In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen
My dearly beloved in Our Lord,
Today’s readings are taken from the 6th Sunday after the Epiphany. Because of the moving date of Easter, the Sundays which are not celebrated between the Epiphany and Septuagesima are used between the 23rd and the last Sunday after Pentecost accordingly.
The Epistle is the beginning of 1 Thessalonians, presumably the first of St Paul’s Epistles.
Just as last Sunday (readings of the 5th Sunday after the Epiphany) and many times, St Paul insists on mutual charity. This charity must firstly be enacted by praying for each other! “We give thanks to God always for you all; making a remembrance of you in our prayers without ceasing.” (1:2)
Then he continues by setting out the topics treated in the five chapters of this letter, most of which are used in the liturgy over the year. He had sent his disciple Timothy to them (3:1-2) in order to strengthen their faith and to receive news from them. Ch. 4 contains the beautiful words which are read at the burial Mass. He follows up on the idea of the judgment at the beginning of ch. 5, reminding them (and us) of a teaching repeated so many times by Our Lord: “that the day of the Lord shall so come, as a thief in the night.” (5:2)
First he praises their virtues: “Being mindful of the work of your faith, and labor, and charity, and of the enduring of the hope of our Lord Jesus Christ before God and our Father.” (v. 3)Faith, hope and charity all need to be alive in the Christian soul so that she can bear fruit for eternal life through good works (“labor”). “So that you were made a pattern to all that believe in Macedonia and in Achaia. For from you was spread abroad the word of the Lord, not only in Macedonia, and in Achaia, but also in every place, your faith which is towards God, is gone forth, so that we need not to speak any thing. For they themselves relate of us, what manner of entering in we had unto you; and how you turned to God from idols, to serve the living and true God.” (vv. 7-9)
“Knowing, brethren beloved of God, your election.” (v. 4) They have had the great privilege and grace to be evangelized by the Apostles of the Gentiles! God calls different souls, different regions, different nations… in different ways, at different times. He is absolutely free in choosing when and how He offers his grace to us humans. It is our task to accept God’s grace, and to faithfully cooperate with it, day by day. In the first part of ch. 4 St Paul will remind the Thessalonians that they need to practice the fundamental Christian virtues. They had problems particularly with chastity, idleness and injustice, it seems.
“For our gospel hath not been unto you in word only, but in power also, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much fulness, as you know what manner of men we have been among you for your sakes.” (v. 5) St Paul insists several times in his different Epistles that he did not ask any material support from those whom he evangelized. He and his helpers worked with their hands in order to feed themselves. This was necessary during the first stages of the spreading of the Gospel because all the heathen or Jewish teachers and philosophers used their science so that they could lead an idle life. Therefore, as we have mentioned, he will rebuke all the more the laziness and idleness of some of the Christians in Saloniki.
“And you became followers of us, and of the Lord; receiving the word in much tribulation, with joy of the Holy Ghost.“ (v. 6) Here we see the twofold structure of the Church: her social and her spiritual aspect.
The human and social element is very important: “And you became followers of us, and of the Lord”. Faith comes through preaching, from listening; those who preach or who want to convert others, must do so just as much through their good example as through the truthfulness of their doctrine. How many scandals have driven away souls from the truth and from the practice of virtue! How many souls have been attracted and inflamed by the great and heroic examples given by Saints or by saintly persons!
The spiritual element is just as important, of course, in the Church militant: “receiving the word in much tribulation, with joy of the Holy Ghost.“ On the feast of All Saints and its Vigil we have been reminded of the Beatitudes proclaimed by Our Lord. They are both times resumed in a last beatitude that concerns persecution for justice’s sake. “Blessed are ye when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for my sake: Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in heaven.” (Mt 5:11-12) “Blessed shall you be when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man's sake. Be glad in that day and rejoice; for behold, your reward is great in heaven.” (Lk 6:22-23) St Paul reminds St Timothy: “And all that will live godly in Christ Jesus, shall suffer persecution.” (2Tim 3:12) It is a great moment when a newly converted person, after the first stages of spiritual “joy of the Holy Ghost”, experiences trials, adversity or persecution: “receiving the word in much tribulation”. Only the heat of those battles will prove whether one has built his house from stone, or from straw, as St Paul hints: “You are God's building. According to the grace of God that is given to me, as a wise architect, I have laid the foundation; and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon. For other foundation no man can lay, but that which is laid; which is Christ Jesus. Now if any man build upon this foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble: Every man's work shall be manifest; for the day of the Lord shall declare it, because it shall be revealed in fire; and the fire shall try every man's work, of what sort it is.“ (1Cor 3:9-13)
Last but not least St Paul reminds us of the last things of our earthly existence, the great encounter with Christ our Judge: “And to wait for his Son from heaven (whom he raised up from the dead,) Jesus, who hath delivered us from the wrath to come.” (v. 10) In two weeks Advent will begin. It reminds us every year of Christ’s first coming in our human flesh; and also, by many testimonies in the liturgy, of the expectation of his last coming. “From thence he shall come to judge the living and the dead… I believe in the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting”, as Holy Church prays in the Apostles’ Creed. We should contemplate and accept our present trials and woes in that sense – as an opportunity to make up for our sins, and for the sins of so many who neither recognize their sinfulness, nor make reparation for their sins so that we be spared “from the wrath to come”, from the second death, that of the soul in Hell.
“So, when Thou shinest on the clouds,
With thy angelic train,
May we be sav’d from vengeance due,
And our lost crowns regain.” (Hymn Aeterne Rex altissime)
These beautiful words from St Augustine Holy Church prays on the feast of the Ascension. May we always, more and more aspire to the true life which God has begun in our souls, and which shall be perfected in Heaven.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
P. Arnold Trauner (paterarnold@hotmail.com), njemački i engleski
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