Today, January 26, as our Church celebrates the Memorial of Timothy and Titus, Bishops and Doctors, we are invited to first read and reflect on a passage from the first letter of the apostle Paul to Titus (1:7-11; 2:1-8), entitled "The teaching of the Apostle on the qualities and duties of bishops". Our treasure is from a homily by Saint John Chrysostom, bishop.
Timothy and Titus were key companions and fellow workers of St. Paul, appointed as bishops to lead early Christian communities in Ephesus (Timothy) and Crete (Titus), serving as foundational leaders to whom Paul wrote the New Testament pastoral letters, guiding them in establishing order, teaching sound doctrine, and appointing elders. Both are honored as saints in Christianity, representing the passing of apostolic authority to successors and embodying courageous Christian leadership, with Timothy martyred and Titus dying peacefully.
Timothy
Titus
Shared Legacy
The ambiguity and intrigue surrounding Saint John Chrysostom, the great preacher (his name means "golden-mouthed") from Antioch, are characteristic of the life of any great man in a capital city. Brought to Constantinople after a dozen years of priestly service in Syria, John found himself the reluctant victim of an imperial ruse to make him bishop in the greatest city of the empire. Ascetic, unimposing but dignified, and troubled by stomach ailments from his desert days as a monk, Saint John Chrysostom became a bishop under the cloud of imperial politics.
If his body was weak, his tongue was powerful. The content of his sermons, his exegesis of Scripture, were never without a point. Sometimes the point stung the high and mighty. Some sermons lasted up to two hours.
His lifestyle at the imperial court was not appreciated by many courtiers. He offered a modest table to episcopal sycophants hanging around for imperial and ecclesiastical favors. John deplored the court protocol that accorded him precedence before the highest state officials. He would not be a kept man.
His zeal led him to decisive action. Bishops who bribed their way into office were deposed. Many of his sermons called for concrete steps to share wealth with the poor. The rich did not appreciate hearing from Saint John Chrysostom that private property existed because of Adam's fall from grace any more than married men liked to hear that they were bound to marital fidelity just as much as their wives were. When it came to justice and charity, John acknowledged no double standards.
The third of the Pastoral Epistles in the New Testament is addressed to a different co-worker of Paul than are First and Second Timothy. The situation is different, too, for Titus is addressed as the person in charge of developing the church on the large Mediterranean island of Crete, a place Paul had never, according to the New Testament, visited.
The Pauline assistant who is addressed, Titus, was a Gentile Christian, but we are nowhere informed of his place of birth or residence. He went from Antioch with Paul and Barnabas to Jerusalem. According to 2 Corinthians, he was with Paul on his third missionary journey; his name, however, does not appear in Acts. Besides being the bearer of Paul's severe letter to the Corinthians, he had the responsibility of taking up the collection in Corinth for the Christian community of Jerusalem. In the present letter, he is mentioned as the administrator of the Christian community in Crete, charged with the task of organizing it through the appointment of presbyters and bishops; here the two terms refer to the same personages).
The letter instructs Titus about the character of the assistants he is to choose in view of the pastoral difficulties peculiar to Crete. It suggests the special individual and social virtues that the various age groups and classes in the Christian community should be encouraged to acquire. The motivation for transformation of their lives comes from Christology, especially the redemptive sacrifice of Christ and his future coming, as applied through baptism and justification. The community is to serve as a leaven for Christianizing the social world about it. Good works are to be the evidence of their faith in God; those who engage in religious controversy are, after suitable warning, to be ignored.
