(Optional) Memorial of Saint John XXIII, pope
(Romans 1:1-7; Luke 11:29-32)
In today’s
first reading from the beginning of the Letter to the Romans, St. Paul writes
of an “obedience of faith.” The
expression sounds like oxymoron -- two words of opposing ideas put together to
stimulate thought. A student might ask, “What
does faith have to do with obedience?”
Faith, after all, is trust.
Obedience concerns following another’s command.
Paul will say later in the letter that a person is justified
by faith. But his idea of faith or trust
goes beyond intellectual assent to religious truth. Faith includes a commitment to Jesus’ way of
love. It is not following another’s
command but following in the other’s path of life. For Christians faith is coming to know Jesus
by loving others as he loved.
Today the Church celebrates Pope St. John XXIII. It is not the anniversary of his death but of
the opening Second Vatican Council. Pope
John convoked the council as a way to share the truth of Christ with, as he put
it, the “human family.” Then as now, sixty
years later, people were separated by ideologies and false teachings. John wanted the whole world to follow the way
of Christ’s love.
