St. Augustine and the Gift of the Person of Christ

By Father Richard Veras


One of the graces of living in a time in which so many people have doubts and misconceptions about Christianity is that it challenges Christians to be more aware of why they believe what they believe. In one of his sermons, Saint Augustine warns us against looking back at past ages as if things were easier then. Augustine himself had to guard his own flock and the entire Church against heresies which came from priests and preachers claiming to speak the truth.

The person of Jesus
In correcting the heresy of Pelagianism, which claims that human freedom is in no need of grace to follow God’s law, Augustine wrote, “This is the horrendous and hidden poison of your error: that you claim to make the grace of Christ consist in his example and not in the gift of his person.”

When I first read this quote many years ago it stuck with me because it was such a jarring correction. How many of us reduce Jesus to a good example? It seems to me that it’s quite commonplace; in fact it can even seem proper and pious. Augustine, however, warns that it is poisonous. Let us consider some of those who encountered Jesus in order to see the truth of Augustine’s warning.

Think of Mathew the tax collector who, like other tax collectors, probably cheated many of his own people while he worked for the Romans. His tax collecting must have put him in contact with many honest workers making an honest living. Matthew had these examples in front of him on a regular, perhaps even daily basis. Apparently this parade of examples never did much to sway Matthew.

Think of the woman caught in the act of adultery. Certainly she must have been acquainted with a great many women who, as far as she knew, had not committed adultery. These living examples of faithfulness and chastity were not enough to stop her from an act that could have led to her stoning.

What changed these sinners? It was the person of Jesus. He looked at Matthew and said, “Follow me.” He looked at the woman and said, “I don’t condemn you…” They were changed by the indefinable, irreducible, unimaginable person of Jesus Christ. The experience of their encounter could not be adequately put into words, but it is as if this is the person they had always been waiting for, perhaps without even knowing it. Yet when he came into their lives there was recognition, as if to say, “Yes, it’s you, something in me knew you were there, knew you would come!” He didn’t look at their sin, or their failings, or their potential, he looked at them in truth and love as they had never been looked at before. He took them much more seriously than they had ever taken themselves.

Wanting to be with Jesus
In front of the person of Jesus, their thought was probably not, “Now I can finally learn how to be good!” It was probably not even, “Now my sins can be forgiven.” What filled them was Jesus. There was simply the joy, fulfillment, happiness of him; the fact that he was with them, he desired to be with them, he overabundantly loved them without measure. A love that was truer than any sentimental idea or approximation of love they had ever had. Matthew didn’t follow to learn to be good, he followed because he wanted to be with Jesus.

When we reduce Jesus to an example, we forget about the core of our own person, which desires so much more than to be approved. We also ignore his love for us because we reduce God to a lawgiver, and forget that he is the Father. Jesus came to reveal to us God’s Fatherhood. Goodness is to live in the Father’s love, depending upon him for everything. I can’t live in that love without experiencing that love. For it is not a love I can create or imagine. I need Jesus. More than his example, or his words, or his miracles, I need him! Reducing Christ to an example is poisonous because it can keep me from humbly begging him to be with me; or it can make me think I have to postpone this begging until I somehow deserve it on my own, with nothing to help me but an abstract example.

Think finally of Our Lady. She is conceived without sin. Theoretically she has no need of good examples. Yet no one is more conscious of her need for Jesus than Mary. It was not the duty off a good mother that kept her with her Son right up to the cross; it was her love, her need, her awareness that she is made for God. That true happiness, i.e., blessedness, is possible only through him, with him, and in him. She is blessed not because she follows a good example; she is blessed because the Lord is with her. She is full of grace because the Lord is with her.

May the Lord be with you, not figuratively through example, but really through the gift of his person.