The Feast of Saints Timothy and Titus | Friday 26 January 2024

Today is Friday the 26th of January, the Feast of Saints Timothy and Titus.

The community of Taizé sing: Tui amoris ignem. Let me make these words my prayer, as I listen. ‘Holy Spirit, come to us. Kindle in us the fire of your love.’

Today’s reading is from St Paul’s Second letter to Timothy.

2 Timothy 1:1-9a

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, for the sake of the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus,

To Timothy, my beloved child:

Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

I am grateful to God—whom I worship with a clear conscience, as my ancestors did—when I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day. Recalling your tears, I long to see you so that I may be filled with joy. I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, lives in you. For this reason I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands; for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.

Do not be ashamed, then, of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel, relying on the power of God, who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace. This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began.

Can you receive Paul’s message to Timothy as a message to you now, the message of ‘grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord’? If you can -- then, how does that leave you feeling?

Imagine if someone affirmed your faith, like this, as ‘sincere faith’, how would you feel? Encouraged? Embarrassed? Uncomfortable? Affirmed? What else?

And if those words were spoken directly to you, that ‘you have a gift of God that is within you’ – a gift that you can rekindle – what would you want to do about it?

Might all this be true? Might all of those “ifs” in fact be true? As you listen again to the reading, think about that, that all of these words may be meant for you, now.

The reading tells us that our calling and the gifts we receive are freely given by God, not created by us, or earned, or deserved by our efforts. What gift – that you have not earned – do you feel the desire to ask for from God? Pray for it in your own words.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.