"Your Labor Is Not In Vain"

As he brings his First Letter to the Corinthians to a close, St. Paul gives some advice that resonates with us today. Because God "gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ, he urges us to "be firm, steadfast, always fully devoted to the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your [our] labor is not in vain." (1Cor 15: 58). In Chapter 16, he again admonishes: "Be on your guard, stand firm in the faith, be courageous, be strong. Your every act should be done with love." (1Cor 16: 13). Facing as many trials as he did, St. Marcellin, in post-revolutionary France, with all its disruption and turmoil in the wake of the Reign of Terror, had every reason to back off and give up his enterprise of establishing a new religious congregation with a network of schools in a poor and economically deprived section of France, where religious indifference was rampant, not unlike what we are facing in our own time. As Lent draws closer to the celebration of he Pascal Mystery, we are reminded of the power and victory of the Resurrection which dispells the pervasive gloom we are expriencing as we look at world and national politics, economic uncertainty, and the closing of Catholic schools and parishes. We need Paul to encourage us to steadfastness in light of the Resurrection which can be translated into doing everything with love, the most powerful force in the world and a guarantee that our labor is not in vain.