for September 1
Tuesday of the Twenty-Second Week of Ordinary Time

The beginning and end of today’s reading from 1 Corinthians come together in an amazing way (to borrow the words of today’s gospel). 

“The Spirit scrutinizes everything,” Paul begins, “even the depths of God.” And we have been given this very Spirit from God, he goes on. So when Paul concludes by quoting the Prophet Isaiah’s question, “who has known the mind of the Lord?” he can immediately answer himself: we do; “we have the mind of Christ.”

While Paul is writing far too early in the life of the church to have a fully articulated theology of the Trinity, he certainly has an intuitive understanding of the shared life of God-Spirit-Christ. And Paul is quite clear that God’s gift to us is a share in that very life. 

This is the word of God on an ordinary Tuesday in ordinary time. It is awesome, in the dictionary sense of inspiring awe: that the Spirit shares the depths of God with us! We have the mind of Christ. But over some two thousand years of human history since Paul made that claim, war, refugees, hunger, hatreds of all stripes and varieties—not to mention the current crises of epidemic, economic injustice and environmental exploitation—seem, if not a contradiction of that truth, then certainly glaring examples of human mindlessness.

How much more awe-some would it be if we spoke with the authority that Jesus’s word carried from the very beginning of his ministry in Galilee? If ‘unclean spirits’ recognized justice and mercy in us at first sight? If we used the power we have been given to banish suffering and do no harm?

Our world very much needs the mind of Christ, the Spirit alive and at work in the world. Shall we not pass on the gift that we have received?
—BJ Brown

Today’s readings can be found on the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ website.