Wednesday, 10/10/12
In the first reading this week we are following Paul’s
letter to the Christians in Galatia. In that ancient world where most people
were of Semitic descent, Galatia was a pocket of people related to the Irish.
They had somehow settled in the center of the peninsula that is now
Turkey. Paul had brought many of
the Galatians to the Faith, only to find five years later, that Jewish
Christians who recently settled there, were telling the Christian Galatians
that the men needed Jewish circumcision, and the people had to eat only kosher
foods.
Paul wrote this letter to protest against the idea that
Christians must also become thoroughly Jewish. To back up that argument he told
his own story of being as thoroughly Jewish as anyone could be. He went on to
tell the story of his conversion on the road to Damascus. He told of how he had
been secretly taught by Jesus.
After three years alone with Christ in the Arabian Desert,
Paul had gone up to
Jerusalem where he received approval of his Christian
beliefs from Peter and the Apostle
James. After that he retired to his father’s home in southeast Turkey where he
helped his father making tents while he prayed and meditated on the Gospel. He explained
all that in Chapter One of his Letter to the Galatians.
Today’s reading is from Chapter Two. He began it by saying that
fourteen years had passed in his silent prayer and contemplation before he
became active, starting on his first missionary journey. It is surprising that
a man of his great abilities should have spent fourteen years just praying and
thinking, but it was during those years that he gradually came by all the brilliant
things he later said in his letters. It shows the need we all have for endless
hours of prayerful thinking.
1 comment:
I just want to say thank you Father, your blog is so very informative. I have learned a lot by them. Thanks again. Theresa Longino
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