To the source you will come, the light itself you shall see

Treasures of Our Faith with Deacon Richard Vehige

On Tuesday of the Thirty-Fourth Week in Ordinary Time our Church invites us to first read and reflect on a passage from the second letter of the apostle Peter (1: 12-21) entitled “The witness of the apostles and the prophets”. Our treasure, which follows, is from a treatise on John by Saint Augustine, bishop.

Saint Augustine was born at Tagaste in Africa in 354. He was unsettled and restlessly searched for the truth until he was converted to the faith at Milan and baptized by Ambrose. Returning to his homeland, he embraced an ascetic life and subsequently was elected bishop of Hippo. For thirty-four years he guided his flock, instructing it with sermons and many writings. He fought bravely against the errors of his time and explained the Faith carefully and cogently through his writings. He is also a preeminent Catholic Doctor of the Church. His writings influenced the development of western philosophy and western Christianity, and he is viewed as one of the most important Church Fathers of the Latin Church in the Patristic Period. He died in 430.

The "Tractates on the Gospel of John" are actually 124 pieces of writing. Augustine used the word "tractate" for any prepared spoken communication. Many of these tractates he delivered as homilies or sermons from the pulpit, and they were copied by stenographers in the congregation; others he dictated directly to stenographers in private, but in a way that they could later be read aloud in a church as a homily by others. His commentary on the Gospel of John is primarily pastoral rather than consciously being highly theological. Augustine's focus in these tractates is on Incarnation, or the Word made flesh. This is not only a distinctive and important theme in the Gospel of John; it was a significant part of Augustine's own conversion, as mentioned in the Confessions.

The second letter of the Apostle Peter can be appreciated both for its positive teachings and for its earnest warnings. It seeks to strengthen readers in faith, hope for the future, knowledge, love, and other virtues. This aim is carried out especially by warning against false teachers, the condemnation of whom occupies the long central section of the letter. A particular crisis is the claim by “scoffers” that there will be no second coming of Jesus, a doctrine that the author vigorously affirms. The concept of God’s “promises” is particularly precious in the theology of 2 Peter. Closing comments well sum up the twin concerns: that you not “be led into” error and “fall” but instead “grow in grace” and “knowledge” of Jesus Christ.

Second Peter is clearly structured in its presentation of these points. It reminds its readers of the divine authenticity of Christ’s teaching, continues with reflections on Christian conduct, then returns to the exalted dignity of Jesus by incorporating into the text the apostolic witness to his transfiguration. It takes up the question of the interpretation of scripture by pointing out that it is possible to misunderstand the sacred writings and that divine punishment will overtake false teachers. It proclaims that the parousia is the teaching of the Lord and of the apostles and is therefore an eventual certainty. At the same time, it warns that the meaning of Paul’s writings on this question should not be distorted.