1 Cor 1: 26-31
Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God.
He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, in order that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989, by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. USCCB approved.
The Call of Paul
In the prison visits I’ve made, my heart leans in and learns from those men who have given up playing it cool, and for the guys who are able to share their life stories truthfully, taking responsibility for their past behavior and the harmful things they may have done.
Paul’s call to the Corinthians is a rally cry for the simple gifts we need to do that: humility, honesty, acceptance of weakness and failings. We don’t know how hard it was for him to remind his friends that he was not only Paul the Apostle, but also Paul the Executioner, Paul the Prisoner, Paul the Sinner. But by making humility a practice— acknowledging mistakes, avoiding boasts, making no excuses— Paul demonstrates how the transformative power of the Holy Spirit worked in his life. Pauline spirituality encourages us to reveal our need, admit we cannot do it alone, and above all, to surrender daily to God, the source of our life in Jesus.
We may not always feel like the wisest or most important people. But we can always turn and talk to God, with the authenticity of St. Paul, depending on our faith in hard times. God will always respond by opening windows and doors that would otherwise remain closed to us!
—Fr. Joe Kraemer, SJ, is a priest of the West Province who was ordained at the Church of the Gesu in Milwaukee last June. He currently resides and works in Seattle, Washington.
Prayer
Simple Gifts
‘Tis the gift to be simple, ’tis the gift to be free,
‘Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
‘Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gain’d,
To bow and to bend we will not be asham’d,
To turn, turn will be our delight,
Till by turning, turning we come round right.
—Simple Gifts by Elder Joseph Brackett, composed at the Alfred, Maine, Shaker Community, 1848