Thursday of the Thirty-first Week in Ordinary Time
Feast of All Saints and Blessed of the Society of Jesus [Jesuit Churches]
We come to that part in his epistle to the Philippians where St. Paul engages in polemic. In other words, he takes his kid gloves off for some rhetorical boxing. His opponents have been arguing that Christian males must receive circumcision. St. Paul punches back, arguing that there should be no such obligation, because circumcision was of value only in the centuries leading up to the coming of the Christ, who fulfilled the previous covenants, and inaugurated a new covenant in his own blood, by which his followers are to worship God in the Spirit, not in the flesh. Therefore, it is not the cutting of the male’s flesh that bonds him to God, it is, instead, the Holy Spirit. Christians, according to St. Paul, are to be spiritually circumcised, sublimating and perfecting the ancient Hebrew practice. That is why he says that “we are the circumcision, we who worship through the Spirit of God, who boast in Christ Jesus and do not put our confidence in flesh” (Philippians 3:3).
Therefore, calls his opponents “dogs,” and “evil workers” (Philippians 3:2). No kid gloves! When the souls of his listeners are at stake, there are grounds for fiery rhetoric, and even a put-down in the form of a pun. In Greek, St. Paul calls his opponents the katatomē, the mutilation, but says that we are the peritomē, the circumcision. A good, but archaic, English translation would be “beware the concision, for we are the circumcision.” St. Paul, with a laugh, is accusing his opponents of mutilating themselves.
Whether you appreciate the wit of the polemic or not, divest your faith from this world, and reinvest your faith in God alone. Don’t wait. This is urgent.