{"id":13159,"date":"2020-10-04T00:00:12","date_gmt":"2020-10-03T23:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/turski.blog\/?p=13159"},"modified":"2020-10-04T00:00:12","modified_gmt":"2020-10-03T23:00:12","slug":"27th-sunday-in-ordinary-time-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/?p=13159","title":{"rendered":"27th Sunday in Ordinary time"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two weeks ago, on 23rd<\/sup> September, we \u2018celebrated\u2019 a special occasion: six months since a UK-wide lockdown was introduced. As we know all too well, life as we had known it stopped and we had to adapt to a \u2018new normal\u2019: no social interaction, many businesses shut down and \u2018working from home\u2019 as the default position wherever possible. From day one our parish continued providing pastoral care, admittedly in a limited – and for many – very modern way. I believe we were the first in the city and in the diocese to live-stream Masses daily. This sounds boastful, but neither at that time nor now was it about being the first, the best or the quickest. It was all solely about the continuity of liturgical and spiritual life in the parish. It was exhausting on so many levels but – judging by the feedback – it was worth all that effort.<\/p>\n

The parable in today\u2019s gospel in its literal sense was an indictment of effective misappropriation of the true religion. To cut a long story short, the Jewish religious and political elite didn\u2019t bear the fruit expected of them. In a spiritual and metaphorical sense, we can use this parable as a lens to scrutinise our own lives.<\/p>\n

The Christian community in Corinth established by St Paul was torn by unholy arguments and divisions among its members. One of many bones of contention was the boastful claims of authority based on the spiritual gifts the church members claimed to have. It was effectively a power struggle. St Paul addressed it in his First Letter to the Corinthians: \u2018There are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone.\u2019 (12:4-6)<\/em> He acknowledged that truly there was a great variety of gifts, talents and skills in the community and all of them originated from the same source: The Holy Trinity. The problem was that they were treated as ego boosters, as something to serve their bearers and to further their influence within the community. So, St Paul continued: \u2018To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good<\/span>.’<\/em>\u00a0<\/strong>(12:7)<\/em> In other words, the more talented, gifted, or skilled the community members were the more they should serve it. \u2018If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.\u2019 (13:1-3)<\/em> In these words, St Paul shattered the Corinthians\u2019 misconception that spiritual gifts, talents and skills had any value in their own right – without active charitable love they can lead to condemnation.<\/p>\n

As in Corinth two thousand years ago there\u2019s an abundance of spiritual gifts, talents and skills in this community. It became more obvious over the course of lockdown, when the humble St Joseph\u2019s choir enhanced its membership, producing uplifting recordings for Sunday Masses. Similarly, the pool of readers expanded significantly. Some parishioners kept in touch with others to support them in many ways. St Joseph\u2019s youth group continued their meetings over the internet. Many kept supporting the parish financially. Then the churches reopened and now we have volunteers who make them places to come which are as safe as possible. These are just the most visible examples of great involvement within our community for the common good. I have no words to express how grateful I am to each one of you.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also a good moment to ask ourselves what our spiritual gifts, talents and skills are and how we can use them for the common good. One might think \u2018I don\u2019t have any special talents that could be of use to anyone.\u2019<\/em> That\u2019s not true. I know a man whose great gift is finding really good jokes and sharing them with others. Every week I visit him he makes me laugh – that\u2019s a great gift. Everyone has a gift or talent or skill. The challenge is to discover it and find a use for it without comparing oneself to others. At the end of the day, it\u2019s not the greatness of talents that matters, but their use for the common good. That\u2019s the way to bear fruit and bear it in plenty.<\/p>\n

\n

Image by Anemone123<\/a> from Pixabay<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two weeks ago, on 23rd September, we \u2018celebrated\u2019 a special occasion: six months since a UK-wide lockdown was introduced. As we know all too well, life as we had known it stopped and we had to adapt to a \u2018new normal\u2019: no social interaction, many businesses shut down and \u2018working from home\u2019 as the default position wherever possible. From day one our parish continued providing pastoral care, admittedly in a limited – and for many – very modern way. I believe we were the first in the city and in the diocese to live-stream Masses daily. This sounds boastful, but neither at that time nor now was it about being the first, the best or the quickest. It was all solely about the continuity of liturgical and spiritual life in the parish. It was exhausting on so many levels but – judging by the feedback – it was worth all that effort. The parable in today\u2019s gospel in its literal sense was an indictment of effective misappropriation of the true religion. To cut a long story short, the Jewish religious and political elite didn\u2019t bear the fruit expected of them. In a spiritual and metaphorical sense, we can use this parable as a lens to scrutinise our own lives. The Christian community in Corinth established by St Paul was torn by unholy arguments and divisions among its members. One of many bones of contention was the boastful claims of authority based on the spiritual gifts the church members claimed to have. It was effectively a power struggle. St Paul addressed it in his First Letter to the Corinthians: \u2018There are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone.\u2019 (12:4-6) He acknowledged that truly there was a great variety of gifts, talents and skills in the community and all of them originated from the same source: The Holy Trinity. The problem was that they were treated as ego boosters, as something to serve their bearers and to further their influence within the community. So, St Paul continued: \u2018To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.’\u00a0(12:7) In other words, the more talented, gifted, or skilled the community members were the more they should serve it. \u2018If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.\u2019 (13:1-3) In these words, St Paul shattered the Corinthians\u2019 misconception that spiritual gifts, talents and skills had any value in their own right – without active charitable love they can lead to condemnation. As in Corinth two thousand years ago there\u2019s an abundance of spiritual gifts, talents and skills in this community. It became more obvious over the course of lockdown, when the humble St Joseph\u2019s choir enhanced its membership, producing uplifting recordings for Sunday Masses. Similarly, the pool of readers expanded significantly. Some parishioners kept in touch with others to support them in many ways. St Joseph\u2019s youth group continued their meetings over the internet. Many kept supporting the parish financially. Then the churches reopened and now we have volunteers who make them places to come which are as safe as possible. These are just the most visible examples of great involvement within our community for the common good. I have no words to express how grateful I am to each one of you. It\u2019s also a good moment to ask ourselves what our spiritual gifts, talents and skills are and how we can use them for the common good. One might think \u2018I don\u2019t have any special talents that could be of use to anyone.\u2019 That\u2019s not true. I know a man whose great gift is finding really good jokes and sharing them with others. Every week I visit him he makes me laugh – that\u2019s a great gift. Everyone has a gift or talent or skill. The challenge is to discover it and find a use for it without comparing oneself to others. At the end of the day, it\u2019s not the greatness of talents that matters, but their use for the common good. That\u2019s the way to bear fruit and bear it in plenty. Image by Anemone123 from Pixabay<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermon","category-year-a"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13159\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}