Word to the Wise
Thursday, October 15, 2015 - Thursday in the 28th Week in Ordinary Time
[Rom 3:21-30 and Luke 11:47-54]THURSDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2015, ST. TERESA OF AVILA [Romans 3:21-30 and Luke 11:47-54] "For we consider that a person is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Does God belong to Jews alone? Does he not belong to Gentiles, too? Yes, also to Gentiles, for God is one and will justify the circumcised on the basis of faith and the uncircumcised through faith." [Romans] There is a tremendous amount of history and theology packed into a few words here. The roots of Christianity are found in Judaism. Jesus was a Jew. What Paul and others did was to extend the gospel message to non-Jewish believers. This created a problem for those who were raised under the Mosaic Law and were taught that this was God's ordained way for believers to live. Paul's conversion led him to believe that salvation comes not from adherence to laws but adherence to Christ through faith. This did not mean, however, that Jews had to accept Christ. Since the initial promises came to the Jewish people through the covenant with Moses, that covenant had to stand. Yet Paul felt his division from his fellow Jews keenly and the Letter to the Romans reflects his anguish. That being said, we are still challenged by the importance of faith, something we make take for granted. Many years in campus ministry brought me numerous students struggling with "faith." They had encountered an agnostic/atheistic professor or roommate with clever arguments and were confused. Or they had developed lifestyle choices that were at odds with what they knew to be church teaching and felt that they had to make a choice. The best response, I have found, is to see faith as a relationship with God, that will open us to wonderful realities if we are willing to make that effort. It will also make demands, as Jesus' teachings clearly do. We can choose an empty philosophy or a momentary pleasure that can cause us terrible results, or we can choose to be faithful even if we stumble now and then. Those who know the value of a faithful long time relationship with another human person have some idea of what such a relationship with God can do. A faithful friend is always "THERE," and God is truly always "THERE." What St. Paul says is that God is THERE for everyone and not just for the Chosen People. AMEN
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