February 4, 2026

Fr. John Riccardo

When I came to you, brothers and sisters, proclaiming the mystery of God, I did not come with sublimity of words or of wisdom. For I resolved to know nothing with you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear and much trembling, and my message and my proclamation were not with persuasive words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of Spirit and power, so that your faith may not rest on human wisdom but on the power of God (1 Corinthians 2:1-5).

Luke records a violent mob forming in Thessalonica as a result of Paul’s preaching in that town. For three consecutive weeks, Paul had been proclaiming “the mystery of God” in the synagogues. The result of that preaching created great unrest. Some of the Jewish leaders, provoked by jealousy, Luke tells us, went to government officials and argued that Paul was “turning the world upside down” (Acts 17:1-9).

At the heart Paul’s proclamation of the mystery of God was the announcement that the world’s true Lord and King was not the Roman Claudius, the Roman Emperor; it was Jesus. Jesus was none other than God’s own Son (a title Claudius also claimed for himself), and He had become the world’s rightful King by His defeat of the cosmic powers that had oppressed and enslaved the entire human race almost from the very beginning. Those powers were Death and Sin, and the malignant force behind them, Satan. Jesus had defeated all of these by His cross and resurrection. On the day we call Good Friday, Jesus launched the beginning of the restoration of God’s good creation. One very real day He will return, Paul taught, and bring it all to a glorious fulfillment.

In the meantime, however, it is the task of His disciples to get about the work of being both working models of this restoration and active agents in Jesus’ hands, animated by the power of the Holy Spirit. In other words, much as we don’t think this way very often today, the proclamation of “the mystery of God” had a most definite political dimension to it. Jesus, Paul teaches and preaches in various ways, didn’t rescue us from the world but for the world. Jesus’ own words, not least in the Gospel for this Sunday, make that emphatically clear: “You are the salt of the earth…the light of the world…a city set on a hill…no one lights a lamp and puts it under a basket but on a stand” (cf. Matthew 5:13-16).

Of course, this easily gets messy. We are fallen, broken, selfish, insecure, proud people. We are not angels. Commissioned to go and make disciples of all nations, to teach them everything Jesus commanded, we always do as works in progress. There is great need for humility, radical dependence on God, constant prayer, and more. We can’t ever build the city of God — that will only happen on the day of Jesus’ return when He will make all things new. And yet we have to resist with all our might the temptation to reduce faith to something otherworldly and withdraw from and abandon the world. This would be entirely contrary to what the Lord commanded us.

As disciples of Jesus, we have all been made by baptism and called to be priests, prophets and kings. These aren’t empty titles with no practical, this-worldly repercussions. Instead, they are most timely in our — and every age. Priests have access to God. This priesthood of all believers that we share by baptism — one that precedes that of the ordained — calls us to come into God’s courts in hopeful lamentation, bringing the aches and pains and cries of our communities, nations and world before the God and Father of us all. In doing so, we’re not making Him aware of something He doesn’t already know; rather, we’re allowing the Spirit to groan in and through us as we see all that’s unjust in this world God loves, and place it there with restless but confident trust that God hears our cries and will in fact bring about the restoration of all things one day.

Prophets are those men and women commissioned to speak on God’s behalf. Again, this is something that belongs to each of us by our baptism. In Scripture, we commonly see God raise up prophets to address two fundamental crises: idolatry and the trampling of human dignity. As prophets were needed in those days, so they are needed now. Or, better said perhaps, you and I are needed now. We need to speak out in charity against idols, that is, against those things that try to make themselves more important than God. These can include anything from greed to pleasure, and from power to reputation, and countless more besides. We also need to speak out against injustice and the many ways we fail to see the inherent dignity and worth of every single human being, whether that’s the child in the womb, the trafficked teenage girl, the homeless woman on the street, the immigrant in our midst, the first responder, or the dying man in hospice.

Finally, we are called to live as men and women who share in Jesus’ Kingship. To understand this, we need to remember what kings were called to do in the Old Testament. Three primary responsibilities fell to these people: to lead the army out to battle when it was necessary to do so in order to defend the people; to take care of widows and orphans; and to look after the poor. For us now, this practically means having our eyes opened to those in need around us and then acting in such a way to help as we are able.

Of course, in order for you and me to serve the world in this way, to be salt and light, something is necessary: our allegiance to Jesus before all others. This is what Paul was calling the Church in Corinth to as he preached the mystery of God. Since no one has done for us what Jesus has done for us — who else has defeated Death or Sin? — He is rightly to be before all other loyalties: political parties, nationalities, sports teams, even families.

This loyalty to Jesus from people who often had nothing in common, and many times had been accustomed to seeing “the other” as an enemy, was a most significant part of what “turned the world upside down.” It was a demonstration of Spirit and power. As we pray with Paul’s words this week, and Jesus’, let us ask the Lord for the grace to renew our own allegiance and loyalty to Him above all others, and ask how He desires to use us to be an agent of healing in this world He loves.

Demonstrations of Power

May God Keep Us Wise

True Greatness