Agree In What You Say

Hi! and happy holy and family day to all of us, GUYS.  Our first-thing-first this Sunday:

THE GOOD NEWS (22 January 2017)

"I beg of you, brothers, in the name of CHRIST JESUS, our LORD, to agree among yourselves and do away with divisions; please be perfectly united, with one mind and one judgment.

For I heard from people of Cloe's house about your rivalries.  What I mean is this: some say, 'I am for Paul,' and others: 'I am for Apollo,' or 'I am for Peter,' or 'I am for CHRIST.'  Is CHRIST divided or have I, Paul, been crucified for you?  Have you been baptized in the name of Paul?

I thank GOD that I did not baptize any of you, except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one can say that he was baptized in my name.  Well, I have also baptized the Stephanas family.  Apart from these, I do not recall having baptized anyone else.

For CHRIST did not send me to baptize, but to proclaim HIS Gospel.  And not with beautiful words!  That would be like getting rid of the cross of CHRIST." - 1 Corinthians 1:10-17 

(The first sin of the Church is the division among believers.  Several apostles passed through Corinth.  Certain members of the community profited by this to affirm their own identity by declaring allegiance to one leader rather than another: a way of satisfying vanity and the need of self-assertion.

Agree among yourselves and do away with divisions: be a united family.  This admonition is understood when the Church is a community sharing the same concerns.  It is a little different when the church gathers together large numbers of people of different backgrounds who are perhaps opposed to one another in daily life.  In this case the Christian community must be united, not by ignoring reality and never talking of inequalities, but by recognizing individual and collective faults in daily life.  The Church can never be a reunion of passive or "heavenly" people.

CHRIST did not send me to baptize.  When the Church is fully absorbed in its own problems, Paul reminds them of their mission: Is our first concern to preach the Gospel, or to dispute for the posts of guides and ministers of the community?

That would like getting rid of the cross of CHRIST.  The cross should be present in the message we preach and in the way we preach it.

Moreover in evangelization it will always cost us to work with poor resources in a world subject to media.  We need to count on the grace of GOD because we are weak and without titles of prestige.  It will cost us to remind our communities of the poverty of JESUS and to be criticized by those who are well off in the world.)

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