12 July 2013 - spirited speech

12 July 2013 - spirited speech

When they hand you over,
do not worry about how you are to speak
or what you are to say.

Let's take note of what this excerpt does not say.  It does not say to that we don't benefit from being ready to speak.  In fact, Peter tells us to always be ready to give a reason for our hope (cf. 1 Pet. 3:15).  On the other hand, "[w]hen they hand you over" is not the time to start this process.  More specifically, it is not the time to start worrying about it, which is in any event different from careful planning.  The point is that times of desolation aren't good times for planning and discernment if we can help it.

You will be given at that moment what you are to say.
For it will not be you who speak
but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.

The Holy Spirit certainly has the power to just take over with words we don't have the skill or even the knowledge to come up with on our own.  But the Holy Spirit is pleased to work with the limited resources we bring just as he does with in speaking through authors of the Scriptures.  In either case, we need to step out of our own way.  If we come to these desolations and let worry dominate us we risk becoming too inwardly focused to let the Spirit speak.

That God works in us is not an excuse to burry our talents (cf. Mat. 25:14-30).  It is an encouragement to be able to trust God in any situation.  It is an acknowledgement that ultimately our preparations are always insufficient.  Nothing we say means anything without the Holy Spirit changing hearts.  Hence Paul VI writes in Evangelii Nuntiandi 75 that "[e]vangelization will never be possible without the action of the Holy Spirit." This should not cause us to despair.  Jesus assures us that the Holy Spirit will give each and every one of us what we need at these moments.

The salvation of the just is from the LORD;
he is their refuge in time of distress.

The message of today's readings is to trust in the LORD in difficult moments. Joseph does this through hardship after hardship.  Jesus warns:

Brother will hand over brother to death,

Joseph's brothers almost kill him.  They do hand him over to slavery.  But Jesus warns of this only to encourage us to stand fast.

but whoever endures to the end will be saved.

The LORD turns these hardships into blessings for Joseph until he is finally reunited with his father.

And Israel said to Joseph, “At last I can die,
now that I have seen for myself that Joseph is still alive.”

Just so, if we endure to the end the LORD will turn all the hardships of our life into blessings that ultimately unite us with our true Father in heaven, from whom all earthly fathers are named (cf. Eph. 3:15)