(Please read this Scripture passage first, before the homily.)
I think St Paul really liked the people of Philippi. Did you hear him thanking God for the Philippians? Did you hear how he held them in his heart?
Paul recognized that God had done a good work bringing the people of Philippi to know Christ, and he prayed that God would continue this until the end. Paul had considered the Philippians as partners with him in the spreading of the Gospel. He recognized their financial and spiritual contributions to his work among the people of Corinth. He even recognized that they had a share in his suffering and imprisonment. He saw them as comrades in his mission to other towns and places.
Today we have had this passage of Scripture proclaimed to us. Paul did not have us in mind when he wrote to the Philippians, but the Christians who saved this letter, had the future generations in mind.
So the prayer of St Paul comes down to our day. Our love has to increase day after day. Yesterday’s love is not enough. Our love must grow in knowledge and perception.
What does Paul mean that love has to grow in knowledge and perception? Perhaps this can help. When people are younger, they fall in love and marry. What brings them together? Is it beauty of body and later of soul? What keeps them together for life? A lifetime commitment demands more than an initial attraction, more than external beauty. A lifetime commitment flows from inner beauties. People grow in love and perception of the spouse in marriage.
The same is true of our Christian commitment. What initially draw us to Christ is not what sustains us. What sustains us is the love that knows and perceives even more profoundly the love of Christ. It is this intimate knowledge of Christ that makes us grow in love.
Paul saw this happening to the Philippians. I have seen it happening in you. Paul prayed the God would complete the work God had begun in the Philippians until the day of Christ Jesus. I pray the same for you, that God complete his work in each of you until the day of Christ.