Daily Reflection, May 27, 2025

Reflection:

This reflection focuses on the readings for today’s feast day of St Augustine of Canterbury, sent by Pope Gregory 1 to preach the Gospel to the Anglo-Saxons.  Landing in England in 597, Augustine converted Ethelbert, the King of Kent, to Christianity.  St Bede the Venerable, the 8^th century saint who chronicled these events in his History of the English Church and People records the words of an Anglo-Saxon chieftain who observes that human existence is like a sparrow which flies from outer darkness into a warm dining hall and then back to outer darkness.   He exhorted his fellows to accept the new Gospel, which could illuminate the meaning of human life so much more than the gods of war, earth and fertility that they had inherited from their ancestors.  In today’s Gospel, Matthew 9:35-38, Jesus’ heart is moved with pity for the people, ‘because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd.’   As a disciple of Jesus, St Paul reached out to the Thessalonians in this spirit, writing (1 Thessalonians 2:2b-8) ‘With such affection for you, we were determined to share with you not only the Gospel of God, but our very selves as well, so dearly beloved had you become to us.’  These words beautifully express the dedication and zeal of the missionary, the love both of the Gospel and of our fellow human beings, that inspires evangelization – whether it be through St Augustine of Canterbury or through priests, religious, teachers, parents and true friends today.   

Robert Gascoigne is a parishioner at St Brigid’s, Marrickville.  He is a theologian who taught for many years at the Australian Catholic University.