First Reading:
From: 2 Corinthians 1:18-22
Why He Has Not Visited Corinth (Continuation)
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[18] As surely as God is faithful, our word to you has not been Yes and No. [19] For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we preached among you, Silvanus and Timothy and I, was not Yes and No; but in him it is always: Yes. [20] For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why we utter the Amen through him, to the glory of God. [21] But it is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has commissioned us; [22] he has put his seal upon us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.
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Commentary:
17-20. He calls on God to witness to the sincerity of his actions and to his being a man of his word. He cannot act otherwise, he explains, because he preaches Jesus Christ and follows him: and Christ is absolutely faithful and truthful (cf. In 14:6) and demanded sincerity in word and in deed (cf. Mt 5:37; Jas 5:12). The faithfulness of Christ--in whom it is always "Yes" (vv. 19-20)--is the model for all Christians, both those who dedicate their lives totally and exclusively to God in celibacy and those who do so through marriage. Referring to this passage, John Paul II teaches that "just as the Lord Jesus is 'the faithful witness' (Rev 3:14), the 'yes' of the promises of God (cf. 2 Cor 1:20), so Christian couples are called to participate truly in the irrevocable indissolubility that binds Christ to the Church, his bride, loved by him to the end (cf. Jn 13:1)" ("Familiaris Consortio", 20).
Relying on Christ's faithfulness the faithful are able to say that "Amen" ("So be it"), by which they adhere fully to the Apostle's teachings. From the very beginning of Christianity, the "Amen" was said at the end of the Church's public prayers (cf. 1 Cor 14:16).
Silvanus, called Silas in the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 15:40), had helped St Paul to found the Church in Corinth (cf. Acts 18:5).
18. "As surely as God is faithful': so translated to evoke a form of words used in taking a oath; literally, "Faithful is God."
21-22. As in other passages of this letter (cf. 3:3; 13:13), St Paul is here referring explicitly to the promises made of the Blessed Trinity: it is God (the Father) who has given us our "commission" (anointed us with grace) establishing us in the Son, through the gift of the Holy Spirit in our hearts.
Using three different expressions--"commissioned" (anointed), "put his seal upon us", given us his Spirit "as a guarantee"--the Apostle describes the way God acts in the soul: in Baptism the Christian is spiritually anointed with grace and incorporated into Christ; he is thereby "sealed", for he no longer belongs to himself but has become the property of Christ; and together with grace, he receives the Holy Spirit as a "guarantee", a pledge of the gifts he will receive in eternal life. All those effects of Baptism are reinforced by the sacrament of Confirmation (St Paul may well have had this sacrament in mind also, when writing these words).
Commenting on this passage St John Chrysostom explains that by this action the Holy Spirit establishes the Christian as prophet, priest and king: "In olden times these three types of people received the unction which confirmed them in their dignity. We Christians have not one of these three dignities but all three preeminently. For, are we not kings, who shall infallibly inherit a kingdom? Are we not priests, if we offer our bodies as a sacrifice, instead of mere animal victims, as the Apostle says: 'I appeal to you...to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God' (Rom 12:1)? And are we not constituted prophets if, thanks to God, secrets have been revealed to us which eye has not seen nor ear heard?" ("Hom. on 2 Cor.", 3).
"He has put his seal on us": the St Pius V Catechism uses these words to explain the "character" which the sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation and Order impress on the soul; Paul "not obscurely describes by the word 'sealed' a character, the property of which is to impress a seal or mark. This character is, as it were, a distinctive impression stamped on the soul which perpetually inheres and cannot be blotted out" (II, 1, 30).