“Do not neglect the gift that is in you, which was given to you by prophecy with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery” (I Timothy 4:14)
St. Paul in writing to his disciple Timothy is reminding him that he was ordained to serve the Church. One has the feeling that the young man is challenged in his ministry. He lacks experience. False teachers compete with him and have a contradictory message to promote. Church discipline is a problem. The older apostle had written what can be seen as a manual of instructions to any priest in pursuit of his calling.
In the midst of his tutoring he orders Timothy to remember that he was blessed with a special gift at the time of his ordination. It’s not clear exactly what that gift was; but Paul assumes that Timothy knows what it is. How easy it is to forget our gifts when negative thoughts invade our minds and replace the positive, upbeat feeling we normally experience. They cloud our inner vision and shut out the sun of optimism. We lose touch with our true selves. We abandon our purpose for living and serving the Lord.
St. Timothy needed a reminder of who he was, what he was to be doing in Asia where he had been assigned to bring the gospel of Christ to the natives, and the spiritual equipment that he was neglecting in his confusion and despondency. Not all of us are ordained to the priesthood, but we all have special gifts to offer up to the Lord in our time on earth for the service of Church and society. The first challenge is to know what it is that we have to offer to God. Not all are preachers, theologians or among the ordained ministers, but other gifts are precious and needed to enhance the mission of the Church. This is why our Lord Jesus insisted that we know ourselves. Some may feel that Christians are hard on themselves. They fast to suppress the appetites both physical and sensual, they humble themselves before the Lord and plead to Him, seeking mercy and forgiveness for their sins—but they do all that in order to eliminate all that might interfere with the vision of themselves and the truth concerning who they are and what they are appointed to be doing in their brief lifetimes on the earth.
We live in a time of confusion and change. The stability of a half-century is past. What was traditionally conventional wisdom regarding morals and life styles has been challenged and overtaken by what is called sexual freedom and liberation from family values cherished by believers in God and the Word of the Lord found in the Bible and the Holy Church. Before a true Christian can offer his or her unique gift to the Lord, he must first realize and affirm the dignity of selfhood. It demands a focus on the God within one’s soul. That requires purity. As the beatitude states it: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” To know the God within, to praise Him by utilizing the special gift that is your own, you must believe not only in the Lord, but in His love for you, His gift of whatever it is that you are meant to utilize for the welfare of the Church and the world, and to honor Him by becoming all that He had in mind when He brought you into existence. In other terms, when your life on earth is through and you are brought before the “dread judgment seat of the Lord,” how will you answer when you are asked to produce evidence of having utilized the means that were your own in the Lord’s behalf?