be last on earth so we can be first in the Kingdom.               -Tom Schmidt, Diocesan Publications

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August 27th – SAINT MONICA (332-387)

She had smiles for the neighbors, though her husband found her religion and the charity it inspired annoying. She made tearful prayers in private for a son, outwardly self-assured but, as his mother knew, inwardly restless, and whose girlfriend of a dozen years had borne his child out of wedlock. Though not the first or last such mother and son, Monica and Augustine are the Church’s most famous, so we keep their feast days back-to-back, with Monica’s, fittingly, first. She followed Augustine to Rome, then to Milan, where years of prayer—and nagging—finally bore fruit in his conversion by Saint Ambrose. For six months, mother and son enjoyed the blessing of rediscovering each other. Just in time! On the way home to North Africa, Monica took sick and died near Rome. No child who has mourned a parent can read, unmoved, Augustine’s tender account, in his Confessions, of Monica’s last days. At this time of the year, when parents watch apprehensively as children leave for school, may Monica’s perseverance and Augustine’s long-prayed-for conversion ease anxiety and kindle hope.                          —Peter Scagnelli, Diocesan Publilcations

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August 28th – SAINT AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO

A Christian at 33, a priest at 36, a bishop at 41: Many people are familiar with the biographical sketch of Augustine of Hippo, sinner turned saint. But to get to really know the man is a rewarding experience.

There quickly surfaces the intensity with which he lived his life, whether his path led away from or toward God. The tears of his mother, the instructions of Ambrose and, most of all, God himself speaking to him in the Scriptures, redirected Augustine’s love of life to a life of love.

Having been so deeply immersed in creature-pride of life in his early days and having drunk deeply of its bitter dregs, it is not surprising that Augustine should have turned, with a holy fierceness, against the many demon-thrusts rampant in his day. His times were truly decadent: politically, socially, morally. He was both feared and loved, like the Master.

In his day, Augustine providentially fulfilled the office of prophet. Like Jeremiah and other greats, he was hard-pressed but could not keep quiet. “I say to myself, I will not mention him. I will speak in his name no more. But then it becomes like fire burning in my heart, imprisoned in my bones. I grow weary holding it in. I cannot endure it.” (Jeremiah 20:9). -From Franciscan Media