2nd Reading for the 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time

From: 2 Thessalonians 1:11-2:2

Prayer for Perseverance

[11] To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his call, and may fulfill every good resolve and work of faith by his power, [12] so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Coming of the Lord

[1] Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our assembling to meet him, we beg you, brethren, [2] not to be quickly shaken in mind or excited, either by spirit or by word, or by letter purporting to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come.
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Commentary:

11. S t. Paul takes up the thread of the prayer he began in v. 4, asking God to keep the believers true to their calling. He himself is very good example of how teachers of Christian doctrine should approach their work; he does not confine himself to expounding the truths of faith: the first step he takes is to pray for his work to be fruitful. St. Augustine observes that anyone who wants to teach the word of God "tries as far as possible to make his words understandable, pleasing and persuasive. But he should be convinced that if he is to obtain a good result it will be due more to the piety of his prayers than to his gifts of speech. And so, praying for those he is to address, he should be more a supplicant than a speaker. When the time comes for him to speak, before actually doing so he should raise his parched soul to God that he may utter only what he has himself eaten and drunk" ("Christian Instruction", 4, 15).

T he Apostle asks God to make the Thessalonians "worthy of his call", that their efforts should have the support of divine grace, for no supernatural action can be planned, begun or brought to a conclusion without the grace of God (cf. Boniface II, "Per Filium Nostrum, Dz-Sch", 399). Hence the liturgical prayer: "Lord, be the beginning and end of all that we do and say. Prompt our actions with your grace, and complete them with your all-powerful help" ("Liturgy of the Hours", Morning Prayer, Monday Week 1).

12. The Greek formula here translated as "according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ" could also be interpreted as "according to the grace of our God and Lord Jesus Christ"--in which case we would have here a confession of christological faith which would be of enormous value on account of its antiquity. It would be an acknowledgment of Christ being both God ("Theos") and Lord ("Kyrios"), that is, "Iesus Christus, Dominus et Deus noster". However, the expression "our God" often appears in Pauline writings (cf., in this very chapter, vv. 2 and 11); he also frequently uses the formula "Lord Jesus Christ". This suggests that there is a distinction between "our God" and "the Lord Jesus Christ" (or even "our Lord Jesus Christ"); hence the preferred translation.

1-2. The main theme of the letter is given here--the timing of the second coming of the Lord. Some people had been unsettling the minds of the Thessalonians by saying that the Parousia was about to happen. The phrase "by spirit" is a reference to people claiming to have a charismatic gift of prophecy from the Holy Spirit who were spreading their own ideas as if they came from God. Others preferred to pass off what they had to say as coming from St. Paul (orally or in writing). Those who try to mislead the people of God by teachings contrary to Christian faith often use methods of the same sort. By twisting the meaning of Sacred Scripture (cf. Mt 4:6) they not infrequently promote wrong teaching as if it were a revelation from the Holy Spirit. The Second Vatican Council has reminded us how to identify subjective interpretation of that kind: "The task of giving an authentic interpretation, whether in its written form or in the form of Tradition, has been entrusted to the living teaching office of the Church alone. Its authority is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ" ("Dei Verbum", 10).

Even in our own day there are sects and impressionable people who put a lot of effort into working out when the second coming will take place, sometimes making specific predictions which the passage of time disproves. They are missing the main point, which is that we should be always on the watch, always ready to joyfully meet the Lord. "To the effect that the day of the Lord has come": this is literally what the Greek says--or "as if the day of the Lord is here", in the sense of "about to come any minute now". The New Vulgate [and the Navarre Spanish: trs.] translate it as "as if the day of the Lord were imminent", which is faithful to the tenor of the text and reads more clearly.
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Source: "The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries". Biblical text taken from the Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries made by members of the Faculty of Theology of the University of Navarre, Spain. Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland. Reprinted with permission from Four Courts Press and Scepter Publishers, the U.S. publisher.