Paul’s writings reveal his person and personality!

August 25, 2025 Monday of the Twenty-first Week in Ordinary Time
Daily Readings: 1 Thessalonians 1:1-5, 8b-10; Matthew 23:13-22

We are indeed privileged to read the first Christian document from a New Testament writer, St. Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians. His writing reveals much about his person and personality. Perhaps he was not familiar with Jesus of Nazareth, the Jesus of history, but his encounter with the Risen Lord, the Christ of faith, transformed him completely.

As a highly educated Pharisee, Paul could have chosen any literary genre for his writing. Yet, as a child of Greco-Roman culture, he preferred to write letters to the Christian communities with whom he had been associated. Paul was a team player, though he did have conflicts with some individuals. Together with his co-writers, Silvanus (Silas) and Timothy, he greets the Thessalonians with peace and assures them of his prayers. He commends their work of faith, steadfastness of hope, and labour of love. He reminds them of the power of the Holy Spirit that worked among them and of how they had behaved in his presence.

The community in Thessalonica has become a model for the churches in Macedonia (northern Greece) and Achaia (southern Greece). Paul recalls how these new believers abandoned idol worship, turned to God, and resolved to serve the living and true God. At the end of the passage, he touches on the theme of the Parousia, which will be the main focus of this letter, written to the first European Christians.

In Matthew 23, Jesus addresses the Pharisees and scribes, pronouncing a series of woes upon them and calling them hypocrites. He accuses them of misleading people and obstructing the path to salvation through their deceptive and false spirituality. Their lack of genuine faith and morality, coupled with their zeal to proselytize, is undermined by their own hypocritical way of life, which prevents true religious conversion.

We are fortunate to be able to compare the spirituality and attitude of St. Paul and his companions with that of the Pharisees and scribes of Jesus’ time, and to draw our own conclusions.

Call to Action: Spirituality is about embracing Christ and practising the values of the Kingdom, not about external displays of religiosity. Blessed are those who realize this!