31st Sunday of Ordinary Time
Nov. 5, 2017
1 Thess 2: 7-9, 13
Visitation Convent, Georgetown, D.C.
“Brothers and sisters: We were gentle among you, as a nursing mother
cares for her children” (1 Thess 2: 7).
When we conjure up an image of St. Paul, it’s
usually not the image of a gentle and affectionate man. He’s the fierce preacher of the Gospel, the
zealous and impatient apostle, bearing a sword not only because of the form of
his martyrdom but also because he’s combative and easily riles up opponents who
are more than ready to murder him.
But both his letters, like our passage this
morning, and Acts show how much he loved the people of the local churches that
he’d founded on his journeys, and how they in turn loved him fervently.
Paul’s sensitivity toward his congregations
went so far that he refused to burden them with his own living expenses (cf. 1
Cor 9:12,15-18), as he indicates today.
Altho he writes elsewhere that the laborer in the Lord’s work deserves
compensation (1 Cor 9:3-14), he himself works at his trade as a leather worker
(sometimes rendered as a tentmaker [Acts 18:3]) and so earns his daily bread.
But his main work is the Gospel, which he
preaches by word and example. His love
for his people, whether at Thessalonica, Corinth, or Ephesus, is a living
example of the Gospel, as is his diligence and his generosity. The verses passed over in today’s reading,
vv. 10-12, continue to tell of his affection, switching the metaphor from
motherhood to fatherhood.
In our Christian lives, whether in community
life or in family life, such affection is important. Once upon a time we religious were sternly
warned against outward shows of affection, except maybe for our immediate
family. Nowadays we understand that it’s
important to show our sisterly or brotherly care for those we live with, and not
just with smiles, kind words, expressions of interest, and a helping hand but
even with a pat on the shoulder or a hug.
St. John Bosco advised those who work with young people, “It’s not enuf
that you love them. They must know that
you love them.” (Of course, we have to
show our love for the young in appropriate ways.) I’d say it’s true of our fellow religious too—and
of families. It’s part of what bonds us
together into a community, into a communion.
It’s part of how we imitate our Lord Jesus, who showed his compassion
for the sick by laying his hands upon them as well as by speaking powerful
words; who wept for his friend Lazarus; who lived in very close communion with
the Twelve; who even today comes to us not only in the spoken words of the
Scriptures but in sacramental bread and wine too. We’re all aware of the deep, spiritual, yet
intimate friendship between Francis and Jane.
We can’t have a relationship like that with everyone, obviously, but how
fortunate if we have one with one or two soul-friends—much more than mere
BFFs! And how beautiful is everyone in
the house should behold us as her friend, someone she loves and is loved by. In fact, one of the psalms says something like
that: “How beautiful it is when brothers
dwell together in unity” (133:1).
Today we begin Vocation Awareness Week. Let it be noted that marriage is a vocation,
and strong, holy Christian families are absolutely essential for Christ’s
Church; each household is a “domestic church,” worshiping God and raising up
new saints.
As for vocations to the consecrated life, we
must heed what the young are telling us today when they investigate a possible
call. They’re seeking 2 things above
all: 1st, a life of communion with Jesus
Christ, a community with a strong spirituality and not just a lively apostolic
mission; and 2d, a community that is a communion of brothers or sisters, such
as we’ve just been speaking. Relative to
both those points, let me quote a line from the Introduction that St. John
Bosco wrote to the Salesian Constitutions when he presented them, newly
approved by Rome in 1874, to the 1st generation of Salesians: “Such great peace and tranquillity are
enjoyed in this mystical fortress [of religious life], that if God were to make
them known and experienced by those who live in the world, we should see all
men [and women] leaving the world and taking the cloister by storm, in order to
enter and live there for the rest of their earthly days.”[1] It’s up to us, sisters, to make that “great
peace and tranquillity” a reality in our home and to let it be known outside
our home. (Coffee and donuts help!)
 |
| Don Bosco, with Fr. Michael Rua behind him and his hand on the shoulder of Ceferino Namuncura' and youngsters reaching up to him. (Mario Bogani) |
The warm relationship between St. Paul and
the Christians of Thessalonica was based on the Gospel. He had brought them the gift of salvation in
Christ Jesus, and they’d responded, “receiving the word of God … not as a human
word but, as it truly is, the word of God, which is now at work in you who
believe” (2:13). Paul didn’t bring the
Thessalonians (or anyone else) a book, a New Testament. True, Jewish Christians had the Scriptures,
what we now call the Old Testament; and Gentile Christians would necessarily
have been introduced to those Scriptures.
But Paul brought the living teachings of Jesus and the living message of
his death and resurrection, with the apostolic interpretation of what those
teachings and those events mean—why they are Good News, or Gospel. For Paul the Gospel was strictly oral; in
fact, this letter, 1 Thessalonians, is generally accepted to be the earliest writing
of the New Testament, ca. 50 or 51 A.D., about 20 years after Jesus’
resurrection and almost 20 years, probably, before St. Mark would put his
Gospel into the written form that we know.
It was a great act of faith for a Pauline audience to recognize his
preaching as “truly the word of God,” a word “at work,” i.e., working their
salvation, establishing and building their relationship with Christ and thru
Christ with the Father.
Which must make us ask how WE receive the
word of God. Do we read it, study it,
believe it, pray with it, make it part of our lives?
And
what about the oral Gospel, i.e., the teachings of Christ’s living Church that
aren’t in the Scriptures as such? Do we
receive the teachings of the Holy Father and our bishops as the contemporary
interpretation of the Gospel, how we are to understand and live out the Gospel
today?
Paul
“gave thanks to God unceasingly” because his dear friends in Thessalonica had
received and made their own the word of God.
How blessed are we when we do it too!
[1]
“Saint John Bosco to the Salesians,” Constitutions
of the Society of Saint Francis de Sales (Paterson, N.J., 1957), p. 3.
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