St. Paul goes out of his way to praise the church in Thessalonica. What thanksgiving, then, can we render to God for you, for all the joy we feel on your account before our God? Their faith got them through “every distress and affliction.” But that is not the end of the story. Night and day we pray beyond measure to see you in person and to remedy the deficiencies of your faith. Paul could praise their faith even being aware of where it was lacking. That is our story as well. People will truly say “I’m a good person.” But it can’t stop there. We can’t rest in being good when God calls us to be better. The saint of the day, St. Augustine, wrote “Our hearts are restless until they rest in you, Oh Lord.” We are made for God so anything less than God will not satisfy us in the long run. In our prayer today we should ask the Lord for guidance in growing in “wisdom, age and grace,” with more compassion, more forgiveness, more generosity.
