1 Corinthians 16:13-14
Be watchful, stand firm in your faith, be courageous, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love.
Today’s verse is written, we should recall, to a Church which was about six years old. It is amazing for us, living in the twenty first century, to conceive of a Catholic Church that is only six years old. The Corinthians had very little history to look back on. Even if they turned to the “universal Church” they were still drawing on less than 30 years of history and experience. So Paul’s exhortation to “stand firm in your faith, be courageous, be strong” is quite understandable. The Corinthians were, to a certain extent, still finding their feet and discovering many of the structures, practices, and customs which we their descendants would benefit from. Happily, God gave them a giant named St. Paul as their first teacher. And the most gigantic thing about him was that he knew exactly where the center of their life was supposed to be. It is found in the last nine words of his exhortation, words as practical as potatoes and as central to the Christian life today as they were 2000 years ago.
