Word to the Wise
Thursday, May 9, 2013 - 6th Week of Easter - Thurs
[Acts 18:1-8 and John 16:16-20,]Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. There he met a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla because Claudius had ordered all the Jews to leave Rome. He went to visit them and, because he practiced the same trade, stayed with them and worked, for they were tentmakers by trade.. Every sabbath, he entered into discussions in the synagogue, attempting to convince both Jews and Greeks.
This passage from the Acts of the Apostles in today's first scripture begins an important phase in St. Paul's missionary work. The community in Corinth would be one of his great prides and joys as well as one of his great sorrows! Read his two Letters to the Corinthians! It is also the place where he got so exasperated with the reactions from the Jewish community there that he renounced preaching to them and began to concentrate on preaching to the Gentiles! We know that the question of the salvation of the Jews continued to worry him, however, because he wrote very eloquently about the subject in his Letter to the Romans (9-11). We also learn today how Paul made a living! He was a tentmaker by trade!
Ordinary life goes on even when there is a great cause to promote! Paul developed contacts like Aquila and Priscilla probably because he gravitated to where there were tentmakers, and he may have met them at ths synagogue. This rather ordinary course of events - "I met them at church, etc." seems so much like our own lives. Today we might call this "networking." A shared enthusiasm becomes a vital part of spreading the good news. Paul needed collaborators like this couple and Apollos, and Luke and Mark and Barnabus and Timothy. etc..... Our shared baptismal lives can be a basis for reaching out to our brothers and sisters in faith, especially in the Catholic community. This is what the "New Evangelization" is all about. More of this later on. AMEN
[I realize that today is Ascension Thursday in a few dioceses in the USA and elsewhere, but most dioceses in the USA celebrate it next Sunday and that's when I'll be preaching about it.]