Wednesday,
11/11/15
In
our first reading, the Bible addresses kings and magistrates, saying, “Authority was given to you by the Lord.”
And
St. Paul backs that up in Chapter 13 of his Letter to the Romans where he says,
“Let every person be subordinate to the
higher authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those that
exist have been established by God. Therefore, whoever resists authority
opposes what God has appointed.”
I
one time quoted that to a group of twenty-year-old boys and girls; and they
agreed in saying, “Well, we don’t believe that!”
We
can see where the many misuses of authority would lead young people to say
that. One misuse that pops into my head was that of Pope Leo X. In the year
that Martin Luther took his stand against Rome, Leo was saying, “Since God has given us this papacy, let
us enjoy it.”
In
Chapter Two of the Bible after God had created his first human, he said, “It is not good for him to be alone.” In creating us as social
beings whose ideas would differ, he was also creating the need for someone who
could say, “The buck stops here.”
I
am most grateful for three authorities God placed over me.
Every
time my father got close to paying off his house, one of us six kids would need a
serious operation. It would force my dad to take out a hateful mortgage, but his
authority from God forced him to it.
We
trusted our seminary rector in every decision he had to make for our lives.
He wouldn't sanctimoniously tell us, "I have prayed over this." No, he'd say, “This seems to be the reasonable thing to do.”
Then,
we know that Pope Francis, in exercising his authority, does what God wants him
to do.
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