Friday, August 26, 2022

 

Friday of the Twenty-first Week in Ordinary Time

(I Corinthians 1:17-25; Matthew 25:1-13)

Once an oriental with no knowledge of Christianity walked into a church in Italy.  He was taken aback by the crucifix hanging over the altar.  He asked, “What did that man do to be hung like that?” In the First Letter to the Corinthians St. Paul launches a plea for unity within the community from a similar amazement over the crucifixion. 

Paul writes that he preached the paradoxical power of Christ crucified.  Not considering himself an accomplished preacher, he says that it was the wonder of the message that won converts.  That message was, of course, that Christ gave his life to arrest the world from the grasp of sin.  Others preached to the Corinthians with more eloquence -- he writes -- but it was the common message that attracted people to believe.  Paul will exhort the Corinthians to stop claiming factions like “I am a Paul Christian” or “I am a Peter Christian” and to settle on the fact that all follow of the one who loved to the extreme.

Sounds right, but how do we reconcile this message with the reality of divisions within Christianity today?  Not only are there many distinctive Christian groups – Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants, and Evangelicals. But also, within each group there is further alienation – liberals and conservatives, charismatics and social justice types, to name a couple.  For unity we must return to Christ crucified.  His sacrificial love shows us how to tolerate and even accept as brothers and sisters different types of Christians.  We must never sacrifice truth for the sake of unity.  But we must refrain from bigotry and demonization out of love of Christ.

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