You say Potato, I say...

Tuesday of the Twenty-second Week in Ordinary Time
Readings for Tuesday of the 22nd Week in Ordinary Time

Reflection:

Those of you who are fortunate enough to have fluency in a second language or specialized training in a field of employment are going to have an easier time with St. Paul’s letter today that those of us who only speak a single language. Paul says today;

We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand the things freely given us by God. And we speak about them not with words taught by human wisdom, but with words taught by the Spirit, describing spiritual realities in spiritual terms.

There is a second language that we must learn to speak when discussing the things of God. The language of God is different than the language of logic used in describing the things of man. Let’s look at a few examples.

If we observe a person who is making a living wage, not wealthy, not highly paid, but a living wage, and see that person giving a large piece of that wage, say 10% to a charity, thereby depriving that person of any luxury items and some things we might even classify as necessities. Using the language of logic that is the language of the secular world, we would call that person foolish or even stupid.

Using the language of the Holy Spirit in the same situation, we instantly are reminded of the scripture from the Gospel of Mark:

He sat down opposite the treasury and observed how the crowd put money into
the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow also came and put in two small coins worth a few cents. Calling his disciples to himself, he said
to them, "Amen, I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the other
contributors to the treasury. For they have all contributed from their surplus
wealth, but she, from her poverty, has contributed all she had, her whole
livelihood." (MK 12 42-44)

We would say, using the language of the Holy Spirit, how blessed that person is and what a wonderful example of faith. We would praise that person as an example to be followed. It’s a different language.

Let’s look at another situation; a person is at work and sees their boss doing something very wrong and unjust; let’s say doctoring time cards of other employees so he can make his labor budget. The person goes to that boss and tells that person that what he is doing is wrong and illegal and must be corrected. Because the boss wants to keep looking good so he can make more money, He has the person fired under false pretenses. Using secular logic, that person would again be considered foolish or stupid. After all, it was someone else’s time card, not theirs and the rule is; “Look out for Number One.”

Again looking at the same situation using the language of the Holy Spirit, the person in our example would have done exactly the right thing. Imitating our Lord, Jesus Christ who came to bring justice, attacking the act (notice in our story, the sin was what was attacked not the sinner) was a noble action. It was made even more admirable because the personal consequences were ignored. The person in our story clearly knew a better rule; “Love one another.” It is after all a different language.

The lesson from St. Paul today is a good one for us. We must learn the language of the Holy Spirit, the language of Jesus Himself. And, just as when we are learning a foreign language, the best way to do that is to immerse our selves in the culture of that language. We need to force ourselves to speak only that language until we can think in it. How to do that is very difficult, but let’s give it our best effort.

Pax