24th Week, Friday, Sept 22
1 Tim 6:2-12 / Luke 8:1-3
Paul talks about temptation; Love of money is the root of evil.
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What is our attitude toward material wealth? To what extent are we using the wealth God has blessed us with to help others? “The rich help the poor in this world, but the poor help the rich in the next world.” Old Rabbinical saying
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In today’s first reading Paul gives a summary of his first letter to Timothy and blames the false teachers who cause difficulties in the community. Most of the time they sow dissent by disputes about words and interminable discussions.
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We know that in mathematics, zero multiplied by any number the result will still be zero. That is the basic mathematical formula and it needs no further explanation nor can there be any argument. If that is the mathematical principle, then a similar thing can be said in the spiritual sense.
St. Paul would put it like this in the 1st reading: We brought nothing into this world, and we can take nothing out of it. That is so true, isn't it? We came into this world with nothing, and whatever we have obtained or gotten in this life, it is a fact that we cannot bring it with us to the next.
And St. Paul tells us that as long as we have food and clothing, let us be content with that. He also warns us that people who long to be rich are prey to temptation; they get trapped into all sorts of foolish and dangerous ambitions which eventually plunge them into ruin and destruction.
Yes, we must avoid all that, and we must aim to be saintly and religious, filled with faith and love, patient and gentle. We see that kind of simplicity in the gospel as Jesus and His disciples went through the towns and villages preaching and proclaiming the Good News of the Kingdom of God.
With them are several women - Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Susanna and others - who provided for Jesus and His disciples out of their own resources. Indeed, we don't need much in life. Having food, clothing and shelter, and faith in God is enough.
And if ever we are down to nothing, then God will come up with something. We are nothing, but God is everything. That is the Good News of the Kingdom of God. Let us be contented with that.
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Luke is the evangelist who describes the contribution of women in the apostolate of Jesus. Christ has liberated them from the alienations of Jewish society. They accompanied Jesus since the beginning of his ministry and had a status not far remote from that of the Twelve; after the resurrection, they were the first to proclaim that Christ was risen. Together with the Twelve, they are companions of Jesus as he goes from town to town to bring the good news. Companions are people who share the same table.
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Good news, like all news, wants to be spread. For this, Christ needs an organized effort and teamwork. He chose for his team a motley but dedicated group. Already the team of his apostles was a selection of different characters and temperaments. There were women in the company not as preachers, but to look after the needs of them. This astonishes us even today. The Jerusalem Bible gives this passage the heading. "The women accompanying Jesus", forgetting the Twelve and the many others that were with him. The first name is that of Mary Magdalene, traditionally the sinful woman he had met in Sumon’s house; Joanna the wife of Chuza, who was the steward of Herod, which means his finance administrator. This made her a woman of wealth and influence. Susanna is just the good efficient woman, anxious to serve. Did he call them sisters? Every talent was welcome. They had to work in unity as a team and make many sacrifices touring. Their job was the greatest: Bringing Christ to the world.
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Prayer
Lord our God, men and women are responsible together for the life of faith of our Christian communities. As they were disciples of Jesus and his companions on the road, may they also accompany us today, with their identity and potentials, that the Church may grow and its faith be alive and imbued with love. We ask you this through Christ our Lord. Amen
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Saint Thomas of Villanova
Feast Day September 22
When St. Thomas, surnamed Villanova, took possession of his cathedral in 1545, a huge crowd welcomed him. They were cheering the first archbishop to take personal charge of the Valencia archdiocese in 117 years. For the next decade Thomas renewed the Catholic Church in northeastern Spain. While he did not attend the Council of Trent, he urged the Spanish bishops who did to recommend reforming the church as much as opposing Protestantism. And Thomas’s reform program implemented the council’s ideals and decisions.
Thomas had joined the Augustianians in 1516 and immediately rose to leadership. Thomas’s appointment as archbishop did not change his humble friar’s demeanor. The canons complained about his shoddy clothing. They wanted him to dress like an archbishop, but he wouldn’t budge. “Gentlemen,” he said, “I am much obliged to you for the care you take of my person, but really I do not see how my dress as a religious interferes with my dignity as archbishop. You well know that my authority and the duties of my charge are quite independent of my dress, and consist rather in taking care of the souls committed to me.” Later, however, at their urging he traded his old hat for a silk one. He would wave the new hat and say merrily, “Behold my episcopal dignity!”
Thomas received all callers without making them wait. “Never mind whether I am praying or studying,” he told his assistants. “For although it may be unpleasant to be interrupted, still I am not my own. As a bishop I belong to my flock.” Several hundred needy people a day received at his door a meal, a cup of wine, and a coin. Thomas took special care of his priests, many of whom were ill-formed and caught up in sin. On several occasions he brought priests to live with him and gently turned their lives around.
Once a theologian denounced Thomas because he seemed soft on the immorality of both clergy and laity. Thomas responded:
He is a good man, but one of those fervent ones mentioned by St. Paul as having zeal without knowledge. Let him inquire whether Augustine and John Chrysostom used excommunication to stop the drunkenness and blasphemy which were so common among their people. No. For they were too prudent. They did not think it right to exchange a little good for a great evil by inconsiderately using their authority and so exciting the aversion of those whose favor they wanted to gain in order to influence them for good.
After eleven years of such wise governance and generous service, Thomas of Villanova died at Valencia in 1555.
