Often, we priests preach on the Gospel of the day in our daily Masses, but I remember in seminary the advice of one of my Scripture professors, Dr Richard Lux. He advised us as priests not to neglect the first readings and to preach on them as well. In our daily masses, the first readings are usually from the Old Testament, but this week and last week, we have been hearing from Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians. At the time Paul was writing this letter, he realized that the community in Corinth was drifting away from the true faith and that there was no longer a strong sense of unity among them. Paul tried to draw them back into the true teachings of Christ, to bring them back to the message that they originally heard, which Paul says is the true Gospel. That is what I like about having our lectionary of daily and Sunday readings. If I had to choose what to preach on each week, it would be easy to concentrate on what was comforting and not challenging. However, sometimes the message of the Gospel is radical or something we struggle with. It is easy to label each other in society, and we can see a great division and polarization and disunity in many facets of our society, particularly in politics. In the Church, it is easy to label a priest or a parishioner liberal or conservative. We all have different gifts to bring. We all have different experiences and different outlooks. If we would journey together and learn from each other, trying to be true to the message of the Gospel and to forge ties of unity and solidarity, what wonderful seeds we would be sowing in our Church! Think about how we can work toward unity in our parish and our Church, and how we can stay true to Gospel of Jesus Christ.
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