What miracles can only Catholics see about Today’s Reading from 2 Corinthians 8:1-9?
Only Catholics understand the “financial miracle” that happened in Macedonia. Macedon was the birthplace of Alexander the Great. God used him to unify and “Greekify” Turkey, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Israel, and Egypt nearly 400 years earlier. Leaders knew the Greek language and thinking that crystallized in the Greek philosophies of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, who became Alexander’s teacher. Paul describes the “financial miracle” from Macedon’s poorest people:
“We want you (every Catholic who would come to be) to know, brothers and sisters, of the grace of God that has been given to the churches of Macedonia, for in a severe test of affliction, the abundance of their joy and their profound poverty overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part.”
Then, St. Paul explains what blessed these early Macedonian Catholics with such “generosity” despite their “profound poverty”:
God miraculously moved Macedonians to donate money and send it to the Church in Jerusalem, led by the First Catholic Pope and the Disciple-Bishops: “For according to their means, I can testify, and beyond their means, spontaneously, they begged us insistently for the favor of taking part in the service to the holy ones, and this, not as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and to us through the will of God, so that we urged Titus that, as he had already begun, he should also complete for you this gracious act also.”
Why was it so important for the Catholics in Jerusalem to have that donation of money?
The money was raised and sent around the year 57-58 AD. Jewish people were so frightened by vicious Profiteers fighting for power that they began a suicidal war against Rome a few years later. It led to the total destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. That fulfilled the specific Prophecy of Jesus in Mt. 24:2: “Not one stone will be left standing on another that will not be thrown down.”
Money from the early Catholics of Macedon gave Peter and his first Catholic Cardinal-Bishops, the Disciples, the resources to relocate early Catholics to the safety of Pella before Jerusalem was destroyed. The gift from Macedonia saved thousands of early Catholics from the destruction of Titus when his Legions totally “flattened” the entire city of Jerusalem and sold the survivors into slavery. There is a wonderful description of that in “The Jewish Wars”, written by the brilliant Historian, Josephus.
Catholics connect the two miracles that let our Church survive:
Miracle #1 was the poor Catholics of Macedon donating to a place they’d never visited in obedience to the Word of Jesus in John 13:34 in Today’s Reading: “I give you a new commandment; love one another as I have loved you.”
Miracle #2: The Catholic Church survived what the wealth and power of Jerusalem could not.
May we be blessed to help our Catholic brothers and sisters through the many Catholic Charities that have helped so many survive the onslaughts of evil for 2,000 years.
~
Today’s Simple Rhyme: “Catholics can correctly see / The mysteries in History.”
~
