Tuesday, October 28 : Origen

If Jesus had chosen intellectuals (according to popular opinion) so as to make of them the administrators of his teaching, persons with the ability to grasp and express the ideas beloved by the crowds, he would have been suspected of having preached in accordance with the methods of those philosophers who have an academy, and the divine nature of his teaching would not have been manifested clearly. Both his doctrine and his preaching would have consisted in “the wisdom of human eloquence” (1Cor 1:17)… and our faith, similar to that which one accords to the teaching of secular philosophers, would have rested “on human wisdom [and not] on the power of God” (1Cor 2:5). But when we see ordinary, unlettered fishermen and tax collectors so bold as to discuss faith in Jesus Christ with the Jews and to preach it with success to the rest of the world, how could we not seek out the origin of this power of persuasion? How could we not acknowledge that the words of Jesus: “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men” (Mt 4:19) has been realized in his apostles by divine power? Paul also demonstrates this power when he writes: “my message and my proclamation were not with persuasive words of wisdom but with a demonstration of the Spirit and the power of God” (1Cor 2:4)… This is what the prophets had already said when they foretold the preaching of the Gospel: “The Lord gives the word to the bearers of glad tidings” that “swiftly may run his word” (Pss 68[67]:12; 147:15). And true enough, we see that “the voice” of Jesus’s apostles “resounds through all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world” (Ps 19[18]:5; Rom 10:18). Hence those who hear the word of God proclaimed with power are themselves filled with power. They demonstrate it by their behavior and their fight for the truth even to death.

Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar – rosary,team