Friday in the 21st Week Of Ordinary Time, August 27, 2021

1 Thessalonians 4:1-8

Brothers and sisters, we earnestly ask and exhort you in the Lord Jesus that, as you received from us how you should conduct yourselves to please God– and as you are conducting yourselves – you do so even more. For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. This is the will of God, your holiness: that you refrain from immorality, that each of you know how to acquire a wife for himself in holiness and honor, not in lustful passion as do the Gentiles who do not know God; not to take advantage of or exploit a brother or sister in this matter, for the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you before and solemnly affirmed. For God did not call us to impurity but to holiness. Therefore, whoever disregards this, disregards not a human being but God, who also gives his Holy Spirit to you.

The lectionary translation of the First Reading for today’s Mass does not lend itself to a clear understanding and so reference will be made to the better Douay Rheims translation, where necessary.  Thus, the first verse of the Reading: “For the rest therefore, brethren, pray and beseech in the Lord Jesus that, as you have received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, so also you would walk, that you may abound the more.”  St. Paul begins this next part of his letter by urging the Thessalonians to pray that God might grant them the grace to put into action the moral teachings they have received from him.  He beseeches them to pray to the Father “in the Lord Jesus” in order  to underline the necessity of praying through Christ, our Mediator.  As the Lord Jesus himself said, “Hitherto, you have not asked anything in my name. Ask, and you shall receive; that your joy may be full.”   The Douay Rheims has, “that you may abound the more”, that is, to prosper spiritually as individuals and as a church.  Their imitation of the conduct of Christ, as taught by St. Paul, will lead many other Gentiles to him: “For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus.”

“This is the will of God, your holiness: that you refrain from immorality.”  God is holy, and he desires holiness for all people.  The Greek word translated here as “immorality” literally means “prostitution” or “fornication”, but it also has the general meaning of any kind of sexual immorality, and this is what Paul means here.  “That each of you know how to acquire a wife for himself in holiness and honor.”  The Greek word translated as “wife” actually means “vessel”, as it is translated in the Douay Rheims.  Paul uses this word in similar ways in other places, as does St. Peter in his First Letter.  In 2 Timothy 2:21, Paul uses the word in a general way to refer to a Christian: “If anyone therefore shall cleanse himself from these [iniquities], he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified and profitable to the Lord, prepared unto every good work.”  From this we can understand Paul as thinking of the Christian as a vessel filled with the Holy Spirit.  Paul is counseling the Thessalonians that it is preferable to marry a fellow Christian “in holiness and honor”, and “not in lustful passion as do the Gentiles who do not know God.”  

“Not to take advantage of or exploit a brother or sister in this matter.”  In the Douay Rheims translation this phrase is treated as a separate sentence, and doing so helps us to understand Paul’s meaning, for it is not directly connected with his counsel on marriage.  This should be translated, per the Douay Rheims, as, “And that no man overreach nor circumvent his brother in business.”  Paul is now exhorting the Thessalonians for purity of conduct in their daily affairs.  “For the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you before and solemnly affirmed.”  Paul reminding them that he has  “solemnly affirmed” that God is an “avenger” of any kind of immorality emphasizes for them the grievousness of sin — a concept understood only in very narrow terms by the ancient Greeks.  For the Greeks, a person had to offend a god personally in order to bring down his wrath, as, famously, in the Judgment of Paris.  “For God did not call us to impurity but to holiness.”  We should note that the Greek word translated here as “impurity” is a different word from the word translated earlier as “immorality”.  Paul uses this word to speak of any kind of sinfulness.  “Therefore, whoever disregards this, disregards not a human being but God, who also gives his Holy Spirit to you.”  Paul reminds the Thessalonians that God had spoken to them through him, and so disobeying the commandments he has related to them is to disobey  God.  He has given them the Holy Spirit, making them his adopted children and giving them the strength to overcome all temptations.  

St. Paul speaks these words to us today.  His Letter is not merely a historical document of limited interest.  He urges each of us today to live the holy life we are most capable of because we are his vessels, filled with the Holy Spirit.