Monday, October 15, 2007 Alipio: Keeping our priorities straight By Fr. Jose Alipio the yoke
Acts 6:1-7
LOOKING at the Church today with its hierarchical structure, huge membership, immense wealth and global presence, it’s hard to imagine what the early churches were like. They were largely lay movements that met in homes or parks for prayer and scripture. We know that these small groups practiced a form of primitive communism. They pooled their resources and shared their goods with one another. But ensuring equal distribution turned out to be a problem. The apostles found themselves consuming lots of time and energy in distributing food among the Hebrew-speaking and Greek-speaking widows in the community of faith. Finally, the apostles got smart and created a new office called the “deacons” to tend to practical matter so they could concentrate on their spiritual mission.
This story shows the importance of keeping our priorities straight. Every individual and every group faces a variety of challenges and opportunities. But some judgments have to be made about what matters most. No individual or group can meet every need or achieve every goal. We have to create some kind of rank order to keep our sanity and to achieve our goals. How we are going to divide our time between work and play, between the office and home, between the family and friends? How are we going to spend our money in pursuing these different goals? What do we consider necessities and what can we consider luxuries? Our family background, our religious commitment, our educational development play key roles here. But we finally have the responsibility to get our priorities straight and keep them straight.
