Memorial of Saints Cornelius, Pope, and Cyprian, Bishop, Martyrs

Lectionary: 442

This saying is trustworthy and deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Of these I am the foremost.


In the twentieth century, philosophers and theologians began to pay more attention to the identity and experience of the individual person. A philosophy of existentialism was born. I have been laboriously reading Martin Heidegger's 415-page Being and Time for the past month and am now fifty pages into it. Perhaps on the third reading I'll begin to understand his teaching.
     Nevertheless, these philosophers and theologians are onto something. Like Saint Paul, they know that we cannot ignore personal experience. That may seem obvious, and it is; philosophers generally point out the obvious because we're obviously overlooking it! 
     If our thinking begins in personal experience, our communications are framed in traditional language and we assume others know what we're talking about, although they can only hear and understand from their own personal experience. 
     Saint Augustine pondered that mystery. How does a thought in my mind, he wondered, move through my words, mouth and breath to other ears and into their understanding? Does the word I use to mean this, mean this to them? Very often, if not more often than not, what I say is misunderstood. It is always a struggle, as the Captain said of Cool Hand Luke, "What we've got here is a failure to communicate."  
     So when Saint Paul wants to reassure his disciples of salvation, he begins with, "This saying is trustworthy and deserves full acceptance!" 
     With the understanding this next statement is underlined and in bold, he declares. "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." How do we know that? "Of these (sinners) I am the foremost!" 
     If you believe his personal experience; if you accept his credibility, you will accept his doctrine about Jesus Christ. 
     It seems -- and I am no philosopher but it seems to me -- that the Church has sometimes tried to divorce personal testimony from the Truth. In other words, the doctrine is floating out there in the ethereal world of Reality, regardless of anyone's acceptance or belief. "You should believe it not because I said it but because it's true!" We might even add to our moral/ethical teaching, "Do as I say, not as I do." 
     Saint Paul knew better. He asked people first to believe in him; and secondly, to believe in his word. He was amazed and grateful when they "took it not as the word of men but as the Word of God."
     If they can't believe in us, they probably cannot believe in our word, even if it is the Word of God, the Truth. 

...for that reason I was mercifully treated, so that in me, as the foremost, Christ Jesus might display all his patience as an example for those who would come to believe in him for everlasting life.

Saint Paul moved from place to place throughout his career, but not so quickly that people didn't come to know him. He was not the itinerant preacher who gives a weekend mission in a parish, wowing the congregation with erudite oratory, and then moving on before they discover his dark side. He stayed for months and years at a time; they knew his irritability and impatience as well as his humility and zeal. He was apparently grounded in Galatia by a disgusting eye disease; and they tenderly cared for him. They believed in his gospel despite his frail human condition, and he never forgot their kindness.
     Today the Church celebrates the martyrs, Saints Cornelius and Cyprian and, once again, we are astonished by the testimony of our martyrs. Whatever their personal failings -- and we all have them -- they stood by their faith in Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit invites and challenges each of us to accept this as my personal credo, not as the word of men but as the word of God: 

"Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners."