June 16, 2025
Edward Morse
Creighton University's School of Law
click here for photo and information about the writer

Praying Ordinary Time

Weekly Guide for Daily Prayer

Judging Others? Or Ourselves?

Parenting Our Adult Children

In today’s first reading, Paul relates his own journey as a minister of the Gospel, enduring afflictions, hardships, beatings, and other challenges.  This was not a gospel of prosperity and personal security, but instead one that embraced difficulty, insult, and dishonor.  Glory and praise are present, too, but only after persevering.  A different perspective is required – a long view informed by faith in realities that extend beyond our senses. 

His references to “unfeigned love” and “truthful speech” suggest a differentiation between Paul’s team and others who purport to speak for God. Paul and his colleagues confirm their truthfulness through the power of God revealed in their works, but also by bearing up in these difficulties.  Their perseverance confirms the reality of their love for God and for those to whom they are ministering.

Assessments based solely on our senses will often change when augmented by deeper realities accessible through the lens of faith.  Contrasts abound in this letter: deceitful vs. truthful; being acknowledged vs. being ignored; possessing little but having great value to enrich others vs. having nothing and enriching no one.  Their internal dispositions validated this deeper reality, as even genuine sorrow from hurts and wounds did not prevent rejoicing in what God had in store for them.  There is no denial here: their afflictions were quite real.  But God has revealed the power of His love to us through His Son, and that love will conquer all, even death itself.

In today’s gospel, our Lord provides instruction that informs our faith, drawing us to look beyond temporal injustice to embrace and live in the eternal dignity conferred by our relationship to our Heavenly Father.  I sometimes joke that it feels like our Lord is asking a bit much of us!  But understanding the dignity of this relationship really does change everything.

Theologians have offered many ways to contextualize this teaching, seeming to soften it so as to make it more palatable.  For example, sometimes we should resist evil in order to protect others.  Our Lord himself resisted evil by preaching the truth, even using language that seems harsh to our ears.  He passed miraculously through a mob in order to avoid their violence, even though he would later be victimized by it.  

Few, if any, can discern or keep these instructions perfectly.  But in our efforts to do so, we validate the reality of the faith that lives within us.  Unjust actions –even those designed to erase us– cannot obliterate the dignity infused in us as children of God.  We belong to someone greater, who loves us and prepares us to dwell with Him forever.  Let us be witnesses to this truth by living it, as best we can.  And let us remember and honor this dignity gifted to us.

Thanks be to God.