The Gospel for the memorial of St. Augustine, Bishop and Doctor of the Church is taken from Matthew 24:52. Jesus said to his disciples, stay awake, for you do not know on which day your Lord will come. Be sure of this, if the master of the house had known the hour of night when the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and not let his house be broken into. So too you also must be prepared for an hour. You do not expect the Son of Man will come.

Who then is the faithful, prudent servant whom the Master has put in charge of his household to distribute to them their food at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom the Master on his arrival finds doing so. And then I say to you, you will put him in charge of all his property. But if that wicked servant says to himself, my master is long delayed, and begins to beat his fellow servants and eat and drink with drunkards, the servant’s master will come at an unexpected day and an unknown hour and will punish him severely and assign him a place with the hypocrites where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth. Jesus shifts the role of those who are called in positions of responsibility over someone, people who have power that not only is he concerned about the way in which the temple was filled with hypocrisy, he worries about every one of us in any position that we have. If we’re not doing it with love, care, compassion, we run the risk of a strong, serious punishment.

There is no excuse for someone who has power over someone else to abuse that power. Please reflect on the wisdom found in these readings and then I will close with a prayer. Foreign closing prayer. Father, our humanity is filled with so many beautiful, wonderful things and also very vulnerable to that which would corrupt those things. Please give us the attention we need as to who we are and how we treat one another, because these things are so essential to the well being of our community. And we ask this in Jesus name, Amen.