Optional Memorial of Saint Rose of Lima, virgin

Lectionary: 426

To this end he has also called you through our Gospel

to possess the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, brothers and sisters, stand firm

and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught,

either by an oral statement or by a letter of ours.

The gospel often hits people like a spark to gasoline. Burdened with guilt, depressed with disappointment, desperate for relief, they explode with energetic joy upon learning of their salvation. 

Urged to contain their zeal and not waste it in a seizure of excitement, some will go off in a huff. They cannot be bothered with the traditions they were taught. Like young lovers who cannot imagine their parents ever fell in love, they suppose the gospel, which is ever new, was never old.

Said to be the oldest document of the New Testament, Saint Paul's First Letter to the Thessalonians, recalls that kind of enthusiasm. The Apostle had to urge his new converts 

"...not to be shaken out of your minds suddenly,

or to be alarmed either by a “spirit,” or by an oral statement,

or by a letter allegedly from us

to the effect that the day of the Lord is at hand."

It is good that our earliest memory is of enthusiasm, and that it comes with Paul's calming admonition. Many people's first impression of church reflects anything but excitement. They see weary people wearily reciting the rosary or sitting through another tiresome sermon. "Fuggetaboutit!" they say. 

Can I, on this summer morning as schools reopen and vacations wrap up, remember the energizing joy and freedom of the gospel? 

I have heard it said of American Protestant religion, "The children try to remember what their parents tried to forget." In the last half century, the proverb has become true of Catholics also. Many young priests, not remembering the plodding processions and trudging tempos of untalented organists -- I encountered one just recently -- long for the "pre-Vatican II" traditions which had lost their way. 

But our traditions also remember enthusiasm. Saint Bernard of Clairvaux collected thirty of his nearest and dearest friends, marched up to an isolated monastery and announced they were joining. Somehow the old fellows made room for them and the young abbot went on to introduce one of the great reforms of church history. Saint Francis of Assisi also staggered a weary Church with his decision to live like the birds of the air and lilies of the field. Young men and women flocked to him from all parts of Europe.  

We know about enthusiasm, it's blessings and its dangers. We know obedience, which banks burning embers of faith. It directs the heat of love downward into the neglected, cold, and dark dungeons of our hearts while warming the world with hope for relief. Saint Paul had experienced that discipline during his three years in the desert, and could encourage his Thessalonian disciples with a mature enthusiasm that still inspires the world. 

With two weeks until Labor Day we ask the Lord to send for your Spirit and renew the face of the earth, and of the church, and us.