Statue of Saint George Preca at Montekristo Estates, Hal Farrug, Luqa
Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam (To the Greater Glory of God)
First Reading:
From: Acts 18:1-8
Paul in Corinth, with Aquila and Priscilla
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[1] After this he left Athens and went to Corinth. [2] And he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, lately come from Italy with his wife Priscilla because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome. And he went to see them; [3] and because he was of the same trade he stayed with them, and they worked, for by trade they were tentmakers. [4] And he argued in the synagogue every sabbath, and persuaded Jews and Greeks.
Preaching to Jews and Gentiles
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[5] When Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, Paul was occupied with preaching, testifying to the Jews that the Christ was Jesus. [6] And when they opposed and reviled him, he shook out his garments and said to them, "Your blood be upon your heads! I am innocent. From now on I will go to the Gentiles." [7] And he left there and went to the house of a man named Titius Justus, a worshipper of God; his house was next door to the synagogue. [8] Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, believed in the Lord, together with all his household; and many of the Corinthians hearing Paul believed and were baptized.
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Commentary:
1-11. St Paul must have arrived in Corinth very discouraged by what happened in Athens, and very short of money. Some time later he wrote: "And I was with you in weakness and in much fear and trembling; and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God..." (1 Cor 2:3-4). He would never forget his experience in the Areopagus before the Athenians, who "were friends of new speeches yet who paid no heed to them or what they said; all they wanted was to have something new to talk about" (Chrysostom, "Hom. on Acts", 39).
Corinth was a very commercial, cosmopolitan city located on an isthmus between two gulfs (which are now joined). Ships came to Corinth from all over the world. Low moral standards, concentration on money-making and voluptuous worship of Aphrodite meant that Corinth did not seem the best ground for sowing the word of God; but the Lord can change people's hearts, especially if he has people as obedient and zealous as Paul, Silvanus, Timothy and the early Christians in general. The Athenians' intellectual pride proved to be a more formidable obstacle than the Corinthians' libertarian lifestyle.
Christians should not soft-pedal if they find themselves in situations where paganism and loose living seem to be the order of the day: indeed this should only spur them on. When addressing his Father at the Last Supper Jesus prayed: "I do not pray that thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that thou shouldst keep them from the evil one" (Jn 17:15).
2. This married couple were probably already Christians when they arrived in Corinth. Since they came from Rome, the indications are that there was a community of Christians in the capital from very early on. Aquila and Priscilla (the diminutive of Prisca) proved to be of great help to Paul from the very beginning of his work in Corinth.
Later on they both must have returned to Rome (cf. Rom 16:3); and it may well be that apostolic considerations dictated their movements, as would be the case with countless Christians after them. "The Christian family's faith and evangelizing mission also possesses this Catholic missionary inspiration. The sacrament of marriage takes up and reproposes the task of defending and spreading the faith, a task which has its roots in Baptism and Confirmation and makes Christian married couples and parents witnesses of Christ 'to the ends of the earth' (Acts 1:8) [...].
"Just as at the dawn of Christianity Aquila and Priscilla were presented as a missionary couple (cf. Acts 18; Rom 16:3f), so today the Church shows forth her perennial newness and fruitfulness by the presence of Christian couples who [...] work in missionary territories, proclaiming the Gospel and doing service to their fellowman for the love of Jesus Christ" (John Paul II, "Familiaris Consortio", 54).
The edict of Claudius (41-54 A.D.) expelling the Jews from Rome was issued before the year 50. It is referred to by Suetonius, the Roman historian, but the details of the decree are not known. We do know that Claudius had protected the Jews on a number of occasions. He gave them the right to appoint the high priest and to have charge of the temple. Apparently, conflict between Jews and Christians in Rome led him to expel some Jews from the city, on a temporary basis, or at least to advise them to leave.
3. St Paul earns his living and manages to combine this with all his preaching of the Gospel. "This teaching of Christ on work," John Paul II writes, "based on the example of his life during his years in Nazareth, finds a particularly lively echo in the teaching of the Apostle Paul. Paul boasts of working at his trade (he was probably a tent-maker: cf. Acts 18:3), and thanks to that work he was able even as an Apostle to earn his own bread" ("Laborem Exercens", 26).
During this stay of a year and a half in Corinth St Paul wrote some rather severe letters to the Thessalonians, pointing out to them the need to work: "If any one will not work, let him not eat. [...] we command and exhort [idlers] in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work in quietness and to earn their own living" (2 Thess 3:10, 12). St John Chrysostom, commenting on this passage of Acts, says that "Work is man's natural state. Idleness is against his nature. God has placed man in this world to work, and the natural thing for the soul is to be active and not passive" ("Hom. on Acts", 35).
Taking Christ's own example, St J Escriva points out that "Work is one of the highest human values and a way in which men contribute to the progress of society. But even more, it is a way to holiness" ("Conversations", 24). In Jesus' hands, "a professional occupation, similar to that carried out by millions of people in the world, was turned into a divine task. It became a part of our redemption, a way to salvation" ("ibid"., 55).
In fact, it is in work, in the middle of ordinary activity, that most people can and should find Christ. God "is calling you to serve him in and from the ordinary, material and secular activities of human life. He waits for us everyday [...] in all the immense panorama of work" ("ibid"., 114). Man thereby finds God in the most visible, material things, and Christians can avoid the danger of what might be called "a double life: on one side, an interior life, a life of relation with God; and on the other, a separate and distinct professional, social and family life, full of small earthly realities" ("ibid".).
Like most people Paul spent part of his day working to earn his living. When engaged in work he was still the Apostle of the Gentiles chosen by God, and his very work spoke to his companions and friends. We should not think that there was any split between his on-going personal relationship with God, and his apostolic activity or his work--or that he did not work in a concentrated or exemplary manner.
4. It is easy to imagine the hope and eagerness Paul felt when preaching the Gospel to his fellow Jews. He knew from experience the difficulties they had about recognizing Jesus as the Messiah and accepting the Good News. Paul feels both joy and sorrow: he is happy because the moment has arrived for the sons of Abraham to receive the Gospel as is their right by inheritance; but he also realizes that although it brings salvation to some, it spells rejection for those who refuse to accept it.
Origen spoke in similar terms: "I experience anxiety to speak and anxiety not to speak. I wish to speak for the benefit of those who are worthy, so that I may not be taken to task for refusing the word of truth to those who have the ability to grasp it. But I am afraid to speak in case I address those who are unworthy, because it means I am giving holy things to dogs and casting pearls before swine. Only Jesus was capable of distinguishing, among his listeners, those who were without from those who were within: he spoke in parables to the outsiders and explained the parables to those who entered with him into the house" ("Dialogue with Heraclides", 15).
6. The blindness of the Jews once again causes Paul great sadness; here is further evidence of the mysterious resistance to faith of so many of the chosen people. As he did in Pisidian Antioch (cf. 13:51), the Apostle shakes the dust from his clothes to show his break from the Jews of Corinth: their apparent fidelity to the religion of their forefathers disguises their proud rejection of God's promises.
He finds himself confronted by the great enigma of salvation history, in which God dialogues with human freedom. As St Justin writes, "The Jews, in truth, who had the prophecies and always looked for the coming of Christ, not only did not recognize him, but, far beyond that, even mistreated him. But the Gentiles, who had never even heard anything of Christ until his Apostles went from Jerusalem and preached about him and gave them the prophecies, were filled with joy and faith, and turned away from their idols, and dedicated themselves to the Unbegotten God through Christ" ("First Apology", 49, 5).
Paul's words on this occasion are addressed to the Jews of Corinth, not to Jews elsewhere. For a long time past he has directed his preaching to Gentiles as well as Jews. The phrase "From now on I will go to the Gentiles" does not mean that he will no longer address Jews, for in the course of his apostolic work he continues to evangelize Jews as well as Gentiles (cf. Acts 18:19; 28:17).
7. Titus Justus had a Roman name and was a Gentile, but the fact that he lived next door to the synagogue and, in particular, the Greek term used to identify him as a "worshipper" of God, indicates that he was a convert to Judaism. Cf. note on Acts 2:5-11.