Thursday of the Twenty-first Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary #428:

I give thanks to my God always on your account

for the grace of God bestowed on you in Christ Jesus,

that in him you were enriched in every way,

with all discourse and all knowledge,

Both testaments of the Bible express the gratitude we feel for God's calling and gathering us. Saint Paul is especially grateful as he brings that Jewish tradition to his gentile converts in Corinth.

He thanks God for them. Perhaps there are two ways to read that sentence:

1. He thanks God that, by his preaching, they have come to know the Lord. Corinth was a city of sinners if there ever was one. Flooded each day by a tide of sailors, it had a huge investment in taverns and brothels. The laws may have applied in daylight, they meant little at night. The saints were not those who took shelter within the walls of a "gated community;"  these new Christians protected and guided one another through the ugly streets of wretchedness and despair. They clung to the elders who, familiar with Jewish customs, taught them the new ways of holiness. They learned stories of Abraham, Moses and David; they learned ancient psalms and canticles; they pondered Jewish proverbs and sayings even as they worshiped the Lord Jesus with the Eucharist. Saint Paul was grateful that the Spirit had called them out of the darkness into the light of grace.
2. Perhaps his giving thanks to God always on your account means he also thanked God just in case they were not grateful enough, like a parent who sends thank you notes to other adults who attended the child's birthday party. Young children can't and some teens don't have sense enough to send a note of gratitude; and so their parents speak for them.

I like that second idea because this is precisely what Jesus does for us. Which of us can thank God fully for the blessings we have received? Even to name them takes more time than we have! I'd have to start with each breath and proceed to each bite of food. So the Lord Jesus, as our brother, speaks for us; thanking his God and Father for the grace of God bestowed on us, who were "enriched in every way, with all discourse and knowledge."

As he thanks God "always on your account" Saint Paul shows that we are indeed our sisters' and brothers' keepers, responsible for one another, concerned and dedicated to one another. If our sins divide us into individuals, our prayers unite us in the Person of Jesus: 

For he is our peace, he who made both one and broke down the dividing wall of enmity, through his flesh, abolishing the law with its commandments and legal claims, that he might create in himself one new person in place of the two, thus establishing peace, and might reconcile both with God, in one body, through the cross, putting that enmity to death by it. Ephesians 2:14-16