Black and white, or shades of grey?

Today's antiphon and collect (opening prayer) invite us to rejoice, as we've reached the mid-point of Lent, halfway to Easter. Things lighten up a bit, as sometimes symbolised by the use of pink (if you're male) or rose (if you're female) vestments as opposed to purple (or violet). This, incidentally, is not sexist, just a vivid recollection of buying clothes in my mother's or sister's presence ä and, while we're at it, we also celebrate our mothers today (courtesy of the US greeting card industry). Reasons, then, to be cheerful.

There's also another I'd like to suggest. One of my brothers here in the community helpfully brought to my attention Augustine's defence of Christian mediocrity, on the entirely justified assumption I'd find it useful. He was right. Augustine was grappling with some issues raised by followers of Pelagius, a kind of fifth-century puritan. Following the conversion of Constantine, Christianity went from being a proscribed sect (think of jihadists today) to the up-and-coming state religion, which ambitious people joined for social advancement. It went, therefore, from being a group people joined at risk of persecution, after a long and taxing initiation process where they had to demonstrate over years that they could live up to the demands made on them by this calling to a sort of primeval rotary club. Pelagianism was an onslaught on the languid, second-rate lackadaisical Christianity which blurred the distinction between the previous practice of an ascetic elite and the ordinary pagan Roman. Augustine recognised in all this much of his own early idealism, yet he rejected Pelagius' views. He saw its fundamental error as the impatient, peremptory anticipation here and now of the Church's eschatological purity. The Church will be the spotless bride of Christ in heaven, but Pelagius ignored, Augustine complains, the interim, the interval between the remission of sins which takes place in baptism and the permanently established sinless state in the kingdom which is to come, this 'middle time' of prayer, while we must pray, as we do daily in the 'Our Father' "Forgive us our sins".

Augustine, above all, was a realist. He had long ago learnt to appreciate the insidious force of ingrained habit, never wholly conquered in this life. The individual Christian, like the Church, remains always deeply infected with sin. That's why, while we should strive to prevent and to heal them, we shouldn't be completely disconcerted by the various scandals which on occasion afflict the Church here and now. Pelagius' teaching, Augustine thought, would leave no place, in the baptised Christian, for God's merciful healing; Pelagius would replace Augustine's urgent prayer for grace with an austere call to cast off all weakness, a remorseless demand for perfection.

Sometimes we get dejected because we take up Lenten penances and find we can't persevere with them. Sometimes we're inclined to see things in black and white: we impatiently demand perfection now, or give it all up in disgust. But our healing, our growing back into communion with God mediated through communion with each other takes time, takes a lifetime. We slowly learn God's compassion, slowly learn to come to accept his healing, learn to forgive and to be forgiven, learn to respond in love to the loving Father who opens his arms to embrace us, as Jesus tells us in today's gospel. Another puritan comes to mind: Oliver Cromwell, who famously said to his soldiers that they should trust in God, but keep their powder dry. In this season of reconversion we should do what we can, and trust that God's grace will do the rest. Even though we stumble on the way, the important thing is to keep moving towards the God who waits to welcome us home.

Gregory Murphy OP