Homily for Thursday, Week 22 of Ordinary Time

Homily for Thursday
Week 22 of Ordinary Time

Sept. 3, 2026
1 Cor 3: 18-23
Christian Brothers, St. Joseph’s Residence, N.R.

The Triumph of Christianity (Dore')

“If anyone among you considers himself wise in this age, let him become a fool, so as to become wise” (1 Cor 3: 18).

A long time ago, when I was a young Salesian at Don Bosco College, someone—it may have been Bp. Casey of Paterson—addressed us.  One sentence struck me and has remained with me.  He said that Paul VI, who was still early in his reign, at the end of his life would be judged by God and not the NYT.  As you know, the NYT hasn’t been friendly toward papal teaching on priestly celibacy and birth control, prominent topics in the late ’60s. 

The Times, of course, isn’t alone in promoting its own brand of wisdom, what Paul the Apostle calls “the wisdom of this world” (3:19).  We see worldly wisdom regularly in political calculations to wage war, ravage the environment, or maltreat the poor and vulnerable.

St. Paul has been urging his disciples in Corinth to look to God’s Holy Spirit (2:10-15) for wisdom, the Spirit who reveals to us “the mind of Christ” (2:16), that we might “know nothing … except Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (2:2).  He is the saving mystery of God, the wisdom of God “predetermined before the ages for our glory” (2:7).

“So let no one boast about human beings,” Paul cautions (3:21)—not about Paul or any other apostle, certainly not about some political, business, or cultural leader; and not about ourselves either, whatever we may have accomplished in our lifetime.  Elsewhere, Paul reminds us that all that’s mere rubbish, and the only attainment that matters is to find grace from Christ Jesus our Lord:  to know his resurrection, share in his sufferings, be conformed to his death, and so “attain the resurrection from the dead” (Phil 3:8-11).

That’s wisdom.