Word to the Wise
Wednesday, August 30, 2023 - Wednesday in the 21th Week in Ordinary Time
[1 Thess 2:9-13 and Matt 23:27-32]As you know, we treated each one of you as a father treats his children, exhorting and encouraging you and insisting that you walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you into his Kingdom and glory. And for this reason we too give thanks to God unceasingly, that, in receiving the word of God from hearing us, you received it not as the word of men, but as it truly is, the word of God, which is now at work in you who believe. [1 Thessalonians]
St. Paul's letters to the community at Thessaloniki are the earliest of the New Testament documents and represent his concerns for one of the first Christian communities he founded in Greece. The letters are personal and passionate and show his worries about what happened after he moved on from them. I can't help but identify with him to some extent. It is common for pastors who move from a successful ministry assignment to a new place to worry about what will happen in the old place. This takes on a different look when the succession of assignments is in campus ministry because the constituency is constantly changing - a new batch of freshmen arriving every Fall, and turnover in university personnel climbing the academic career ladder. My first five assignments (1971-88) were in campus ministry, and I returned to that ministry several more times in the years after other challenges (novice master, vicar provincial, pastor, itinerant preacher). I never seem to lose my concern for that widely dispersed flock or the locations where I ministered - one of them my alma mater, Tulane University in New Orleans)!
St. Paul puts his finger on the true role of a pastor (especially in a campus ministry): exhortation and encouragement "to walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you into his Kingdom and glory." At the same time, the pastor has to accept that he or she can only plant the seeds of the gospel. It is God who gives the increase. The important thing is to encourage, encourage, encourage and never lose hope. A wise flock may realize that they can do the same thing for the shepherd!! AMEN