12 November 2026 - St Josaphat - homily for Thursday of the 32nd week in Ordinary Time - Philemon 7-20

St Josaphat is the saint we celebrate today.  He was a bishop in present-day Belarus in the early 17th century.  He was killed by an angry mob because he was advocating that his community of Christians, who were Ruthenians and who were a part of the Orthodox Church, be joined in full communion with the Roman Catholic Church. We think of the division that characters the world today and that characterizes Christianity in so many way.  When the Roman empire was split into the East and the West in the 4th century, it foreshadowed the split was to come in the Church the 11th century, when a schism split the Church in the year 1054. There have been signs of reconciliation and friendship in recent years between the Churches in the East and the West, but, unfortunately, Christianity remains very divided today. 

The last two days, we heard from the letter of St Paul to Titus. Today, we hear from the letter of St Paul to Philemon, which is so short that it is not even organized into chapters. St Paul wrote this letter while he was in prison himself, probably in Rome.  But Paul is not interested in his own safety and well-being and release from prison. Instead, St Paul is interested in the welfare of the runaway slave Onesimus, who was returning to his owner, Philemon. The faith journey St Paul is so interesting and filled with so many striking contrasts. He started out as a prosecutor of Christian, pursuing them to be arrested or killed. After his conversion to the way of Jesus, he works tirelessly to spread the Gospel message to the world, even willing to go to prison for the sake of the Gospel. When I was in Rome a few years ago at the Basilica of St Paul just outside the walls of the ancient city of Rome, I even got to see a piece of the chains that enslaved Paul when he was in prison. Paul wrote to so many different Christian communities as their spiritual father, one who spent so much time nurturing them in the faith. He even calls Onesimus his spiritual son in the faith, his own very heart. May the zeal and tenacity that characterizes Paul journey of faith inspire us to live out the Gospel message in the ordinary moments of our day.