Saturday of the Seventh Week of Easter
St. Paul has arrived in Rome. During his final two years, he will have private lodgings (guarded by only one soldier), and he will be permitted to have visitors.
But what about the communities he founded in Corinth, Galatia, Ephesus, Philippi, Colossae, and Thessalonica (to name a few)? What about Barnabas, Silas, Mark, Luke, and other persons who worked shoulder-to-shoulder with him? Certainly he has concerns for those places and persons for and with whom he labored.
In life, there will always be unfinished business and struggles ahead. “Our difficulties are not a transitory state of affairs. No, they are the normal state of affairs and we should reckon on being in angustia temporum (in the distress of the times) all our lives so far as the good we want to do is concerned” (St. Charles de Foucauld). “This is ‘hope with a long view,’ coupled with a willingness to continue one’s work even though it is not going to be harvested in one’s lifetime” (Dorothy Day: Love in Action, by Patrick Jordan; pp. 92-93).
To the end, St. Paul “received all who came to him, and with complete assurance and without hindrance he proclaimed the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 28:30-31).
Reflection by Br. Jacob Kubajak, OSB
Posted in Article for Easter, Daily Reflections