Chosen by God (29th Sunday in Ordinary Time)

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Click here for this Sunday’s Old Testament reflection (Cyrus, the Lord’s Anointed)

Thessalonica was one of the cities St. Paul visited during his second missionary journey. Acts 17:1-10 records that he went and preached at the Jewish synagogue there, and converted several Jews and God-fearing Greeks, before he was driven out of the city by a Jewish mob, and was forced to move on to Berea. He would go on to write two letters to these Thessalonian converts, which were his first two epistles (both dated to around AD 49-52).

In the first letter, after giving them his greeting (1:1), he thanks God for them, showing his response to faith when he preached the Gospel at Thessalonica, and praying that they remain steadfast in that faith (1:2). He then mentions how they displayed “the work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ” (1:3). These three are known in Christian theology as the theological virtues. Paul would later describe them as an armour that will protect them from evil: “But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation.” (1 Thessalonians 5:8)

He then describes them as having been chosen by God for salvation (1:4). This delves into the mystery of divine election, which Lumen Gentium describes as such: “The eternal Father, in accordance with the utterly gratuitous and mysterious design of his wisdom and goodness, created the whole universe and chose to raise up men to share in his own divine life” (LG 2, cf. CCC 759).

This divine election came about, as Paul describes it, “in power and in the Holy Spirit with full conviction” (1:5). This underscores the fact that only the Holy Spirit can cause someone to have faith. Paul would later teach that “nobody can say ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit.” (1 Corinthians 12:3).

In Christ, we have been chosen by God, moved by the Holy Spirit, and infused with the theological virtues. Let us always rejoice in our salvation and strive to live by these virtues.

J. Luis Dizon