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Commentary on the Gospel for September 10, 2024
Dear friend,
It’s perfectly human for there to be conflicts and problems among us; they also existed in the early Christian communities, as we read in the first reading today. What shouldn’t be normal is that we aren’t able to resolve them among ourselves. This is what angers St. Paul in his letter, that the Corinthians go to the courts before trying to practice fraternal correction: “Is it possible that there is nobody among you wise enough to judge a dispute between believers?”
Believers, just like those who aren’t, aren’t distinguished by the absence of problems or conflicts among us, but by the way we resolve them. Or at least we should be, since faith gives us very effective tools that we shouldn’t discard: fraternal correction, discernment, forgiveness, prayer, the strength of faith… St. Paul is angry with his community because they act like Gentiles, not to say like brutes, in the face of the conflicts that arise among them.
Let’s not be brutes. We will always have problems with relationships, understanding, living together, communication, even with the most beloved and closest people. Let’s be spiritually intelligent and use the valuable tools of faith that we’ve mentioned.
Precisely in today’s Gospel, Jesus calls twelve apostles who are very different from each other, with very different personalities. He didn’t call twelve people of the same social rank, same profession, same age… they were very different. That’s why they had problems and arguments among themselves, as we see in the Gospels. But at the same time, we see how the Lord was teaching them to solve those problems not in the way the world does, but in the way God wants things to be solved in that new way of life that Jesus calls the Kingdom of God, and that we have to build together here and now. That’s why Jesus called the Twelve, and that’s why He has also called us, let’s not forget it.
Your brother in faith,