Wednesday 2 June 2021
Wednesday of week 9 in Ordinary Time
or Saints Marcellinus and Peter, Martyrs
Spiritual Reading
Your Second Reading from the Office of Readings:
Wednesday of week 9 in Ordinary Time
The Moral Reflections on Job by Pope St Gregory the Great
Sound teaching avoids pride
Now, Job, listen to my words, and attend to all I have to say. It is characteristic of the way that arrogant people teach, that they do not know how to convey their knowledge humbly and cannot express straightforward truths straightforwardly. When they teach, it is clear from their words that they are placing themselves on a pinnacle and looking down on their pupils somewhere in the depths – pupils unworthy to be informed and scarcely even worth the bother of dominating.
The Lord rightly admonished such people through the mouth of the prophet Ezekiel, saying You have ruled your flock cruelly and with violence. For they rule with cruelty and violence when they do not try to correct those under them with rational arguments but try to dominate them and crush them.
On the other hand, sound teaching is eager to avoid this sin of pride manifested in thought: just as eager as it is to attack with words the teacher of pride himself. Sound teaching does not promote him by imitating his arrogance but uses pious words to attack him in its hearers’ hearts. Instead it promotes humility, the mother and teacher of all virtues. It preaches humility in words and manifests humility in its actions. It commends humility to its pupils more by conduct than by speech.
This is why Paul seems to have forgotten his exalted status as an apostle when writing to the Thessalonians: We were babes among you. So also Peter: Always have your answer ready for people who ask the reason for the hope you all have, adding, to emphasize that the teaching must be presented in the proper way, But give it with respect and with a clear conscience.
When Paul says to Timothy Command these things and teach them with all authority, he is not calling for a domination born of power but an authority that comes from a way of life. “Teaching with authority” here means living something first before preaching it; for when speech is impeded by conscience, the hearer will find it harder to trust what is being taught. So Paul is not commending the power of proud and exalted words, but the trustworthiness that comes from good behaviour. This, indeed, is why it is said of the Lord, Unlike the scribes and pharisees, he taught them with authority. He alone spoke with unique authority because he had never, through weakness, done evil. What he had from the power of his divinity, he taught to us through the innocence of his humanity.
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Other choices for today:
Saints Marcellinus and Peter, Martyrs
Wall painting (4th century) from the catacomb of Marcellinus and Peter on the Via Labicana, showing Christ between Peter and Paul, and below them the martyrs Gorgonius, Peter, Marcellinus, and Tiburtius.
The Exhortation to Martyrdom, by Origen
Sharing in Christ's sufferings, they will also share in his consolation
If we have passed out of death into life by passing out of unbelief into faith, we should not be surprised if the world hates us. For no one who does not pass from death to life but remains in death can love those who have passed out of this dark house of death, as it could be called, to the building that is lit by the light of life, built up of living stones.
Jesus laid down his life for us, and so we should lay down our lives, I do not say for him, but for ourselves, or rather, I suppose, for those who are going to be built up by our martyrdom.
Christians, the time has come for us to boast. For we read: ‘That is not all we can boast about; we can boast about our sufferings. These sufferings bring patience, as we know, and patience brings perseverance, and perseverance brings hope, and this hope is not deceptive. So much has the love of God been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit.’
If, as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in consolation too, then let us accept Christ’s sufferings gladly. Let us share in them abundantly, if we are looking for abundant consolation. And this is what those who mourn will receive, although perhaps not in equal measure. If the consolation were exactly equal for each person, then Paul would not have written: ‘As the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so also our consolation abounds.’
Those who share in his sufferings will also share in consolation, in proportion to the sufferings that they share with Christ. You learn this from the apostle’s confident words: ‘You know that as you share in sufferings, you will also share in consolation.’
God said through his prophet: ‘In a time of favour I have answered you, in a day of salvation I have helped you.’ What, then, could be a more favourable time than the day when we are led off under guard, paraded before the world, but triumphant rather than the objects of a triumph, and this because of our faithful service of God in Christ?
For Christian martyrs in the company of Christ completely overcome the principalities and powers; together with him they triumph over them; sharing in his sufferings, they also share in the victories that he has won by his courage in suffering. What other day of salvation is there than the day that we depart from the world in this way?
But, I beg you, put no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, but as servants of God commend yourselves through great endurance. You should make your own the words: ‘What do I wait for now, except the Lord?’
Copyright © 1996-2021 Universalis Publishing Limited: see www.universalis.com. Scripture readings from the Jerusalem Bible are published and copyright © 1966, 1967 and 1968 by Darton, Longman & Todd, Ltd and Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc, and used by permission of the publishers. Text of the Psalms: Copyright © 1963, The Grail (England). Used with permission of A.P. Watt Ltd. All rights reserved.