Daily Retreat 10/06/08
2008 Oct 6 Mon: Ordinary Weekday/ Bruno, p, h, rf/ Bl Marie-Rose Durocher, v, rf
Gal 1: 6-12/ Ps 110(111): 1b-2. 7-8. 9 and 10c/ Lk 10: 25-37
From today’s readings: “But there are some who are disturbing you and wish to pervert the Gospel of Christ.... The Lord will remember His covenant for ever.... A man fell victim to robbers as he went down from Jerusalem to Jericho....”
Something New
While the lectionary selections might seem haphazard at times, as I’ve mentioned before, there’s actually a methodical arrangement for the readings at Mass. For the past few months, the first reading has generally been from a book of the Old Testament. Today, the lectionary finally returns to a New Testament book: Paul’s Letter to the Galatians.
Sugar-coated diplomacy was not a characteristic of the great Apostles to the Gentiles - he spoke the Truth without hesitation or equivocation! But of all Paul’s letters, the Epistle to the Galatians comes across as the harshest - after just a few opening verses of greeting, he launches into what could well be considered a tirade: “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you in the grace of Christ, and turning to a different gospel....” Only a few months had passed since Paul had personally preached to the Galatians the Gospel of Christ, but already the good news was being distorted, misrepresented, and twisted with ideological interpretations, and people were buying into such errors!
From the beginning, con men have used the Gospel as the wrapping for various ideological packages fundamentally at odds with Christ and His Church. Whether it’s the Judaizers (cf. Acts. 15) that Paul berated in the first century, or the liberation theologians which Pope John Paul II had to deal with in the twentieth century, the usurpers’ insidious tactics are the same: convince people that their own agenda and ideology lies at the heart of the Gospel, so that following the Gospel would imply endorsement of their ideologies!
The con men can be quite good at such equivocations - they had evidently made enough inroads among the Galatians that Paul was compelled to launch such a harsh letter to dispel the spell of those Judaizers. How can we be protected against such scams in our own time? Only by studying our faith assiduously in order to grow stronger in it! For it’s always a simple matter to dress a skeletal faith in the garbs of error, but when faith is burly and beefy, the rags of heresy inevitably fit too tight for comfort, since such ill-suited duds can never be stretched to cover the full body of revelation.
Gal 1: 6-12/ Ps 110(111): 1b-2. 7-8. 9 and 10c/ Lk 10: 25-37
From today’s readings: “But there are some who are disturbing you and wish to pervert the Gospel of Christ.... The Lord will remember His covenant for ever.... A man fell victim to robbers as he went down from Jerusalem to Jericho....”
Something New
While the lectionary selections might seem haphazard at times, as I’ve mentioned before, there’s actually a methodical arrangement for the readings at Mass. For the past few months, the first reading has generally been from a book of the Old Testament. Today, the lectionary finally returns to a New Testament book: Paul’s Letter to the Galatians.
Sugar-coated diplomacy was not a characteristic of the great Apostles to the Gentiles - he spoke the Truth without hesitation or equivocation! But of all Paul’s letters, the Epistle to the Galatians comes across as the harshest - after just a few opening verses of greeting, he launches into what could well be considered a tirade: “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you in the grace of Christ, and turning to a different gospel....” Only a few months had passed since Paul had personally preached to the Galatians the Gospel of Christ, but already the good news was being distorted, misrepresented, and twisted with ideological interpretations, and people were buying into such errors!
From the beginning, con men have used the Gospel as the wrapping for various ideological packages fundamentally at odds with Christ and His Church. Whether it’s the Judaizers (cf. Acts. 15) that Paul berated in the first century, or the liberation theologians which Pope John Paul II had to deal with in the twentieth century, the usurpers’ insidious tactics are the same: convince people that their own agenda and ideology lies at the heart of the Gospel, so that following the Gospel would imply endorsement of their ideologies!
The con men can be quite good at such equivocations - they had evidently made enough inroads among the Galatians that Paul was compelled to launch such a harsh letter to dispel the spell of those Judaizers. How can we be protected against such scams in our own time? Only by studying our faith assiduously in order to grow stronger in it! For it’s always a simple matter to dress a skeletal faith in the garbs of error, but when faith is burly and beefy, the rags of heresy inevitably fit too tight for comfort, since such ill-suited duds can never be stretched to cover the full body of revelation.
posted by FrPitstick | 10/04/2008
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