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Letters Fifteenth Sunday
in Ordinary Time |
The Catholic Telegraph
July 14, 2000This Sunday’s reading begins a series of seven "semi-continuous" readings from the letter to the Ephesians. Paul knew the Christians at Ephesus well, and so the impersonal tone of Ephesians and its lack of particular and personalized details have led many scholars to conclude that it was written by one of Paul’s disciples rather than by the apostle himself. This same impersonal tone has also given rise to the opinion that the letter was a kind of circular missive, addressed to several local churches.
In almost all the letters that have come down to us from Paul and his followers, the opening greeting is followed by a thanksgiving section in which the author offers gratitude to God for some benefit that God has conferred on the addressees. In Ephesians the specific thanksgiving for the faith and love of the Christians who are being written to is preceded by a long and eloquent "blessing" passage in which the author offers thanks and praise to God for the whole plan of salvation.
This "blessing" passage constitutes our Sunday reading. It is a rich and complex section of the letter, almost symphonic in its construction, containing a deep and complex theology of salvation that reaches from before the beginning of the world to after its ending. In the Greek text, all twelve verses are contained in a single sentence! It’s not an easy passage to summarize, and the best that can be offered is a kind of road map to alert readers to the main points that they need to notice in order to appreciate what is being said and to guide them in their reflections.
The passage offers God praise and thanksgiving ("blessed be God") for six blessings that have come to us from God our Father. First, God has chosen us for holiness; second, He has made us His adopted children; third, He has redeemed us and forgiven our sins; fourth, God has shared with us the knowledge of His secret plan of salvation ("the mystery of His will"); fifth, He chose the Jews to keep the hope of the Messiah alive in the world; sixth, He has included the Gentiles in His project of definitive salvation that is constituted by eternal association with God in the praise of His glory.
This song of praise and thanksgiving for the Father’s plan of salvation is about Christ, too. Each of the blessings comes about in Him or through Him. Redemption and forgiveness are "by His blood." The plan of salvation is to bring together everything in heaven and on earth "in Christ." The Jews’ claim to glory is that they "first hoped in Christ." The Gentiles have been redeemed because they "have believed in Him." Whatever blessings the Father has given us have been given in Christ.
All this is wrapped up and sealed, as it were, by the gift of the Holy Spirit who acts as the down payment that the Father has made on our eternal destiny as God’s possession.
What we have in this passage, therefore, is a lyrical expression of how the triune God is involved in the salvation of human beings. The author will develop these insights through the rest of the letter as he explores the implications of all things being summed up in Christ and being brought together into unity in His body which is the Church. But this highly developed theology of the Church is planted in the praise and gratitude that is expressed in this opening passage.
Praise and gratitude are good criteria with which to measure our spiritual maturity. Some people never bother to thank God at all. They take everything for granted as if it were owed to them. Others offer praise and thanks to God when they are aware that they have received from Him some special favor that they have been asking for. They see God as a distant grandfather to whom it is wise to send a thank you note for a nice birthday present because there will be more birthdays in the future.
Other people make praise and gratitude a regular part of their prayer life, but they tend to focus on their own personal world: their health, their family, their friends. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, but it seems to be addressed to a rather limited God.
The Church’s liturgy gives us some direction about the kind of praise and gratitude the Lord expects from us. Every day at Mass, in the preface to the eucharistic prayer the priest prays in the name of the people: "We do well always and everywhere to give you thanks through Jesus Christ our Lord." Then he goes on to mention motives for thanks and praise, reasons that resonate with the sort of things we found in today’s live letter.
We owe God thanks and praise for everything, but in our effort to thank Him for the smaller things, the personal things, the immediate things, we shouldn’t overlook the big things, the fundamental things that give meaning and direction to our whole life, indeed, to our whole universe. "Every spiritual blessing in the heavens" is ours from God. "It is right to give Him thanks and praise!"
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Conversation Questions
For what am I most grateful to God?
How do I express my praise and thanksgiving to God?
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