Virtues For Building A Church

Friday of the thirtieth week in Course 2024

In our daily lectio Divina with the sacred Scriptures, and especially with the letters of St. Paul, it is helpful to know what passage comes before and what comes after the reading. Today we are in Ephesians 4, which has beautiful and helpful advice on the building up of the Church through the use of God’s spiritual gifts, right after this message on the virtues needed by all who are called. But consider too that right before what we heard today, Paul has given God the praise. Let me read it: “to Him who is able to accomplish far more than all we ask or imagine, by the power at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever.” And we all add a grand “Amen.”

Paul then shares with us the virtues needed to have a community that “rooted and grounded in love, may have power to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fulness of God.” The life lived in a way worthy of Christ’s call is the target behavior. The virtues in that soul? Lowliness, meekness—remember “Blessed are the meek”?—these are characteristics of any good leader, because that makes everyone aware that your actions are not about you. Your actions are about leading others to Christ, and thus fulfilling the Church’s mission to evangelize.

Then patience and forbearance. Suppose you are helping someone learn how to proclaim Scripture. Most people have trouble speaking in public, and reading from a passage many of your hearers may know by heart is a real challenge. So listen to that reader practice, and find three good things for every difficult one. Be patient and forgive mistakes. Your eagerness must have to do with keeping the body of the Church together, maintaining unity. Smile often and criticize rarely.

Jesus gives His listeners some advice on the weather today. This passage from St. Luke is evidence it was written in the Holy Land. What do I mean? "When you see a cloud rising in the west, you say at once, `A shower is coming'; and so it happens.” Israel, then and today, is on the west coast of the Levant. There’s not a lot of water to its east; the Mediterranean provides the only source of rainwater. That’s where clouds will arise—ask Elijah about that. But Jesus is not teaching meteorology. Not at all. This is a lead-in to a strong rebuke to His audience: they can easily tell the weather from observation, but they cannot look at their own culture and see the sin and injustice that underlies everything. Jesus wanted them, and us, to rightly judge what is right and wrong, and then act accordingly. Many Christians make a habit of examining their consciences as the last act of their day. See what you’ve done right and wrong, repent of the latter, and give thanks to God for forgiveness and grace.