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From: Colossians 1:24-28

St. Paul’s Response to His Calling

[24] Now I (Paul) rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my
flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake
of His body, that is, the Church, [25] of which I became a minister
according to the divine office which was given to me for you, to make
the word of God fully known, [26] the mystery hidden for ages and
generations but now made manifest to His saints. [27] To them God
chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the
glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
[28] Him we proclaim, warning every man and teaching every man in all
wisdom, that we may present every man mature in Christ.

St. Paul’s Concern for the Faithful

[1] For I want you to know how greatly I strive for you, and for those
at Laodicea, and for all who have not seen my face, [2] that their
hearts may be encouraged as they are knit together in love, to have all
the riches of assured understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery,
of Christ, [3] in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and
knowledge.

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Commentary:

24. Jesus Christ our Lord perfectly accomplished the work the Father
gave Him to do (cf. John 17:4); as He said Himself when He was about to
die, “It is finished”, it is accomplished (John 19:30).

From the point onwards objective redemption is an accomplished fact.
All men have been saved by the redemptive death of Christ. However,
St. Paul says that he completes in his flesh “what is lacking in
Christ’s afflictions”; what does he mean by this? The most common
explanation of this statement is summarized by St. Alphonsus as
follows: “Can it be that Christ’s passion alone was insufficient to
save us? It left nothing more to be done, it was entirely sufficient
to save all men. However, for the merits of the Passion to be applied
to us, according to St. Thomas (”Summa Theologiae”, III, q. 49, a. 3),
we need to cooperate (subjective redemption) by patiently bearing the
trials God sends us, so as to become like our Head, Christ” (St.
Alphonsus, “Thoughts on the Passion”, 10).

St. Paul is applying this truth to himself. Jesus Christ worked and
strove in all kinds of ways to communicate His message of salvation,
and then He accomplished the redemption by dying on the Cross. The
Apostle is mindful of the Master’s teaching and so he follows in His
footsteps (cf. 1 Peter 2:21), takes up his cross (cf. Matthew 10:38)
and continues the task of bringing Christ’s teaching to all men.

Faith in the fact that we are sharing in the sufferings of Christ,
[Pope] John Paul II says, gives a person “the certainty that in the
spiritual dimension of the work of Redemption he is serving, like
Christ, the salvation of his brothers and sisters. Therefore
he is carrying out an irreplaceable service. In the Body of Christ, which is
ceaselessly born of the Cross of the Redeemer, it is precisely suffering
permeated by the spirit of Christ’s sacrifice that is the irreplaceable mediator
and author of the good things which are indispensable for the world’s salvation.
It is suffering, more than anything else, which clears the way for the grace
which transforms human souls. Suffering, more than anything else, makes
present in the history of humanity the force of the Redemption” (”Salvifici
Doloris”, 27).

26-27. The “mystery”, now revealed, is God’s eternal plan to give
salvation to men, both Jews and Gentiles, making all without
distinction co-heirs of glory and members of a single body which is the
Church (cf. Ephesians 3:6), through faith in Jesus Christ (cf. Romans
16:25-26).

In Christ, who has brought salvation to Gentile and Jew, the “mystery”
is fully revealed. His presence in Christians of Gentile origin is in
fact a very clear manifestation of the supernatural fruitfulness of the
“mystery” and an additional ground for Christians’ hope. Thanks to
this presence people who do not form part of Israel are enable to
attain salvation. Previously subject to the power of darkness and
slaves of sin (verses 13-14), they have now died to sin through Baptism
(cf. Romans 6:2-3) and Christ, through grace, dwells in their hearts
(on the salvific “mystery”, cf. notes on Ephesians 1:13-14 and
Ephesians 1:9, and “Introduction to the Letters of St. Paul” in “The
Navarre Bible: Romans and Galatians”, pages 32-33).

In His infinite love Christ lives in us through faith and grace,
through prayer and the Sacraments. Also, “He is present when the
Church prays and sings, for He has promised `where two or three are
gathered in My Name, there am I in the midst of them’ (Matthew 18:20)”
(Vatican II, “Sacrosanctum Concilium”, 7).

“Christ stays in His Church, its Sacraments, its liturgy, its
preaching—in all that it does. In a special way Christ stays with us
in the daily offering of the Blessed Eucharist [...]. The presence of
Christ in the host is the guarantee, the source and the culmination of
His presence in the world.

“Christ is alive in Christians”. Our faith teaches that man, in the
state of grace, is divinized—filled with God. We are men and women,
not angels. We are flesh and blood, people with sentiments and
passions, with sorrows and joys. And this divinization affects
everything human; it is a sort of foretaste of the final resurrection”
([St] J. Escriva, “Christ Is Passing By”, 102-103).

28: “In all wisdom”: St. Paul is exhorting and teaching each and every
one, communicating wisdom, the true teaching of Jesus Christ. The text
clearly shows St. Paul’s conviction that he is a faithful transmitter of
teachings revealed by God. Possessed of such wisdom he is confident
that he can lead his disciples to Christian perfection.

2-3. The term “mystery”, which St. Paul uses on other occasions (cf.
1:26; Ephesians 1:9), refers in this verse expressly to Christ: Christ
is the complete manifestation of the divine plan or “mystery” designed
to bring about the salvation of mankind. The name Jesus means Savior
and indicates His principal mission—to save the people of Israel (and
them all mankind) from their sins (cf. Matthew 1:21).

The assertion that in Christ “are hid all the treasures of wisdom and
knowledge” is based on the fact that Christ—God made man—is the
incarnation of divine Wisdom itself, for Wisdom is one of the names
applied in Sacred Scripture to the second Person of the Blessed
Trinity. Hence St. Athanasius’ comment that “God no longer chose to
make Himself know, as in times past, by the reflection and shadow of
wisdom to be seen in created things: He determined that Wisdom itself,
in person, should become incarnate, should be made man and suffer
death on the cross, so that from then on all the faithful might attain
salvation through faith grounded on the cross” (”Oratio II Contra
Arianos”).

The infinite riches of wisdom and knowledge hidden in Christ means that
meditation on his life and his teachings is an inexhaustible source of
nourishment for the life of the soul. “There are great depths to be
fathomed in Christ. For He is like an abandoned mine with many
recesses containing treasures, of which, for all that men try to fathom
them, the end and bottom is never reached; rather in each recess men
continue to find new veins of new riches on all sides” (St. John of the
Cross, “Spiritual Canticle”, 37, 3).

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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.

From: Luke 10:38-42

Martha and Mary Welcome Our Lord

[38] Now as they went on their way, He (Jesus) entered a village; and a
woman named Martha received Him into her house. [39] And she had a
sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to His
teaching. [40] But Martha was distracted with much serving; and she
went to Him and said, “Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me
to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” [41] But the Lord answered
her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things;
[42] one thing is needful. Mary has chosen the good position, which
shall not be taken away from her.”

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Commentary:

38-42. Our Lord was heading for Jerusalem (Luke 9:51) and His journey
took Him through Bethany, the village where Lazarus, Martha and Mary
lived—a family for whom He had a special affection, as we see in other
passages of the Gospel (cf. John 11:1-14; 12:1-9).

St. Augustine comments on this scene as follows: “Martha, who was
arranging and preparing the Lord’s meal, was busy doing many things,
whereas Mary preferred to find her meal in what the Lord was saying.
In a way she deserted her sister, who was very busy, and sat herself
down at Jesus’ feet and just listened to His words. She was faithfully
obeying what the Psalm said: `Be still and know that I am God’ (Psalm
46:10). Martha was getting annoyed, Mary was feasting; the former
coping with many things, the latter concentrating on one. Both
occupations were good” (”Sermon”, 103).

Martha has come to be, as it were, the symbol of the active life, and
Mary that of the contemplative life. However, for most Christians,
called as they are to sanctify themselves in the middle of the world,
action and contemplation cannot be regarded as two opposite ways of
practising the Christian faith: an active life forgetful of union with
God is useless and barren; but an apparent life of prayer which shows
no concern for apostolate and the sanctification of ordinary things
also fails to please God. The key lies in being able to combine these
two lives, without either harming the other. Close union between
action and contemplation can be achieved in very different ways,
depending on the specific vocation each person is given by God.

Far from being an obstacle, work should be a means and an occasion for
a close relationship with our Lord, which is the most important thing
in our life.

Following this teaching of the Lord, the ordinary Christian should
strive to attain an integrated life—an intense life of piety and
external activity, orientated towards God, practised out of love for
Him and with an upright intention, which expresses itself in
apostolate, in everyday work, in doing the duties of one’s state in
life. “You must understand now more clearly that God is calling you to
serve Him IN AND FROM the ordinary, material and secular activities of
human life. He waits for us every day, in the laboratory, in the
operating room, in the army barracks, in the university chair, in the
factory, in the workshop, in the fields, in the home and in all the
immense panorama of work. Understand this well: there is something
holy, something divine, hidden in the most ordinary situations, and it
is up to each of you to discover it [...]. There is no other way.
Either we learn to find our Lord in ordinary, everyday life, or else we
shall never find Him. That is why I can tell you that our age needs to
give back to matter and to the most trivial occurrences and situations
their noble and original meaning. It needs to restore them to the
service of the Kingdom of God, to spiritualize them, turning them into
a means and an occasion for a continuous meeting with Jesus Christ”
([St] J. Escriva, “Conversations”, 114).

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.