She who believed by faith, conceived by faith

Treasures of Our Faith with Deacon Richard Vehige

Today, November 21, as our Church celebrates the Memorial of the Presentation of Mary we are invited to reflect on a passage from the letter of the apostle Paul to the Galatians (3:22 – – 4:7), entitled “Through faith we are the sons and heirs of God”. Our treasure, which follows, is from a sermon by Saint Augustine, bishop.

This feast of the Presentation of Mary commemorates the dedication of the church of Saint Mary which was built in Jerusalem near the site of the Temple. With Christians of the East, the Latin Church also recalls on this day, the tradition according to which Mary as a small child was presented to the Lord by her parents in the Temple.

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 Galatians to whom the letter is addressed were Paul’s converts, most likely among the descendants of Celts who had invaded western and central Asia Minor in the third century B.C. and had settled in the territory around Ancyra (modern Ankara, Turkey). Paul had passed through this area on his second missionary journey and again on his third. It is less likely that the recipients of this letter were Paul’s churches in the southern regions of Pisidia, Lycaonia, and Pamphylia where he had preached earlier in the Hellenized cities of Perge, Iconium, Pisidian Antioch, Lystra, and Derbe; this area was part of the Roman province of Galatia, and some scholars think that South Galatia was the destination of this letter.