Notes from the homily by the Bishop of Tunis, His Eminence Fouad Twal. La Thuile, Italy, Monday, August 27th

My joy is great to be celebrating here with you the feast of St Monica, the mother of St Augustine.
Let’s imagine that St Paul’s letter, instead of being sent to the Thessalonians, was lost; let’s change its address and send it to the crowd gathered together this evening in La Thuile. So St Paul is writing to you. What does he say in the letter?
“Dear friends, brothers, we mention you in our prayers”: prayer is one of the surest ways of loving, protecting, thinking of someone. Our prayers are every so often a bit like St Monica’s prayer for her son, every so often mixed with hope, joy, expectation, and every so often with tears.

“And we are mindful, conscious, aware of your commitment in faith” (this is St Paul writing to you, don’t forget). The first thing he talks about is faith, before talking about solidarity, before talking about unity, charity, joy, friendship, works; before all of this, he talks about faith, faith in God, faith that supposes a relationship with Him, faith that supposes a covenant with Him, out of which are born all the other covenants. They can all change, but not the first one: we-Him, He-us. Out of this relationship are born other relationships; indeed, they must all be colored by this first relationship.

Then St Paul goes on, “We remember how unsparing is your love.” There is no unity without Him–there is a mass of people, without Him. But if He is in the center and each of us draws near to Him (despite our roots, color, culture, language, training, etc.), if we put Him at the center of our lives, if we draw near to Him, ipso facto, indirectly or directly we also draw near to each other.

Charity, solidarity, constant hope in the Lord, because in our lives, also in a special way in north Africa, where there is a beautiful community of Memores Domini working with me, we often live in hope mixed with gratuitousness, because we work, sow, and hope that one day the Lord will give–as He wills, when He wills–the fruit and results of our work.

St Paul goes on, “We know, brothers loved by God, that you have been chosen by Him.” Before we were born, while we were still in our mother’s womb, He loved us and chose us. Why He chose us exactly, is something I don’t know; why He loved us, I don’t know. He chose us more than others.

Then, in the course of life, as you write here, maybe through an event, a person, a retreat, a grave and dramatic event, we became aware of this choice of His, of His grasp on us…. He chose us, and we let ourselves be chosen, but the first move was His. The reason is His love, not who we are, not our merits. He chose and we, through an event in our lives, became aware of this choice of His and said, “Yes, Lord.”

On that day our vocation was born, both in Baptism and in the other Sacraments; and since that moment there are consequences, so many consequences.

With this choice, we have become friends (“I no longer call you servants, nor functionaries, nor disciples; I call you friends”). By this choice, we have a certitude, beautiful and great; all human certainties may fail, and do fail, in our life (all of them: political and non-political, money, wealth…); everything can fail, except this certainty: “I am with you, fear not.” The other certainties come and go. It is useless to put all our hope, our faith, in human certainties.

“Fear not, I am with you always,” is our certainty. Our mission goes forward in step with total gratuitousness. The Church is His, not ours; the Church is His plan, not ours. The results will come as and when He wills.

Then the beautiful first letter of St Paul to the group at La Thuile goes on, “The fame of your faith in God has spread everywhere.” It is wonderful, it is joy to know that you were converted to God.

Let us pray this evening that this, your–and our–conversion, which is never something done once and for all, may be current, daily; that it may be radical, without inferiority complexes in front of a world that does not share our position. Unhesitating and unceasing.