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Friday of the Twenty-third Week in Ordinary Time
1 Corinthians 9:16–19, 22b–27
A river begins as a small stream.
The water is clear.
The current is strong.
Then the river grows.
Other streams enter it.
It becomes wide.
It becomes powerful.
But sometimes, as it grows, the water becomes muddy.
The current slows down.
Christianity can be compared to such a river.
It began as a small stream of pure Gospel water.
Jesus Christ died and rose.
The Spirit was given.
The apostles preached.
Communities were born.
People shared their goods.
They cared for the poor.
They loved one another.
They lived in such a way that others could see something new.
But after twenty centuries, the river has become very wide.
There are many traditions, schools, movements, books, documents, and spiritualities.
All this can be a blessing.
But it can also become heavy.
We can become busy with many things and forget the source.
Today Saint Paul brings us back to the source.
He says:
Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel.
For Paul, the Gospel was not one activity among many.
It was his life.
It was his mission.
It was the reason he got up in the morning.
He had met the risen Christ.
That encounter changed everything.
From that moment, Paul lived to proclaim Him.
The word Gospel means Good News.
In Paul’s world, people used such words for emperors and their victories.
But Paul proclaimed another victory.
Not the victory of Rome.
Not the victory of armies.
Not the victory of power.
The victory of Jesus Christ over sin and death.
This was good news then.
It is still good news now.
But we must ask:
Do people still hear the Gospel from us as good news?
Do they see in us a life touched by Christ?
Do they see the Holy Spirit dwelling in us?
Paul’s life was shaped by the Gospel.
He gave up comfort.
He gave up his rights.
He became all things to all people,
so that he might save some.
He disciplined himself like an athlete,
because the mission mattered.
And what about us?
Does the Gospel shape our choices?
Does it shape our time, our money, our relationships, our priorities?
Or has the river become wide, slow, and muddy in us?
Perhaps today we need to return to the clear water.
To Christ.
To the Gospel.
To the fire of the first witnesses.
The world still needs Good News.
And Christ still needs people who can carry it.
Biblical Reflections on the Gospel of Matthew
Scripture Attribution
New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition,
copyright © 1989, 1993
the Division of Christian Education of the National Council
of the Churches of
Christ in the United States of America.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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© 2025 Krakus.
Licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0
(Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial).