Today’s passage from the First Letter to the Corinthians takes up a familiar subject in St. Paul’s various letters; namely, the subject of boasting. Boasting is one of those pesky human idiosyncrasies that gets in the way of realizing who we truly are and what God has accomplished through us. As we will hear as we continue to read this particular letter, boasting is very much present in the community of Corinth. At times it impedes the progress this community is making in living out the Gospel of the Crucified Jesus.
In the cross we realize that our salvation or justification is not earned but freely bestowed upon us, and our sanctification is accomplished when we lay aside our efforts and allow the Spirit to invade our lives. In the cross we realize redemption, a word that derives from the Hebrew and means blood relative. We are redeemed when we are bathed in the blood of Jesus. Finally, in the cross we come to the realization that any knowledge or wisdom we possess comes through our unity with Jesus in his suffering.
Today’s memorial of the passion of St. John the Baptist presents us with a foretaste of Jesus’ sacrificial death. John was a precursor and never heard the Gospel that Jesus preached. He draws his preaching from the Hebrew Scriptures and preaches a fidelity to God’s commandments as given to Moses on Mt. Sinai. When he was executed by Herod, his death would have seemed to be a humiliation, especially because the elders of Israel cowered in their fear of Herod rather than condemning him for slaughtering an innocent man. However, Jesus tells his disciples that no man born of a woman was greater than John the Baptist. Yet those who have heard the Gospel and live in unity with the crucified Jesus will be considered greater in the Kingdom of God.
Our own patron, St. Francis of Assisi, was so filled with love for Jesus because of his sacrifice that he spent every afternoon of his life after his conversion meditating on the Passion of Jesus. The same practice was handed down to the Poor Clares. His biographers maintained that it was the charity of the passion of Jesus and the humility of his birth that solely occupied the thoughts of Francis. In that passion St. Paul reminds us that we will find the only reason to boast.
Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator