Cooperative Guidance

October 8: Wednesday of Week 27 of Ordinary Time, Year A-II:   

Galatians 2:1-2, 7-14; Psalm 117:1, 2; Luke 11:1-4

What is Jesus saying to us as stewards of his kingship? 

(To support Reaching Jesus: 5 Steps to a Fuller Life... Step Five).

Cooperative Guidance

“They recognized the grace bestowed upon me…” (Galatians 2:9).

Paul was not selected or commissioned for ministry by any bishop or apostle, but directly by Jesus himself. Three years after he began preaching, he spent two weeks with Peter. Fourteen years later he went to Jerusalem “in order to make sure that I was not running, or had not run, in vain.” There, he says, “when James and Cephas and John, who were acknowledged pillars, recognized the grace given to me, they gave to Barnabas and me the right hand of fellowship, agreeing that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised.” Paul’s particular stewardship, his responsibility for the Gentiles, came directly from God. But it was recognized by the authorities.

Every Christian is commissioned by Baptism itself to be a “good steward of the grace of God in its various forms” (1Peter 4:10, World English Bible). No bishop can give or take away this responsibility; it comes with Baptism. So we are obliged to reprimand the bishops themselves, when necessary, as Paul did to Peter: “I opposed him to his face because he clearly was wrong.”

The clergy wear blinders, like everybody else. But authorities need to see the whole picture. If the laity don’t say what they see, they reduce the Church’s vision to a peephole. All must speak out for the “grace bestowed on them” to be recognized.

PRAY: “Here I am, Lord; send me!”

PRACTICE: Speak truth to power.