WHAT TO SAY, WHAT TO DO, AND WHAT TO WRITE?
In these troubled times, one takes care of what one says, does, and writes. Why? It is as if people, including even myself, are adrift in a sea of competing interests, which pull and push them in conflicting directions. The future for family, community, nation-states, and the world at large, goodness knows it is hard to sit down and watch the news. Have I come to a time when it is well for me to ponder: After all is done, will I have faith?
So just as well, I still manage to follow the Mass Readings, like the second reading just last Sunday. It is St Paul in terrible trouble under arrest, in chains awaiting his impending martyrdom. He will commit himself to writing another letter to his young collaborator back in Asia Minor, hoping that St Timothy will persevere in the calling that Paul in God’s name had conferred upon him.
The following was Sunday’s second reading, from the 2nd Letter of Paul to Timothy 3. 14 – 4. 2:
You must keep to what you have been taught and know to be true; remember who your teachers were, and how, ever since you were a child, you have known the holy scriptures – from these you can learn the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
All scripture is inspired by God and can profitably be used for teaching, for refuting error, for guiding people’s lives, and teaching them to be holy. This is how the man who is dedicated to God becomes fully equipped and ready for any good work.
Before God and before Christ Jesus, who is to be judge of the living and the dead, I put this duty to you, in the name of his Appearing and of his kingdom: proclaim the message and, welcome or unwelcome, insist on it. Refute falsehood, correct error, call to obedience – but do all with patience and with the intention of teaching.
As I offered the Mass quietly at home, that reading affected within my being a certain amount of consolation, even hope; particularly the final admonition to “do all with patience and the intention of teaching.” I imagined it being addressed to me by the archbishop who in 1965 ordained me to the presbyterate. After Mass over a cup of tea, I opened my Good News Bible and read all four chapters of 2nd Timothy. The exercise gave me great heart, and courage to persevere in what I should say, do, and write.
