“Whoever teaches something different….is conceited, understanding nothing, and has a morbid disposition for arguments and verbal disputes. From these come envy, rivalry, insults, evil suspicions, and mutual friction.” (1 Tim 6:2-3)
Paul’s very direct words to Timothy in today’s reading hit me between the eyes. How often after silly “arguments and verbal disputes,” did “envy, rivalry, insults and friction” come into my own life and the life of our Capuchin fraternity. Though these disputes are natural, even necessary, and come to most of us and probably every community, group, business and church, they came be death dealing unless we address them with a gospel integrity and forthrightness, beginning with ourselves.
Today, therefore a good examination of conscience is in order, not to foster guilt within or among us, but to honestly acknowledge our own faults and to ask for the grace to address them. Recently, everything inside me urges quiet, something I enjoy on my own terms, but the call I hear is to be quieter in the larger world of my fraternity and our church. This is ironic, of course, since I have just been assigned to our preaching team. Nevertheless, the sense of not having to express every thought I have and win every argument is very strong.
Furthermore, a communal path to reconciliation is also necessary for the church. The time seems long past when a bishop or a pastor can simply decree that arguments stop. In a world in which almost every word we utter is public property, a method or path of reconciliation for the church as a whole seems essential. The scandal of Christians fighting with one another who have as St Paul says, “a morbid disposition for arguments,” is not only counterproductive internally, it impedes the announcing of the Good News and God’s reign.
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