Saturday of the 22nd
Week in Ordinary Time
September 6, 2014 8:30am
In today’s first reading, Saint
Paul is addressing the proud, boastful attitude of some of the people in
ancient Corinth.
He says: “What do you possess that you have not received?
But if you have received it, why are you boasting as if you have not
received it?”
Paul is first saying that in the
spiritual life, when it comes to our relationship with God, this is never the
case.
It is always God taking the
initiative.
It is always God offering us the
gift of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.
We do not make ourselves holy and
we do not make ourselves saints.
At best, it is our response to
the grace or action of God.
And beyond this, all else that we
have in life is also a gift from God.
It is not really accurate to give
ourselves full credit for our accomplishments.
God and usually many others have
a part in what we have and have accomplished.
The consequence to this is that
we are to be both grateful and humble.
Grateful because we are nothing
without the gifts of God and the gifts of others, including our parents.
Humble because we are to see
things as God sees them and in doing that, realize that all we have and all we
have accomplished is dependent on God and on so many others.
One way of expressing this
gratitude and humility is by praying for those who have given us so much, such
as our grandparents and parents, our teachers, our mentors in the workplace,
the priests and religious who have positively influenced our faith, and on it
goes.
It is this grateful and humble
spirit that Paul wants the people of Corinth and now us to have in our everyday
lives.
