The Holy Spirit at work

 

Welcome to my blog and peace be with you.

You will find here the Scripture readings prescribed by the Catholic Church for today. We are reading a semi continuous reading of St. Luke’s Gospel and St. Paul’s  first letter to the Corinthians.

Wednesday 2 September 2020

The Holy Spirit at work

First reading

1 Corinthians 3:1-9 ·

Neither the planter nor the waterer matters, only God, who makes things grow

Brothers, I myself was unable to speak to you as people of the Spirit: I treated you as sensual men, still infants in Christ. What I fed you with was milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it; and indeed, you are still not ready for it since you are still unspiritual. Isn’t that obvious from all the jealousy and wrangling that there is among you, from the way that you go on behaving like ordinary people? What could be more unspiritual than your slogans, ‘I am for Paul’ and ‘I am for Apollos’?

After all, what is Apollos and what is Paul? They are servants who brought the faith to you. Even the different ways in which they brought it were assigned to them by the Lord. I did the planting, Apollos did the watering, but God made things grow. Neither the planter nor the waterer matters: only God, who makes things grow. It is all one who does the planting and who does the watering, and each will duly be paid according to his share in the work. We are fellow workers with God; you are God’s farm, God’s building. THE WORD OF THE LORD

 

Prayerful reflection

The sign that the Holy Spirit is among us is unity in love. The sign that Satan’s influence is in a community is division, rivalry, and discord. These were present in Corinth and so, though they have faith in Jesus, St. Paul tells them that they are still attached to the mentality of this world. There deep and consoling truths in the Christian religion, but the foundation is love for one another. The Corinthians had not yet learned this.

They are divided over the rivalry of different parties. Some were in a group that followed Paul. This may be with regard to his views about the Law of Moses and the liberty he proclaimed for gentiles. Others had formed a party following another preacher, Apollos. He was a learned preacher from Alexandria. Some followed Peter who may have been more Jewishly orthodox. Paul tells them whoever we are, we are only workers in the vineyard of the Lord. We do different things but it is God who gives the growth. Let us pray God to look after his  vineyard of the Church.

Psalm

Psalm 32(33):12-15,20-21

Happy the people the Lord has chosen as his own.

They are happy, whose God is the Lord,

the people he has chosen as his own.

From the heavens the Lord looks forth,

he sees all the children of men.

Happy the people the Lord has chosen as his own.

From the place where he dwells he gazes

on all the dwellers on the earth;

he who shapes the hearts of them all;

and considers all their deeds.

Happy the people the Lord has chosen as his own.

Our soul is waiting for the Lord.

The Lord is our help and our shield.

In him do our hearts find joy.

We trust in his holy name.

Happy the people the Lord has chosen as his own.

 

Gospel

Luke 4:38-44

He would not allow them to speak because they knew he was the Christ

Leaving the synagogue, Jesus went to Simon’s house. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever and they asked him to do something for her. Leaning over her he rebuked the fever and it left her. And she immediately got up and began to wait on them.

At sunset all those who had friends suffering from diseases of one kind or another brought them to him, and laying his hands on each he cured them. Devils too came out of many people, howling, ‘You are the Son of God.’ But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak because they knew that he was the Christ.

When daylight came he left the house and made his way to a lonely place. The crowds went to look for him, and when they had caught up with him they wanted to prevent him leaving them, but he answered, ‘I must proclaim the Good News of the kingdom of God to the other towns too, because that is what I was sent to do.’ And he continued his preaching in the synagogues of Judaea. THE GOSPEL OF THE LORD

 

Prayerful reflection

Jesus is full of the Holy Spirit. He was always God, but as St. Paul tells us, he emptied himself and became a slave. The Letter to the Hebrews tells us that he was like us in all things, except sin. We must take this truth seriously. He does his ministry as a man like you and me. However, he was filled with the Holy Spirit. We too must be filled with the Spirit of God. This should be our daily and earnest prayer. If, as we read in the first reading, it is God who gives the increase, then those filled with the Spirit will be the ones who transform their world.

We are to continue the mission of Jesus. This will not be exactly in the way Jesus did it since he was living in another time and place. Nonetheless if it is the Spirit who animates us, then mighty things will happen through us. They would not happen, if The Spirit were absent. It is God through his Spirit that achieves anything through us. The lives of the saints show us how the Spirit works through people in kinds of different ways.