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     The world in which we live is one where no one has a whole lot of patience. When we want something, we believe we ought to be able to get it. The time to do things is not determined by others, but by us. We make this known if the line is too long or the service is not prompt. Waiting is simply a waste of time. Working according to someone else’s schedule is too limiting for us.

     St. Paul reminds us that if we cannot deal with the little inconveniences patiently, what is going to happen when we are faced with the big stuff? He reminds the Philippians about this when he writes: “Do all things without grumbling or questioning that you may be blameless and innocent children of God without blemishes in the midst of a wicked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life, so that on the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain. Even if I am to be poured out like a libation upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all.” (Phil 2:14-17)

     Paul’s message is that we get no where with the Lord if we act selfishly. Instead we need to act selflessly. When we become accustomed to small sacrifices or inconveniences, the large ones do not seem as daunting. When we recognize that we are not the center of the world, then we can put Christ in the center of the world. So, the next time we being to feel impatient in the grocery line or at the bank drive-thu, or even at Church, may we not grumble on the outisde OR the inside, but less us remember that by our patience, we can help to bring the peace of Christ into a very selfish and chaotic world.

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     People set many goals themselves in life, but St. Paul makes it clear that there is only one goal we must attain. He writes in the First Letter to the Thessalonians: “For you know what instruction we gave you through the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, your sanctification. For God has not called us for uncleaness, but holiness. Therefore, whoever disregards this, disregards not man, but God who gives his Holy Spirit to you.” (1Thess 4:2-3a,7-8)

     St. Paul asks us to do something that may frighten us: to pray to God to make us holy. We have our own ideas of what holiness is all about, and they deal with the heroic actions and lives of the Saints. But human beings are not cookie-cutter copies of each other. While our common goal is holiness, God respects our uniqueness and therefore our holiness will be unique. There has already been a St. Francis of Assisi and Mother Teresa of Calcutta. The Church has already made Saints of the likes of Edith Stein and Vincent DePaul. Our holiness is going to be in the way God wants us to be holy.

     There are some points all of us share in common. We must lead an upright moral life and be an example for others through our practice of the virtues and overcoming our passions. We must pray daily and receive the Sacraments, especially the Holy Eucharist and Penance as often as we can. Finally, we must listen carefully to God’s voice and pay attention to the needs of others, ready to sacrifice and offer all to God.

    Holiness does not happen at once, but by means of the Holy Spirit gradually reshaping our life, helping us to respond to God’s voice. It has been said that the greatest tragedy for a person is that he or she did not become a saint. Let us, like St. Paul, hear the voice of the Lord and always seek to do his will. If we can accomplish that, then our life will not be a tragedy, but a triumph.

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     A common question asked by many people concerns the discernment of the signs that God is working in their lives. How do we know that what we are doing is the will of God? It is clear to St. Paul that God does not keep us guessing in this regard. He gives us indicators and little signs we can notice in ourselves to determine whether we are on the right track. Paul refers to these in the Letter to the Galatians as the fruits of the Holy Spirit.

     He writes that “the fruit of the Holy Spirit is love, peace, joy, patience, kindness, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness and self-control.” (Gal 5:22-23) If a person is trying to live in the presence of God, these fruits will be noticed and felt in one degree or another. They flow from the Holy Spirit and help us in our love of God and neighbor, as well as in the personal struggles that occur in our souls.

     The fruits of the Holy Spirit are more than just passing feelings. These become, as we draw closer to Christ, the ordinary ways in which we live our lives. They provide us with the confidence that lessens our fears of what others may think or say, since these fruits are indications that what we are doing is in fact pleasing to God. Along with these gifts comes the humble awareness that we must first depend on God to care for us and, at the same time, recognize that God depends on us to use these fruits as seeds to plant in the hearts of others..

     The experience of the fruits teaches us that our soul is not to be an arid desert, but a lush garden. It is the place where God comes to dwell with us. Let us ask the Lord that fruits we are able to bear through his grace and our faithfulness may contribute to the beauty of his world and the glory of his name.

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     Many Americans live by this motto: “Why do today what you can put off until tomorrow?” One of the activities that people frequently postpone is prayer. They place it at the end of their day or see themselves as too busy to pray at all. In the course of a hectic life, prayer may be the last thing we consider. St. Paul reminds all of us that prayer must be the first thing we do.

    He writes to the Corinthians in his Second Letter that “We trust you not to accept the grace of the Lord in vain. Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold now is the day of our salvation!”  (2Cor 6:1-2).

    Every day God bestows on us many different gifts such as wisdom, courage and perseverance, but if we do not use them, we waste them. God is not to be our last resort, but our starting point. Oftentimes, we turn to God only when all our other options have been exhausted. Paul reminds the Corinthians and us that if we turn to God first, not only will we find more opportunnities to do good, we will not have to accomplish them on our own. The whole world is soaked through with the anointing of the Holy Spirit through death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We live in a time of grace, a time of opportunity to face the evils of the world. We also have been given the power through Christ to overcome evil with good. Let us not waste the grace God offers us. Let us put it to good use for the sanctification of ourselves, the world and the glory and honor of God. 

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     It is said that a cynic is one who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. St. Paul is definitely not a cynic. For him, the pearl of great price is the knowledge and love of Jesus Christ. Everything in his life that is valuable comes from Christ and knowing his love.

    St. Paul writes in the Letter to the Philippians, “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Jesus Christ my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as refuse in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him.” (Phil 3:8)

     Many people today speak in terms  of their “net worth” which is viewed in terms of money, stocks and property. None of that has any value in the eyes of Christ. When we die, we will come before the Lord with empty hands. Our value comes not from wealth or celebrity, but from the fact that Christ died for our sins on the cross. When we begin to realize that our true and lasting wealth is Jesus Christ, we can invest more of our time in serving him and serving others. In that case, we will know the value of everything and we won’t be afraid to pay the price, which is the surrender of our will to the will of God.

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     When we go by a business and we see the sign “under new management,” our expectation is that things there are going to be different. There are new employees, fresh ideas and a new beginning. St. Paul recognizes that this is what happens to the Christian believer at baptism. He writes in Second Corinthians 5:16-17 “From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view: even though we once regarded Christ from a human point of view, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away, behold the new has come.”

     Paul’s insight into the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ has changed the meaning  and destiny of the whole world. Through Original Sin, the human  race destined creation for death and destruction. Of itself, humanity cannnot offer salvation. But through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the whole cosmos is under new management. God has returned in Christ what man had given away in sin. God has not only given it back, he elevates men and women to the unheard of dignity of children of God. Death now marks the beginning of everlasting life. A world that previously offered only despair now offers hope. Through Christ, God has taken created things and sanctified and transformed them into instruments of salvation known as the Sacraments.

     The division brought about at the Tower of Babel has been destroyed by the Holy Spirit, who speaks the language of grace that every person is capable of hearing, if they are willing to listen to it. The new creations that we become make us forever young in the Spirit, because we know that whatever God has started in us, he will finish in us if we work with him. This is what we learn from the heart of St. Paul.

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     We do not know much about Paul’s personal life, but it seems that he must have liked sports. He uses sports references in many of his writings, including First Corinthians 9:24-27. He writes: “Do you not know that in a race all the runners compete, but only one receives the prize? So, run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it in order to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable one.Well, I do not run aimlessly, I do not box as one beating at air; but I pommel my body and subdue it, lest after preaching to others I myself should become disqualified.”

     All who possess the gift of faith are athletes for Christ. The Holy Spirit is their coach. He helps them to go a little farther and dig a little deeper. Just as athletes discipline their bodies to run the race, so Christians must discipline their bodies and souls so that they will never lose sight of their true goal in life: heaven.

     The athletes who have already successfully run the race are the saints. By our devotion to them, they give us training tips so that God can get a little more out of us. The saints also encourage us along the route of the race. Jesus Christ has given us his Word and his Body and Blood as the proper food to put our bodies and souls in top spiritual shape.

     St. Paul is our motivator when we become tired and want to drop out. He knows what it takes because he has already run the race. He knows that we need the Holy Spirit. Christians need the spiritual discipline of prayer, the sacraments and generous service to others. Christians also need the physycal discipline of turning away from sin and living a life of virtue.

    When athletes win today, they always tell people they are going to Disneyland. As we run for the imperishable crown of holiness, we know if we win that our goal is much higher: we are going to heaven.

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     St. Paul teaches that the highest and greatest action of a person is to love. Fame, wealth and power all fade away, but love remains in the end. We will ultimately be judged on how well we love and how much we loved God and our neighbor and nothing else, because this judgment contains everything. First Corinthians 13 is one of the most famous passages from St. Paul. It is his great hymn to love. He writes: “Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things and endures all things. Love never fails.” (1Cor 13:4-8a)

     Paul uses these words to express what he calls the “still more excellent way.” We often hear this reading at weddings. Do we ever stop to realize how hard it is to love in this way? How many times are we impatient with our spouse or want our own way? How often do we resent the good things that happen to other people? How often do people want to bail out of committments at the first sign of difficulty? If we examine our lives, it is a lot more dificult to live love than it is to speak about it. If this is the “still more excellent way”  and it is shown to us by Christ, then we know it is going to entail suffering. Love means sacrifice. Love means the cross!

     Paul admits that our love for God and one another is imperfect and frail. Love requires on the job training. Love requires making a selfless gift to God every day. The love Paul writes about is attainable for all of us. It is seen in the Saints and in the people we often do not even bother to notice. May Christ teach us a little bit more about love every day so that the ideal given to us from the heart of St. Paul will become for us a reality.

Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, pray for us!

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     As a leader of the Churches that he established, Paul faced some of the same problems we face today. There were moral problems, administrative problems, and even liturgical problems. The First Letter to the Corinthians chapter 11 deals with a liturgical crisis Paul faced. He was not pleased with the way that the Corinthians were celebrating the Lord’s Supper. The great action of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, which is to bring about unity in the Church, is in fact bringing about divisions among the rich and poor.

     Paul writes to them in no uncertain terms: “When you meet together, it is not the Lord’s Supper that you are celebrating. For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal and one is hungry while another is drunk. What! You do not have houses to drink in? Or do you despise the Church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I commend you in this? No. I will not.”

     He continues by warning the Corinthians that “whoever eats the bread and drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the Body and Blood of the Lord. Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.” Paul’s central concern is that people are coming for selfish reasons and they are not prepared to celebrate properly. They are not aware that their selfishness destroys the Church. Paul’s concern is our concern.

     When we come to Mass, we need to be mentally and spiritually prepared and be free of mortal sin. We are about to take part in the most sacred action of the Church and receive the fruits of that action, the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. Let us prepare our bodies by the fast and our souls by prayer. In that way, we will not bring judgment on ourselves, but receive the grace of Jesus Christ.

     The words of St. Paul carry a certain grace because the power that is present in them is the Spirit of Jesus Christ himself. St. Augustine realized the power of Paul’s words in his own conversion to Christianity. In his Confessions, Augustine wrote tht he heard a vioce that said “Take and Read,” and when he took up a New Testament, he opened it to the Letter to the Romans where St. Paul wrote: “Let us conduct ourselves becomingly as in the day, not in reveling and in drunkeness, not in debauchery or licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provisions for the flesh.” (Romans 13:13-14) These words changed Augustine’s life forever. He discovered that the ultimate pleasure for of human life is not the physical, but Jesus Christ himself. Jesus satisfies our every desire and orients our life not only for our own good, but for the good of others as well.

     Like St. Paul and Augustine, we live in a world that is full of material and bodilt pleasures. Paul and Augustine realized that misuse of these things do not ultimately make us happy, they make us hollow. May the Word of God present in St. Paul change our hearts like it changed the heart of St. Augustine. Put on Christ. Clothe youself with God’s mercy, love and compassion and you will not be empty, but will overflow with a peace that the world cannot give. This is what the heart of Paul teaches us.

Please pray for all priests and Seminarians and support Sacred Heart Radio.