31st Sunday in Ordinary Time
Nov. 3, 2013
2 Thess 1:11—2: 2
Christian Brothers, Iona College, N.R.
“Brothers and sisters: We always pray for you” (1 Thess 1: 11).
Some of the Fathers of the Church in the
earliest centuries of Christianity called Christians the “soul” of the entire
world. We are the ones who give life,
hope, and love to humanity—and just to humanity but to every aspect of
creation, which, as St. Paul says in his Letter to the Romans, is groaning as
it hopes for redemption (8:19-22).
St. Paul - St. Peter's Square |
One of the ways by which we give life to the
world is prayer. Prayer, I should
mention, is an exercise of our basic Christian priesthood, the common
priesthood of all the baptized. That priesthood
enables all of us to offer the Eucharistic sacrifice thru the hands of the
ordained priest. And within the
Eucharist, as well as in other sacramental rite and in our private prayer, we
intercede for many people for many concerns—our “general intercessions” at Mass
and in our liturgical prayer, our intercessions for our family members and
friends, for those who are suffering from natural disasters or war or any of
the terrible circumstances of life; or we pray for the needs of the Church like
vocations, the missions, and so on.
A little story.
I keep in my breviary a list of people who’ve asked me to pray for
them—usually for something to do with their health, or just in general, as when
someone says, “Father, please pray for me.”
At one Catholic Press Assn. affair, I met a certain gentleman who became
a good friend and who asked me to pray for his particular ministry. So he’s been on my list for a few years
now. So at one CPA convention—I think it
was in Pittsburgh 2 or 3 years ago—we happened to be together for lunch, and
since I had my breviary with me, I showed him that he was on my little
list. Lo and behold, a short while later
the lunch speaker got up—some priest whose name I don’t remember—to speak about
forgiveness. In the course of his
address he said more or less that when we talk about forgiving our enemies and
those who’ve hurt us, it’s not enuf just to put their names on some sort of
prayer list and think we’re done. Well,
Owen and I looked at each other and then about fell out of our chairs laughing.
When we offer prayers for people, we’re doing
what Paul and his co-workers did: “We
always pray for you.”
Paul isn’t praying for his friends—the local
church at Thessalonica that he had converted, established, and guided, as we
read in the Acts of the Apostles—in some general sort of way. He prays very particularly that God will make
them worthy of the call that he—God—has given them, and that God will bring to
fulfillment all the purposes for which he has called them.
There we have powerful indications of what we
should really be praying for. Not that
we ought not to pray for peace or good weather or improvements in the economy
or good judgment from our political leaders or such things—but the bottom line
for everyone is that we respond to God’s call.
That covers everything for which we were created. Do you remember your Baltimore Catechism? Why did
God make you? “God made me to know him,
to love him, and to serve him in this world and to be happy with them forever
in the next world.” That’s our calling.
Paul puts that this way: “that the name of our Lord Jesus may be
glorified in you … in accord with the grace of our God and Lord Jesus
Christ.” So our prayer ultimately is for
the glory of God, by the gift of God (which is what “grace” means). Our Collect this evening prayed about God’s
gift and asked him to help us “hasten to receive the things [he has]
promised”—to respond to his call to share in Christ’s glory.
“The glory of God,” St. Irenaeus said late in
the 2d century, “is man fully alive.”
God’s glory is that we live to the fullest. Jesus says in John’s Gospel, “I have come so
[you] may have life and have it to the full” (John 10:10). That fullness of life comes from living in
and with Jesus in this life: “blessed
are the poor in spirit, the pure of heart, the peacemakers, those who hunger
and thirst for justice,” etc., as we just heard in the gospel of All
Saints. You know how good you feel when
you’ve done something truly good. Your
life is fuller! And we pray that
everyone will come to such a full life, “bring to fulfillment every good
purpose” that God intends for all of us—in this life and in eternal life.
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