In his work 17 Various Questions on the Gospel of St. Matthew, St. Augustine speaks to us about good Christians:
“Good Catholics are those who keep their faith and good works intact. As for the doctrine of the faith, if any doubt arises in them, they try to clarify it, avoiding any dangerous controversy, both for the one who seeks the solution and for the one who is consulted, and also for those who may listen to the discussion. If they have been entrusted with the task of teaching any doctrine, being truths of the common domain and already confirmed, they impart them with certainty, firmness and with all the gentleness of which they are capable. If, on the other hand, it is a question of uncommon subjects, even if for them it is an entirely clear truth, they take into account the weakness of the audience, and teach it as one who is in search, rather than as a teacher who assures and imposes”.
The text continues, but it is worthwhile to pause and take note of how important it is to transmit the doctrine with all the gentleness of which we are capable. And when we know that, among those who listen to us, there are people who are just searching, we must never assure and impose, but rather whet the appetite, provoke hunger for God, infect with soft words and short phrases the desire to know God and receive the caress of his Mercy.
“If it should happen that a truth has such difficulty that it exceeds the strength of the disciple, it should be suspended until he has matured his capacity; lest the burden imposed should crush one who is still as a child. The words of the Lord allude to this: When the Son of Man comes, do you think he will find faith on earth? Sometimes it will be necessary to conceal some truths, but to infuse them with courage and hope, so as not to increase their discouragement, but rather so that the desire to learn will broaden their capacity. The Lord Himself referred to this point when He said: I have many things to say to you; but you are not able to cope with them for the present.
How great is Augustine who gives us security by transmitting confidence in the task of evangelization. It tells us that not everyone is ready to hear some truths. We need to let ourselves be guided by the Holy Spirit to teach each one what he or she is capable of receiving, and above all what he or she is capable of responding to in congruence with God’s will. Little by little, the small things, the first steps, the colostrum, the seed, a little salt, a little honey. There are people who are sunk in things contrary to love and life, either by ignorance, weakness, fear, driven by haste and urgency, moved by the instinct of survival. And what do we do? Not to be scandalized, but to understand, to hope, to accompany, to give a taste of God’s merciful love.
“But as far as conduct is concerned, the teachings are very clear and brief: we must fight against the love of temporal goods, so as not to make us its slaves; it must be tamed and subdued, so that when it tries to rise up, it is easily repressed and even extirpated, so that it does not disturb us in any way.”
In order to transmit the love of the Gospel of Jesus, the trusting and unconditional love of God, the faith in our Lord, it is very important to be free of all attachment to material goods. Thus, everyone: rich and poor, healthy and sick, lonely and hyper-sociable, will know that the freedom with which we live is a symptom of having witnessed that God gives everything for free to his friends while they sleep, that our treasure is Love, that our greatest desire is goodness, beauty and kindness, that our wealth is the truth of eternal life and that in it we live and towards it we go.
This freedom is desirable. On the other hand, attachments to material goods repel those who want to correct or transmit the faith, because they do not see congruence, but hypocrisy. “Who is your God?” they ask. “The money or the Creator you speak of?”.
“From this it follows that the very fact of dying for the truth, some face it with courage, others with peace and others with joy. These three attitudes are the three fruits of the fertile soil: the thirty, the sixty and the hundredfold. At the hour of death, he who thinks of passing with dignity from this life to the next must be at one of these three levels.
This last paragraph ends the fourth paragraph of question 11. In paragraph 6 of the same question, he warns us that it is not we, the children of the Church, who must remove the tares and gather the ears of corn:
“One and the same reality can have many different similarities to obtain different meanings. Specifically here, when He addresses the workers, He does not say: When the time of harvest comes, I will say to you: gather the tares first, but: I will say to the harvesters. From this we can deduce that the gathering of the tares to send them to the fire is a different task, and that no son of the Church should think that it is his responsibility”.
So far we have received two very important lessons: when we speak of the things of God, it is necessary to speak with gentleness. This does not mean “acting” sweetness, but rather, sweetness emanating from co- reason in love with God. Along with gentleness, there is the prudence to give to each one according to the stage he/she is in, without stuffing with orders, rules and commandments, but rather to caress with God’s love the soul of those who listen to us and God will do the rest, the total conquest of their heart, not only through us, but also through many other Christians who will be found along the way and who without knowing each other pass the baton to communicate God’s Mercy and His already fulfilled promise of eternal life.
The second lesson is to ratify our trust in God by not pretending to pull up the tares ourselves. Clumsily, some have done so, not only in the worst actions of the Middle Ages, but in the daily life of millions of parishes scattered throughout the world, from which hundreds of people who felt excluded, judged, unwelcome and unloved are expelled. God wants us all with Him because He has created us all.
Tere García Ruiz
(Article published in the magazine ‘Santa Rita y el Pueblo Cristiano’)