6 September 2023 - Wednesday of the 22nd week of Ordinary Time - Colossians 1:1-8

     Today, we hear from the opening of Paul’s letter to the Colossians.  Perhaps this letter is not as familiar to us as some of Paul’s other letters, such as Romans, Corinthians, and Thessalonians. We will hear six days of readings from the Letter to the Colossians at daily mass. 

       It is speculated that Paul wrote this letter to the faith community in Colossae in 60 or 61 AD during his time of imprisonment in Rome, even though he had never visited that city. It appears that one of Paul’s converts from Ephesus was in leadership in that community of believers. Paul was concerned that the Colossians were questioning Christ’s divinity and thus moving toward heresy. Paul sought to develop a personal connection with them through this letter, with the desire to eventually teach and serve there, to lead them away from heresy and false teachings. 

       The overall tone in the Letter to the Colossians not pessimistic, but hopeful. This hope is rooted in the message of Christ’s Good News. Even though Alexander Pope, an 18th century English poet, wrote that “hope springs eternal in the human heart”, in many ways, that is not the reality that exists in the world today. There is a lot of existential angst and a turn to materialism, alcohol and recreational drugs in order to numb the pain or to face life where we human beings do not feel hope. Paul knew that even with riches and power there could be an emptiness inside, a life without hope. Paul knew that the Colossians were once hopeless, but they found hope in their faith. He wanted to remind them of that in his letter.   

     Just as Paul mentions faith, hope, and love very famously in the 13th chapter of First Corinthians, he mentions those three attributes in the reading we hear today as well. In our struggles and despair, we are called to cling to our hope to help us. Just as in our Church’s plan of new evangelization, we have to be evangelized ourselves in order to evangelize others, we have to feel hope in our faith in order to be able to bring that hope to others. Let us truly feel that hope.