(Please read the Scripture passage first, before the homily.)
I have a quiz for you today. What well-known person was born in Lystra? [A brief pause will allow you to take the quiz.]
If you answered Timothy, you answered correctly. I would also have accepted either Lois his grandmother, or Eunice his mother (2 Timothy 1:5).
Timothy was the son of a Jewish mother and a Gentile father. Jewish law considered him Jewish because of his mother, so Paul had him circumcised.
Timothy needed encouragement. He had come from a long line of faithful Jews. He had come to believe in Jesus through the preaching of Paul.
The age of the Apostles was coming to an end. It was time for Timothy to pass on to the next generation the faithfulness he had received in his family and in his relationship with Paul.
My Dad’s family goes back over eight generations with faithful Catholics. My Mom’s family had once been Catholic but had split several generations ago because of a divorce and remarriage in the family. She embraced fully the Catholic faith after she married Dad. I inherited my faith in my family.
The same is probably true in your families. Even if your ancestors were not Catholic, they did prepare you for full union with the Church through their example and teaching.
We bring baptized non-Catholics into full union with the Catholic Church. We do not do it with any feeling of superiority. Rather, we acknowledge our debt and the candidates’ debt to the faith passed on to them in their families. We do not, therefore, refer to them as converts, but as people received into full union with the Church. The sacrament of conversion is baptism, not confirmation or Eucharist.
So Paul writes to his disciple Timothy and encourages him, and us, to pass on the faith we have received to the generations to come after us. He expresses appreciation for those like Lois and Eunice who have nurtured our faith. He encourages us to persevere.