In times of anxiety, we do things that express who we are. If we are driven to succeed, we turn up the fire. If we like to understand things, we ponder what went wrong. If we like to pick fights, we'll find someone to blame. If we need immediate comfort, we turn to substances that may bring temporary relief. Our choices under stress are not always the best. But they express who we are and how we have learned to survive.

Saint Paul suffered the stress of seeing the threads of his work pulling apart. He was a missionary, traveling the known world and setting up little islands of Christianity in one country after another. He sowed seeds in hopes of a bountiful harvest. But things sometimes went wrong.

Paul could not be everywhere at once. Yet he wanted to bring the Gospel to the world. His frequent travels enabled him to spread the message far and wide, but not deep. Local leaders had to pick up where he left off. They were not all gifted as Paul was.

Occasionally Paul learned that something was going wrong in a place he just left. Someone had a crisis of faith. Someone else preached the message incorrectly. Factions were dividing the communities he unified. But what could he do? He could not personally lead the communities. That was not his gift. He was a missionary. He could not return to every place he visited without giving up other destinations.

So here's Paul thinking about the community he left behind in Thessalonica, Greece. He loved those people. They loved him. But he's thinking about reports that things he had worked for were unraveling.

Not everything. Some of the things. This perspective was important. Paul did not throw in the towel. Instead he did something more constructive. He picked up a pen. And that, my brothers and sisters, made history.

The First Letter to the Thessalonians is probably the first book ever written for the New Testament. Paul wrote his letters before the evangelists wrote the Gospels, and this may be his first. For the next several weeks we will hear from this letter at Sunday Mass, beginning this weekend with its opening verses (1:1-5b) - the first words of all 27 books of the New Testament.

How did he begin? In this time of anxiety, Paul did the things that expressed who he was. He found another way to evangelize besides traveling. He put his words to paper. And he began not with a tirade, not with accusations, not with disappointment, not with self-absorption. No, Paul began with a very different style. He gave thanks.

Paul wished the Thessalonians grace and peace. He affirmed that they were "chosen" - among the new chosen people of Jew and Gentile. He gave thanks to God for three of their qualities: "your work of faith and labor of love and endurance in hope" - faith, love and hope. Even though there were problems, Paul remembered this foundation that they shared.

Paul qualified all three virtues. The community had its "work of faith." They had achieved faith in Christ. They exercised a "labor of love." They realized that loving one another was going to take work. It would not always be fun. And they had "endurance in hope." They believed that Jesus was coming again, and they needed patient endurance to hold out for that hope.

As a community, they believed in the "Lord Jesus Christ," a title Paul used twice in these few verses. Not just Jesus - but Jesus the Christ, the promised Messiah of God; and Jesus the Lord, the one who shared divinity with the Father.

The community also shared their experience of Paul. When he came (probably with Silvanus and Timothy who sent this letter with him), he preached the Gospel with more than words. The Gospel also came "in power and in the Holy Spirit and with much conviction." Perhaps there were miraculous signs that accompanied their preaching. Perhaps they experienced the Holy Spirit as the disciples did on Pentecost. Perhaps their own inner conviction was so strong that they were themselves becoming a living sign of the Gospel. In any case, Paul begins his letter in this way, in a way that gives a model for how we as a church can respond to times of anxiety. We do it not with despair or anger, but with thanksgiving for what God has done and for who we are: the body of Christ.

END Father Paul Turner is the pastor of St. Munchin Parish in Cameron.

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