7th Week of Easter
May
16, 2018
Acts
20: 28-38Don Bosco Cristo Rey, Takoma Park, Md.
Like
some people Fr. Dennis knows, St. Paul could talk for a long time. What we hear in the 1st reading this morning
began yesterday morning: Paul’s address
to the elders of the church of Ephesus, whom he has summoned to meet him at
Miletus on his “farewell tour” (20:17).
He may well have sent also for the leaders of other nearby churches.[1] That Ephesus was 30 miles away indicates
Paul’s authority in the churches of Asia Minor, at least some of which he’d
founded, as well as the esteem and affection in which the community held him,
further stressed by their tears as he departs for the last time (20:37-38).
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Statue of St. Paul
St. Peter's Square, Rome
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Paul
reminds the elders—whom he also calls “overseers”—episkopoi in Greek—of the main point of his preaching, namely that
Jesus Christ redeemed the Church by his own blood (20:28). He reminds them further of their grave
responsibility for God’s flock, entrusted to them not by Paul but by the Holy
Spirit (20:28). And he warns them of the
danger that will come from those who “pervert the truth to draw the disciples
away after themselves” (20:30)
In our
time, as in every age of the Church, terrible things happen when those with
responsibility for the flock forget who is the true master of the flock, the
true shepherd, and the price he paid for the flock’s salvation. The Church suffers terribly still when false
teachers divide the Church. So Paul’s
words remain timely, and they are addressed to us, whether we hold the office
of elder—presbyter—or are teachers of
the young: the young at DBCR or in our
families. May we always be as vigilant,
hardworking, self-sacrificing, and faithful to the Gospel as Paul and his
co-workers were (20:31,33-35).
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