In the City of God, St. Augustine sought to steer Christians away from the ideals inherent in Roman heroism by pointing out the role of divine grace, rather than human effort, as the foundation of heroism. Traditionally, Roman heroes built their heroism on a conception of virtue driven by the thirst for glory and honor, as opposed to the ideals of Christian heroism. This latter form was based on the virtue of humility, sustained by God through divine grace. Augustine emphasizes the virtue of humility because he believes that the desire for honor and glory can only be overcome when human beings humbly ask God to pardon all of their sins. With these principles in mind, Augustine introduces the concept of the “whole Christ, head and body” (totus Christus caput et corpus). Augustine’s reference to totus Christus refers to the relationship between Christ and the members of his Church, in which the holiness of the Church and its ministers and sacraments is sustained by Christ alone.
In the Gospel reading today, we hear the continuation of the Gospel of Matthew from yesterday's reading. After dismissing the crowd, Jesus went up into a mountain to pray alone. In the meantime, He made the disciples get into a boat and precede him to the other side of the sea. This action signifies that sometimes Jesus worked a human thing and sometimes a divine thing. With His divinity, He multiplied the loaves, but with His humanity, he prayed. Another example of His humanity is that Jesus was walking on the sea to approach His disciples, as if Jesus were playful enough to surprise His disciples by walking on the sea at night. But Peter got out of the boat and began to walk on the water toward Jesus, and he became frightened as he began to sink. Here, Jesus wanted to teach His disciples a lesson: if they do not have help right away, they should not give up, because one must always pray. In sum, the lesson for all of us is that as a member of the Church, we must always realize that we should be sustained by Christ alone.