How appropriate that on this, the forty-eighth day of the Easter seaon, the Church holds up St. Paul and St. John for our reflection. You can think of them as two of the streams that feed into the mighty river which is the Church. The Pauline streami is concerned with how to live the faith in the midst of a world which was hostile to the gospel. St. Paul worried about the behaviors, the structures, the systems that would help Christians as they navigated their way through daily life. The Johannine stream had one central theme that controlled the narrative: Love one another. Jesus keeps hammering away at that theme in the Fourth Gospel right up to the concluding dialogue with St. Peter: “Do you love me?” The experience of the church is that both streams are important. Love is, of course, what the Christian life is all about. However, we need those concrete structures and behaviors to keep us focused on HOW we are to live in love in this world. Holding both streams together makes us a vibrant Church.
MAY262023
By Church Staff
