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From: 1 Thessalonians 1:5c-10

Thanksgiving for the Thessalonians' Fidelity

[5c] You know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your

sake. [6] And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you

received the word in much affliction, with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit;

[7] so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia

and in Achaia. [8] For not only has the word of the Lord sounded forth

from you in Macedonia and Achaia, but your faith in God has gone forth

everywhere, so that we need not say anything. [9] For they themselves

report concerning us what a welcome we had among you, and how you

turned to God from idols, to serve a living and true God, [10] and to wait

for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus

who delivers us from the wrath to come.

Commentary:

5. St Paul reminds them that what he preached was the "gospel"
foretold by the prophets (cf. Is 40:9; 52:7; 60:6; 61:1) and fulfilled
by the Incarnation of the Word and by his work of salvation. The
Apostle was pressed into service by the Holy Spirit to forward his work
of sanctification. The Thessalonians were not won over by mere human
words but by the "power" of God, who made those words effective. The
term "power" refers not only to miraculous actions but also to the Holy
Spirit moving the souls of those who heard Paul's preaching.

It is true that this activity, like all actions of God outside himself,
is something done by all three Persons of the Blessed Trinity; but in
the language of Scripture and of the Church it is customary "to
attribute to the Father those works of the Divinity in which power
excels; to attribute to the Son, those in which wisdom excels; and to
the Holy Spirit, those in which love excels" (Leo XIII, "Divinum Illud
Munus", 5).

In the early years of the Church the proclamation of the Gospel was
often marked by special graces of the Holy Spirit, such as prophecy,
miracles, or the gift of tongues (cf. Acts 2:8). This profusion of
gifts made it clear that the messianic era had begun (cf. Acts 2:16),
for it meant the fulfillment of the ancient prophecies: "I will pour
out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall
prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see
visions. Even upon the menservants and maidservants in those days, I
will pour out my spirit" (Joel 3:1-3).

"In power and in the Holy Spirit": in line with the divine plan of
salvation, the time of the Old Testament, which prepared the way for
the coming of the Messiah, has reached its end, and a new era has
begun, the Christian era, the key feature of which is the activity of
the Spirit of God: "It must be said that the Holy Spirit is the
principal agent of evangelization: it is he who impels each individual
to proclaim the Gospel, and it is he who in the depths of consciences
causes the word of salvation to be accepted and understood" (Paul VI,
"Evangelii Nuntiandi", 75).

6. St Paul rejoices at the effect God has had on the Thessalonians.
It is true that Christ is "the" model to be imitated, but the Apostle's
own example played its part in leading them to Christ (cf. 1 Cor 11:1).
"To follow Christ: that is the secret. We must accompany him so
closely that we come to live with him, as the first Twelve did; so
closely, that we become identified with him. Soon we will be able to
say, provided we have not put obstacles in the way of grace, that we
have put on, have clothed ourselves with, our Lord Jesus Christ (cf.
Rom 13:14). Our Lord is then reflected in our behavior, as in a
mirror. If the mirror is as it ought to be, it will capture our
Savior's most lovable face without distorting it or making a caricature
of it; and then other people will have an opportunity of admiring him
and following him" ([St] J. Escriva, "Friends of God", 299).

"Joy", which is one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit (cf. Gal 5:22-23),
is linked to unconditional acceptance of the word of God, and helps a
person to overcome any obstacle he or she may meet on his way (cf. Acts
5:41). "One can be joyful despite lashes and blows, when these are
accepted in the cause of Christ", St John Chrysostom comments. "A
feature of the joy of the Holy Spirit is that it causes an
uncontainable happiness to grow even out of affliction and sorrow
[...]. In the natural course of events afflictions do not produce joy:
joy is the privilege of those who accept sufferings for Jesus Christ's
sake; it is one of the good things bestowed by the Holy Spirit" ("Hom.
on 1 Thess, ad loc.").

7-8. Thessalonica was an important center of trade and a hub of
communications for all Greece. The Christians in the city included a
number of important people and even some women of the aristocracy (cf.
Acts 17:4). The social standing of the converts and the prestige of
the city partly explain the rapid spread of Christian teaching
throughout the region.

What the Apostle says here only goes to show that when the Christian
life is given full rein it spreads far and wide. This should give us
every encouragement "always to act in public in accordance with our
holy faith" ([St]J. Escriva, "Furrow", 46).

9. We can see how happy the Apostle is to learn that the work of
evangelization has borne fruit of conversion to God--which is the whole
purpose of Gospel preaching. "For the Church, evangelization means
bringing the Good News into all the strata of humanity, and through
its influence transforming humanity from within and making it new"
(Paul VI, "Evangelii Nuntiandi", 18).

It is moving to see the way good news spread among the early Christian
communities. Obviously anecdotes about the apostolate would go from
church to church; this gave them an occasion to praise God while at the
same time providing encouragement to stay true to Christ and to spread
the Gospel.

10. The Christian message has this feature which differentiates it
from Judaism--hope in Christ and expectation of Christ. Two central
points of Christian teaching emerge from this verse: Jesus Christ is
the Son of God, who rose from the dead, and he will come again to judge
all. St John Chrysostom observes that "in a single text St Paul brings
together a number of different mysteries concerning Jesus Christ--his
glorious resurrection, his victorious ascension, his future coming, the
judgment, the reward promised to the righteous, and the punishment
reserved for evildoers" ("Hom. on 1 Thess, ad loc.").

This verse probably contains a form of words used in oral preaching,
and perhaps a profession of faith belonging to early Christian liturgy.

"To wait for his son (to come) from heaven": that Jesus Christ will
come again is a truth of faith professed in the Creed: "He will come
again in glory to judge the living and the dead." Christ will be the
Judge of all mankind. Everyone will be personally judged by God twice:
"The first judgment takes place when each one of us departs this life;
for then he is instantly placed before the judgment-seat of God, where
all that he has ever done or spoken or thought during life shall be
subjected to the most rigid scrutiny. This is called the particular
judgment. The second occurs when on the same day and in the same place
all men shall stand together before the tribunal of their Judge, that
in the presence and hearing of all human beings of all time each may
know his final doom and sentence [...]. This is called the general
judgment" ("St Pius V Catechism", I, 8, 3).

The "wrath to come" is a metaphor referring to the just punishment of
sinners. Our Lord Jesus Christ will exempt from it those who have
consistently tried to live in the state of grace and fellowship with
God. St Teresa of Avila warns that "it will be a great thing at the
hour of death to know that we are going to be judged by him whom we
have loved above all things. We can approach this trial with
confidence. It will not be like going into a strange land but into our
own land, for it is the land that belongs to him whom we love so much
and who loves us" ("Way of Perfection", 70, 3).

Source: "The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries". Biblical text
taken from the Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries
made by members of the Faculty of Theology of the University of
Navarre, Spain. Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock,
Co. Dublin, Ireland.

From: Matthew 22:34-40

The Greatest Commandment of All

[34] But when the Pharisees heard that He (Jesus) had silenced the
Sadducees, they came together. [35] And one of them, a lawyer, asked
Him a question, to test Him. [36] "Teacher, which is the greatest
commandment in the law?" [37] And He said to him, "You shall love the
Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all
your mind. [38] This is the great and first commandment. [39] And a
second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. [40] On
these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets."

Commentary:

34-40. In reply to the question, our Lord points out that the whole law
can be condensed into two commandments: the first and more important
consists in unconditional love of God; the second is a consequence and
result of the first, because when man is loved, St. Thomas says, God is
loved, for man is the image of God (cf. "Commentary on St. Matthew",
22:4).

A person who genuinely loves God also loves his fellows because he
realizes that they are his brothers and sisters, children of the same
Father, redeemed by the same blood of our Lord Jesus Christ: "this
commandment we have from Him, that he who loves God should love his
brother also" (1 John 4:21). However, if we love man for man's sake
without reference to God, this love will become an obstacle in the way
of keeping the first commandment, and then it is no longer genuine love
of our neighbor. But love of our neighbor for God's sake is clear
proof that we love God: "If anyone says, `I love God', but hates his
brother, he is a liar" (1 John 4:20).

"You shall love your neighbor as yourself": here our Lord establishes
as the guideline for our love of neighbor the love each of us has for
himself; both love of others and love of self are based on love of
God. Hence, in some cases it can happen that God requires us to put
our neighbor's need before our own; in others, not: it depends on what
value, in the light of God's love, needs to be put on the spiritual and
material factors involved.

Obviously spiritual goods take absolute precedence over material ones,
even over life itself. Therefore, spiritual goods, be they our own or
our neighbor's, must be the first to be safeguarded. If the spiritual
good in question is the supreme one of the salvation of the soul, no
one is justified in putting his own soul into certain danger of being
condemned in order to save another, because given human freedom we can
never be absolutely sure what personal choice another person may make:
this is the situation in the parable (cf. Matthew 25:1-13), where the
wise virgins refuse to give oil to the foolish ones; similarly St. Paul
says that he would wish himself to be rejected if that could save his
brothers (cf. Romans 9:3)--an unreal theoretical situation. However,
what is quite clear is that we have to do all we can to save our
brothers, conscious that, if someone helps to bring a sinner back to
the Way, he will save himself from eternal death and cover a multitude
of his own sins (James 5:20). From all this we can deduce that
self-love of the right kind, based on God's love for man, necessarily
involves forgetting oneself in order to love God and our neighbor for
God.

37-38. The commandment of love is the most important commandment
because by obeying it man attains his own perfection (cf. Colossians
3:14). "The more a soul loves," St. John of the Cross writes, "the
more perfect is it in that which it loves; therefore this soul that is
now perfect is wholly love, if it may thus be expressed, and all its
actions are love and it employs all its faculties and possessions in
loving, giving all that it has, like the wise merchant, for this
treasure of love which it has found hidden in God [...]. For, even as
the bee extracts from all plants the honey that is in them, and has no
use for them for aught else save for that purpose, even so the soul
with great facility extracts the sweetness of love that is in all the
things that pass through it; it loves God in each of them, whether
pleasant or unpleasant; and being, as it is, informed and protected by
love, it has neither feeling nor taste nor knowledge of such things,
for, as we have said, the soul knows naught but love, and its pleasure
in all things and occupations is ever, as we have said, the delight of
the love of God" ("Spiritual Canticle", Stanza 27, 8).