Memorial of Saints Timothy & Titus, Bishops
Today, we celebrate St Paul’s right hand and left hand: Timothy, whom Paul sent to oversee the church in Ephesus, and Titus, whom Paul sent to oversee the Christian community in Crete.
Given that he is my own patronal saint, I hope you’ll allow me to go on a bit about Timothy today.
Paul loved Timothy so much that he considered him his own son, although Timothy’s faith was handed on to him by the women in his family - his grandmother and his mother. Many of us would have learnt the basics of our faith - Bible stories, liturgical prayer, and so on - from our families. And today’s feast gives us pause to thank God for this.
Similarly, Paul learnt his faith from the rabbi Gamaliel. But faith in God is not primarily something we learn from a book (or scrolls in the first century), but it is relational, and so, we encounter our God through others, through belonging to a community of faith, through the mass and the sacraments of the Church.
I believe that ultimately our faith has to, sooner or later, come to a “Damascus road moment” where we, like Saul of Tarsus, get knocked on our arse. Then, like Paul, we’ll be ready to encounter the risen Christ. This comes through living the faith – through, as St Paul says, something as personal as “suffering for the gospel” (2 Tim 1:8).
Timothy and Paul were prepared for that Damascus road moment to know the Lord more intimately, by faithful Jews, Gamaliel the rabbi or Timothy’s grandmother Lois, or his mother Eunice, who we’re told in Acts was “a Jewish woman who was a believer” (Acts 16:1). So, we’re reminded of our Jewish heritage. Indeed, the Pontifical Biblical Commission has said that:
“Without the Old Testament, the New Testament would be an incomprehensible book, a plant deprived of its roots and destined to dry up and wither”.
Shortly after his election in 1978, John Paul II visited the synagogue in Rome. He may well have been the first pope to do so since Peter. In greeting those gathered for this momentous event, the Holy Father said, “I greet you as our brothers. No, not our brothers but our ELDER brothers!” May we have the same reverence knowing that Paul & Timothy & Mary & Joseph & all the apostles were Jews. May we be grateful for those who passed the faith on to us.
Let us pray,
Sts. Paul, Eunice, Lois, Timothy, & Titus intercede for us that we grow in the faith we inherited from our ancestors in the faith! And for each and everyone of them, dear Lord, we give thanks.
Amen.
—Timothy J. Cronin