 |
The Archdiocese of Cincinnati Main Page || The Catholic Telegraph || Live Letters index |
Live
Letters Ninth Sunday in
Ordinary Time |
The Catholic Telegraph
March 3, 2000Paul continues to reflect on his apostolate. In the background are the criticisms of his enemies at Corinth: that Paul is arrogant and boastful, yet weak and unreliable, his work plagued by problems and failures. He hardly seems to be the right material for an apostle!
Paul begins today’s passage with an allusion to his call to be an apostle, his encounter with the risen Christ on the road to Damascus. The God who called light out of darkness at the creation has also illuminated him so that he, in turn, could manifest to others the bright glory of God offered to humankind in Christ. Of course, his calling is not based on his own merits or abilities. God chooses unlikely instruments in order to demonstrate His own power, a power that prevails over human limitations. Paul says that he has experienced affliction, perplexity, persecution, and oppression but in every case God has brought forth liberation, hope, support, and safety. Further on in Second Corinthians (6.4-10 and 11.22-33) he will speak in greater detail about his adversities: beatings, imprisonments, riots, shipwrecks, the dangers of travel, betrayal by those who should have been his friends. Here he generalizes. His own sufferings parallel those of Christ. Just as the sufferings of Christ led to His unending risen life, so also Paul’s sufferings will serve as instruments to bring the life of Christ to those to whom he ministers.
Paul is a unique figure in the history of the proclamation of the gospel, yet all of us are called to a service similar to his. As Christian believers we share the responsibility to transmit the glory of God that shines forth from the face of Jesus. Most of us will not have to endure beatings and imprisonment and the dangers of first century travel, but we are called nonetheless to proclaim the Lord Jesus in our families and our jobs, in our friendships, in our willingness to be known as committed Christian believers. We don’t have to deliver formal speeches or write letters in order to do that. We simply have to be what God has made us to be, to stand up for our Christian beliefs, and be willing to acknowledge God’s gifts to us in a way that other people can see and understand and find attractive. Jesus called His followers to let their light shine before others so that the others would be led to glorify our heavenly Father. (cf. Mt. 5.16) The light that we are called to share is the same light that Paul transmitted.
But we are weak and limited! So was Paul. We are all "earthen vessels," like the numberless, indistinguishable oil lamps and cooking pots that archeologists find: ordinary, fragile, without any claim to special worth. And most of the time our performance as transmitters of God’s light is pretty ordinary, too. We have all experienced perplexity and affliction and failure in our life for the Lord. Our efforts to deepen our own relationship with God often seem fruitless and our outreach to others seems weak and ineffectual. We don’t see much result from our Christian witness. We know that somehow our life in the Lord is connected with the sufferings of Jesus, but we don’t see much evidence of resurrection. Most of us probably find it hard to think of ourselves as apostolic ministers in the lineage of the great saint Paul. Yet that is what we are called to be, in ways different from his ways, yet no less urgently, in spite of our limitations.
It’s important for us to remember that there is a reason why God uses earthen vessels in His work. If God were to choose only deep thinkers and highly skilled communicators and women and men of conspicuous sanctity to do His work, the impression could be given that God needs such talent in order to get His work done. He doesn’t. It is the power of God that gets the work done, that gets the proclamation delivered, that gets the light transmitted. God uses unpromising tools for His work - and all of us are unpromising, all of us are earthen vessels in the context of what God wants to accomplish - so that we do not lose sight of the principal agent and begin to think that He needs our contribution. "The surpassing power" is "of God and not from us."
God doesn’t call us to His service because He can’t do without what we have to offer. God’s call to His service is one more of His many gifts to us. What a privilege to help transmit the light of the glory of God shining through the face of Christ! How sad it would be to decline the gift to which we are called because we know we are unworthy and unsuited. If only the worthy and the capable responded, God’s gifts would go begging, His generosity would be frustrated - and there never would have been a Saint Paul.
God is like a musical virtuoso who can deliver unforgettable performances on inferior instruments. If we are hesitant to let Him perform with us because of our awareness of our own limitations, we are denying Him the opportunity to exercise his virtuosity and denying others the gifts that He wants to offer them through us.
###
Conversation Questions:
How does "the glory of God on the face of Christ" shine in my life?
How has God used my limitations to gift others?
###
Main Page
|| The Catholic Telegraph || Live Letters index
Copyright © 2000 Archdiocese of Cincinnati.