Deacon Tom Writes,
The Forces of Change: Prayer and Action
In today’s reading St.
Paul asks the Thessalonians to pray that he and his companions, “be delivered from perverse and wicked
people, for not all have faith”.
St. Paul had reason
to be concerned about perverse and wicked people. He knew the history of the
Jewish people and was certainly aware of the fate of the seven Maccabees who
were arrested, tortured, and killed for their faith. Paul, a man of prayer,
asks the community to pray for him and his companions that God will protect
them from the perverse and wicked things that people without faith do as
he continues his mission to spread the Good News about Jesus.
The question that
this account from St. Paul’s life raises for us today is, “Does the evil and
wickedness we experience in our world today come only from the hearts and minds
and hands of ‘those without faith’”? Unfortunately, no. Discrimination, the exploitation
of the poor, the profiteering from the hopelessness and misery of others is a
business today and there are many vendors who profit handsomely from these
ventures. All we have to do is, “remove the
wooden beam from your eye first” (Mt 7:5) in order for us to see how we may
participate in the suffering of others by what we do… or what we fail to
do. There are many way in which
we, the faithful, contribute to the suffering of so many people around us -
people of color, the elderly and vulnerable, the immigrant, the single parents,
the homeless and those “working poor” who
struggle just to live simple lives. The sad reality is that so much evil and harm is done by people professing
to be people of faith; those who fill our churches, temples, and mosques. Insane
but true.
St. Paul was able to
deal with the evil he experienced spreading the Word for two reasons: he was a man of prayer, and he was a
man of action. Prayer and work. Pray as if everything depends on God and work
as if everything depends on us, advice echoed by St. Augustine some 350
years after St. Paul.
If we are ever to
have any success in eliminating the racism, poverty, discrimination, and sexism
from our society and in the world, we must find the right balance between
prayer and action. Prayer is the way we
get things right on the inside, “cleanse first the inside of the cup…” as Matthew writes, (Mt
23:26) so that the love of God can flow out to others.
Perhaps this week we
can commit some time to daily prayer so that we can come to know our part in
brining about the world that God has in mind for us: one without poverty, or
war, or hunger; a world of right relationships built on the sure knowledge that
God’s abiding love rests upon each and every one of his children.
Enjoy the day!
Deacon Tom
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