Saints and sinners together
After putting up that post below on redefining religion and banishing sin (the concept, unfortunately not the act)….I read the Vatican Information Service account of Pope Benedict’s Wednesday audience today, and noticed how these messages dovetail nicely.
“Even among saints differences, discord and controversies arise,” commented the Holy Father. “And I find this a consolation because we see that saints have not ‘come down from heaven.’ They are people like us, with problems, even complicated problems. Sanctity does not consist in never having made mistakes or sinned. Sanctity grows in the capacity for conversion and penance, of willingness to start again and, above all, in the capacity for reconciliation and forgiveness.”
I find that a consolation, too. Because there’s certainly a lot of discord and controversy out there. And complicated problems that divide even believers into splintered factions.
Silas, also known as Silvanus, communicated the decisions of the Council of Jerusalem to the Christians of Antioch, Syria and Cilicia. “Evidently he was held to be capable of mediating between … Jewish Christians and Christians of pagan origin, thus serving the unity of the Church in the diversity of her rites and origins.”
Finding and serving what unites Christians should be easier than following what divides the many factions. But that depends on what the factions want to hear, or believe.
Apollos was a “cultured man well-versed in the Scriptures,” the Pope continued. He preached in Ephesus and also in Corinth where, however, his success “had problematic overtones because some members of the Church there, fascinated by his oratory, in his name set themselves against the others.”
Church divisions, with modern day evidence like the post below, started in the time of the apostles, of course.
“Paul … expresses appreciation for Apollos activities but reprimands the Corinthians for being divided. … He draws an important lesson from the whole affair: Both I and Apollos, he writes, are no more … than simple ministers, through whom you have come to the faith. … All have different tasks in the field of the Lord.”
The Holy Father concluded: “These words are still valid for everyone today, for Popes, for cardinals, bishops, priests and lay people.
…and those afield at the moment.