In today's first reading, 1 Timothy 4: 1-8, Paul says to Timothy, and to us: Beloved: I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingly power: proclaim the word; be persistent whether it is convenient or inconvenient; convince, reprimand, encourage through all patience and teaching...[B]e self-possessed in all circumstances; fulfill your ministry."
We proclaim the word by word, by deed, by our very lives, that is, lives of integrity. We live a life of integrity when we consistently follow Christ and His messages in the Gospel, when we live by faith, when we love God with our whole heart, our whole soul, and our whole mind and our neighbor as ourselves and do all of this when "convenient and inconvenient." Paul asks us to be "self-possessed", that is in control of our emotions, our thoughts, our actions and not act out in anger or jealousy or revenge or greediness, covetousness, or avarice, in sexual excess or lust. We are asked to be patient, kind and loving, caring and forgiving, understanding and compassionate!
Am I, are you, aware of when another person need for encouragement or need to be reprimanded for making choices contrary to their baptism into the life and death of Christ? On the other hand, am I, are you, open to needing to be encouraged to make right choices or our need to be reprimanded for going astray?
Later in this passage, Paul says that he is "being poured out like a libation, and [that] the time of [his] departure is at hand." Confidently, he says: "I have competed well; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith. From now on the crown of righteousness awaits me, which the Lord, the just judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but to all who have longed for his appearance."
What to you, what do I, want to be able to say when our departure from this earth is at hand? If we stay on the course that we are now o, will we be able to say: "I have competed well; ...I have kept the faith...[A] crown of righteousness awaits me, which the Lord...will award to me on that day" when I enter eternal life?
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