Delivered from Discouragement

Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator

After enumerating all that has happened to him in the course of his missionary journeys, St. Paul calls Timothy back to his roots. He had been taught Scripture at the knees of his mother and grandmother. He was the son of a Jewish woman and a Roman gentleman. Imbued with the Scriptures and through the preaching of St. Paul, he had turned to Jesus. However, as the presbyter in his community, he had been discouraged by those who opposed him and the Gospel. St. Paul simply reminds him that the Scriptures have given us what we need to overcome such difficulties.

One cannot read these letters to Timothy without thinking of those times in our lives when we have been discouraged. It is simply part of human life. No one gets through life without some kind of hardship in various forms. Just as our ancestors got through their difficulties, so too will we be delivered by God's saving grace.