Being a true "Progressive"

    This week we celebrated the feasts of Augustine and his mother, Monica.
    Augustine is the one who reminds me that our faith, faith in the Person of Christ, is not only for the poor, the weak and the humble (which it certainly is) but is also for the most progressive, the most intelligent, and the most sophisticated.
     Progressive people are often people with their minds turned "on," discerning how to make the world a better place, whether that be through education, politics or social change.  They are people who use their minds to some good purpose.
     But St. Augustine beckons us toward the highest of the available positions, toward honestly recognizing that the human heart cannot be its most successful without acknowledging its need for God and for the peace of Christ.
     "My heart is restless until it rests in Thee," Augustine writes in the first chapter of the Confessions.  This is the confession of a brilliant mind who had climbed the ladder of success and won the favor of the secular elite.  With all his worldly gains, he was left with a restlessness that could only be satiated by resting in the heart of Christ.
     In its most pure moment, the human person realizes that all the advancement imaginable is worthless unless it is an advance toward and with God.
     And let us applaud his mother, Monica, without whose persistent prayers, her progressive son would never have found what true "progress" means.