Offer It Up

Homily for Thursday of the Ninth Week in Ordinary Time

I’m sure that you have been told more than once that we should offer our sufferings to God to receive his graces and providential care. “Offer it up!” Though St. Paul’s words are more elaborate, he offers the same advice. “I bear with everything for the sake of those who are chosen, so that they too may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus…” In other words, St. Paul is offering up his suffering in jail for his fellow Jews who have not recognized Jesus as the Messiah.

St. Paul also includes a hymn in his second letter to St. Timothy that we might want to consider committing to memory:

If we have died with him we shall also live with him;
if we persevere we shall also reign with him.

But if we deny him he will deny us. 
If we are unfaithful, he remains faithful,
for he cannot deny himself.

(2 Timothy 2:11b-13)

The words of this canticle are phrased as conditional statements; that is not at all what is being said here. We have died with Christ through our baptism. Paul has persevered and sits in jail because of it. He had been warned to stop preaching the Gospel, and because he did not heed the warning, he sat chained to the walls of a jail cell. The only question that remains unanswered is the question about perseverance and faithfulness. This is where we look at our response to the graces we have received through baptism and through the other sacraments as well.

Once again, St. Paul hits the nail right on the head.  Whether St. Paul uses his familiar images of an athletic contest or his equally familiar images of giving birth, there is no doubt that he understood the "problem" of suffering in this world. He had gone through his own struggles and had found Jesus in them. As we know from history, he also suffered death for the sake of his faith, following in the footsteps of his Savior, Jesus. This is the example that he offers Timothy when he exhorts him to fan into flame the ardor that he experienced when St. Paul laid hands on him and appointed him as the leader of the church of Ephesus. Let us also recall the fervor and ardor that we experienced when we responded to the Lord’s call in our vocation in life.