EFFECTIVE FAITH MUST MATCH THE DOCTRINE

THURSDAY, TWENTY FOURTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

1 Cor 15:1-11; Ps 118:1-2,15-17,28; Lk 7:36-50

Faith must match Doctrine to be Effective

After giving detailed consideration to the spiritual gifts, St. Paul again decided to establish the foundation of the Gospel he preached to the Corinthians. The re-outlining of the Gospel or the Christian doctrine was important in the face of the wrong ambition of some members who got carried away by their charismatic gifts. As we noted, the gifts require our faith in Jesus Christ. But they are not the measure of our merits as Christians. They help realize the presence of the Lord and the extension of his salvific work for souls. Because they are operations of the power of God through us, we do not automatically acquire merits by exercising them. The Christian merits are based on faithfulness to our Christian profession of faith in the Gospel we have heard and received. The summary of the Gospel preached to us by Paul is as follows. “Well then, in the first place, I taught you what I had been taught myself, namely that Christ died for our sins, in accordance with the scriptures; that he was buried; and that he was raised to life on the third day, in accordance with the scriptures; that he appeared first to Cephas and secondly to the Twelve.” The Gospel is about the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.

This core doctrine of the Gospel must be firmly entrenched within us to bear the required fruits in our lives as Christians. The working of these truths constantly in our minds and hearts must shape our feelings and emotions to give us the right motivations to journey daily into the mystery of Jesus Christ. Without these operative truths, no spiritual progress would be possible. As St. Paul emphasised: “The gospel will save you only if you keep believing exactly what I preached to you—believing anything else will not lead to anything.” Many members of the Corinthian Christian community wandered away from the centre that is Jesus Christ due to their charismatic giftedness and fell prey to self and the evil one. Using the words of St. Paul for the Corinthians, we remind ourselves that the Christian journey is not to fame and glory in Jerusalem but to death and obscurity of self on the cross at Calvary. The awareness of Jesus Christ must gradually envelope our whole being and existence for our Christian journey to bear the required fruits in our death. Hence, Paul acknowledges his nothingness and the working of grace in his life, helping him to preach the Gospel. “On the contrary, I, or rather the grace of God that is with me, have worked harder than any of the others; but what matters is that I preach what they preach, and this is what you all believed.”

The grace of God produced more fruits in Paul’s life because of his constant preoccupation with the mystery of Jesus Christ. Seeing his nothingness through this mystery, he was able to die to himself and allowed Christ the Lord to be all for him. Our Lord acknowledged the faith of the sinful woman in the Gospel because of her focus and preoccupation with the Person and presence of Jesus Christ. “She had heard he was dining with the Pharisee and had brought with her an alabaster jar of ointment. She waited behind him at his feet, weeping, and her tears fell on his feet, and she wiped them away with her hair; then she covered his feet with kisses and anointed them with the ointment.” These Christ-centred activities manifested her faith and enlarged her love for Jesus Christ. Through these activities, she preached the divinity of Christ and her faith in his redemptive presence. The Lord witnessed her salvation. “For this reason I tell you that her sins, her many sins, must have been forgiven her, or she would not have shown such great love. It is the man who is forgiven little who shows little love.” She got the greatest gift of the Holy Spirit, love, which admits us to the heavenly banquet. Let us be ambitious for this gift of the Holy Spirit.

Let us pray: Grant us, Lord, the grace to constantly and frequently meditate on the Gospel—on your life, death, and resurrection—so that dwelling always in your presence, we may be filled with your love, proclaim it by our life daily and come to the perfection of the love of you.