Wellspring of the Gospel

 

Year C: 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Second Reading: based on St Paul’s letter to the Galatians 5: 1, 13-18

 

We cannot know what provoked St Paul to write these words today - but they are as apt in our day as they were when he wrote them.

 

Our faith does offer us a freedom - but it is not a freedom to be exploited. It does not give us the right to say exactly what we think when we think it without thinking of the consequences for others.

 

The teaching underpinning all our relationships should be to love our neighbour as ourselves. Unfortunately, in any community, there is a tendency to forget that in a determination to “put people right” and to have things our own way.

 

We can be so convinced that we are right that the injunction to love the Christ in the other gets lost along the way. Where this happens, it undermines any sense of fellowship and, as St Paul says, can “destroy the whole community”.

 

It is telling that, if St Paul was to write to most Christian communities these days, there would, in all probability, be a similar exhortation. Two thousand years of experience has not dealt with the fundamental flaw in human nature: the desire to have our own way!

 

Many of us will have experienced conflict and hurt feelings in community life - and most of us will have caused it as some stage. Whilst this is human nature, for our communities to be strong - and, more importantly, powerful witnesses for the Gospel, we do need to work through our differences. We need to determine what is of the Spirit - and this may well cause disagreement! And we also need to work out what is self-indulgence on our own - and, perhaps, others’ part.

 

Disagreement in communities is inevitable - what will mark ours out as different is how we handle it - with love and in tune with the working of the Spirit.

What does it mean for me?

Waterlily

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