Thursday
of the Thirty-first Week in Ordinary Time
(Philippians
3:3-8a; Luke 15:1-10)
Joe
Fitzgerald played handball at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. He had trained hard
– seven days a week, twice a day except Sunday -- and became proficient. He also quarterbacked his college football
team. He is handsome and evidently
articulate. Yet, like St. Paul writes in
his Letter to the Philippians, despite these promising professional attributes,
he decided to follow Christ.
Paul is not
ashamed to boast about his Jewish background.
He mentions his tribe, his observance, even his zeal in pursuing rivals
of Judaism. Then an encounter with
Christ turned his life on end. Joe Fitzgerald mentioned in an interview that he
had been living in a way that was not pleasing to God. Knowing that being lukewarm was not an
option, he decided to enter the seminary. At the time of the interview, years
after he was ordained, he said he was “very happy” as a priest. Paul is even more upbeat. He writes that he considers every trait and
accomplishment as a loss in comparison to knowing Christ Jesus.
We too know
him. Perhaps we do not experience Paul’s
euphoria because we listen to him with our ears waxed and our vision
filtered. We may spend too much time
following the news and not enough attending to the gospel. There he repeatedly tells us how much he
loves us. He tells us today that he
would risk everything to find us. There
is no reason to be disturbed by news reports if we just trust in him.
