From the Fine Folks at
https://www.catholicireland.net/saintoftheday/onesimusa-very-useful-servant/
Onesimus became a Christian and, stranger still, Paul sent him back to Philemon.
Onesimus was a slave Paul met in Rome, who agreed to bring back a letter from Paul to the community at Colossae and to return freely to Philemon, his former master, from whom he had run away. Fr John Murray PP tells his story.
Being a slave in the Roman world in the time of Jesus was not easy. There were some who had a pleasant life as they tutored the sons and daughters of the rich and noble citizens of the em
pire. They often had the freedom of the house and they ate and slept well, but they remained slaves, and freedom was not theirs to cherish. In their hearts, they yearned for the land from which they had been snatched by the marauding armies of the Roman Empire.
pire. They often had the freedom of the house and they ate and slept well, but they remained slaves, and freedom was not theirs to cherish. In their hearts, they yearned for the land from which they had been snatched by the marauding armies of the Roman Empire.
Others had a much more difficult life, as they toiled long hours in the fields or fought for a wager in the gladiatorial arenas. It was no wonder that some decided to run away and take their chance in the world at large. They knew the risk they took, but freedom was the goal.
Onesimus and Paul
Onesimus was one such slave who escaped from his master, Philemon, in Colossae. St. Paul wrote about him in the
the shortest book in the Bible: The Letter to Philomen. Onesimus had run off to Rome, where he expected to disappear in the crowds. However, it was his good fortune that he met Paul who, at that time, was under house arrest in the city. This meant that the apostle could go out and about with a police escort, and it was on one such trip that he met the slave.
Onesimus was one such slave who escaped from his master, Philemon, in Colossae. St. Paul wrote about him in the
the shortest book in the Bible: The Letter to Philomen. Onesimus had run off to Rome, where he expected to disappear in the crowds. However, it was his good fortune that he met Paul who, at that time, was under house arrest in the city. This meant that the apostle could go out and about with a police escort, and it was on one such trip that he met the slave.
Probably they had met while Paul stayed at the house of Philemon, but contact was limited, and Onesimus was no doubt hardened in his heart to the religion of his master. Things were different in the huge metropolis that was Rome, and there the slave exchanged an earthly master for a heavenly one. ‘I have become his father while in prison,’ Paul writes to Philemon (Phil 10). Simply put, Onesimus became a Christian and, stranger still, Paul sent him back to Philemon. And he went. ‘You may have him back forever,’ Paul writes, ‘a slave, yet not a slave. He is a very dear brother to me, and he will be even dearer to you’ (Phil 16).
The story goes that Onesimus returned to Philemon, who forgave him – by law he could have inflicted a severe punishment on his slave – and in time the same Onesimus became more than a ‘useful’ worker in the Church for Paul. He was the one who carried the letter Paul wrote to the Colossians.
Servants and ServiceThough his name may not appear in most calendars, Onesimus is the patron of servants, and the example of his life has great significance for all of us. We may not be servants in the old and traditional sense, but we are people who serve the public, whether in shops or garages or offices, not forgetting, of course, the service which takes place daily in every home up and down the country.
What Paul did was to render the service Onesimus gave as something Christ had filled with his presence. When he returned to Philemon, no longer was there the former sullen and silent resentment, a dutiful obedience, but instead a joyful and loving act.
Paul helped Onesimus to see that life was to be lived in its fullness in the present moment, without a constant longing to be elsewhere, somehow freed from the ‘burden’ of the present moment. To use the phrase of a later French spiritual writer, Jean Pierre de Caussade (1675-1751), the matrix in which we surrender ourselves to God’s will is ‘the sacrament of the present moment’. ‘What God arranged for us to experience at each moment is the best and holiest thing that could happen to us,’ de Caussade would write.
In the letter Onesimus would later take to Colossae, Paul wrote, ‘Whatever you do, put your heart into it as done for the Lord and not for human beings… It is Christ the Lord that you are serving‘ (Col.3:23-24).
This article first appeared in The Messenger (February 2006), a publication of the Irish Jesuits.
Reading 1GN 3:9-24
The LORD God called to Adam and asked him, “Where are you?”
He answered, “I heard you in the garden;
but I was afraid, because I was naked,
so I hid myself.”
Then he asked, “Who told you that you were naked?
You have eaten, then,
from the tree of which I had forbidden you to eat!”
The man replied, “The woman whom you put here with meB
she gave me fruit from the tree, and so I ate it.”
The LORD God then asked the woman,
“Why did you do such a thing?”
The woman answered, “The serpent tricked me into it, so I ate it.”
Then the LORD God said to the serpent:
“Because you have done this, you shall be banned
from all the animals
and from all the wild creatures;
On your belly shall you crawl,
and dirt shall you eat
all the days of your life.
I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
He will strike at your head,
while you strike at his heel.”
To the woman he said:
“I will intensify the pangs of your childbearing;
in pain shall you bring forth children.
Yet your urge shall be for your husband,
and he shall be your master.”
To the man he said: “Because you listened to your wife
and ate from the tree of which I had forbidden you to eat,
“Cursed be the ground because of you!
In toil shall you eat its yield
all the days of your life.
Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to you,
as you eat of the plants of the field.
By the sweat of your face
shall you get bread to eat,
Until you return to the ground,
from which you were taken;
For you are dirt,
and to dirt you shall return.”
The man called his wife Eve,
because she became the mother of all the living.
For the man and his wife the LORD God made leather garments,
with which he clothed them.
Then the LORD God said: “See! The man has become like one of us,
knowing what is good and what is evil!
Therefore, he must not be allowed to put out his hand
to take fruit from the tree of life also,
and thus eat of it and live forever.”
The LORD God therefore banished him from the garden of Eden,
to till the ground from which he had been taken.
When he expelled the man,
he settled him east of the garden of Eden;
and he stationed the cherubim and the fiery revolving sword,
to guard the way to the tree of life.
He answered, “I heard you in the garden;
but I was afraid, because I was naked,
so I hid myself.”
Then he asked, “Who told you that you were naked?
You have eaten, then,
from the tree of which I had forbidden you to eat!”
The man replied, “The woman whom you put here with meB
she gave me fruit from the tree, and so I ate it.”
The LORD God then asked the woman,
“Why did you do such a thing?”
The woman answered, “The serpent tricked me into it, so I ate it.”
Then the LORD God said to the serpent:
“Because you have done this, you shall be banned
from all the animals
and from all the wild creatures;
On your belly shall you crawl,
and dirt shall you eat
all the days of your life.
I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
He will strike at your head,
while you strike at his heel.”
To the woman he said:
“I will intensify the pangs of your childbearing;
in pain shall you bring forth children.
Yet your urge shall be for your husband,
and he shall be your master.”
To the man he said: “Because you listened to your wife
and ate from the tree of which I had forbidden you to eat,
“Cursed be the ground because of you!
In toil shall you eat its yield
all the days of your life.
Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to you,
as you eat of the plants of the field.
By the sweat of your face
shall you get bread to eat,
Until you return to the ground,
from which you were taken;
For you are dirt,
and to dirt you shall return.”
The man called his wife Eve,
because she became the mother of all the living.
For the man and his wife the LORD God made leather garments,
with which he clothed them.
Then the LORD God said: “See! The man has become like one of us,
knowing what is good and what is evil!
Therefore, he must not be allowed to put out his hand
to take fruit from the tree of life also,
and thus eat of it and live forever.”
The LORD God therefore banished him from the garden of Eden,
to till the ground from which he had been taken.
When he expelled the man,
he settled him east of the garden of Eden;
and he stationed the cherubim and the fiery revolving sword,
to guard the way to the tree of life.
GospelMK 8:1-10
In those days when there again was a great crowd without anything to eat,
Jesus summoned the disciples and said,
“My heart is moved with pity for the crowd,
because they have been with me now for three days
and have nothing to eat.
If I send them away hungry to their homes,
they will collapse on the way,
and some of them have come a great distance.”
His disciples answered him, “Where can anyone get enough bread
to satisfy them here in this deserted place?”
Still he asked them, “How many loaves do you have?”
They replied, “Seven.”
He ordered the crowd to sit down on the ground.
Then, taking the seven loaves he gave thanks, broke them,
and gave them to his disciples to distribute,
and they distributed them to the crowd.
They also had a few fish.
He said the blessing over them
and ordered them distributed also.
They ate and were satisfied.
They picked up the fragments left over–seven baskets.
There were about four thousand people.
He dismissed the crowd and got into the boat with his disciples
and came to the region of Dalmanutha.
Jesus summoned the disciples and said,
“My heart is moved with pity for the crowd,
because they have been with me now for three days
and have nothing to eat.
If I send them away hungry to their homes,
they will collapse on the way,
and some of them have come a great distance.”
His disciples answered him, “Where can anyone get enough bread
to satisfy them here in this deserted place?”
Still he asked them, “How many loaves do you have?”
They replied, “Seven.”
He ordered the crowd to sit down on the ground.
Then, taking the seven loaves he gave thanks, broke them,
and gave them to his disciples to distribute,
and they distributed them to the crowd.
They also had a few fish.
He said the blessing over them
and ordered them distributed also.
They ate and were satisfied.
They picked up the fragments left over–seven baskets.
There were about four thousand people.
He dismissed the crowd and got into the boat with his disciples
and came to the region of Dalmanutha.
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Pitboss 2000 iTunes, Spotify and Everywhere
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