To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are poorly clad and roughly treated, we wander about homeless and we toil, working with our own hands. When ridiculed, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we respond gently. We have become like the world’s rubbish, the scum of all, to this very moment. (1 Cor 4:11-13)

One day in spiritual direction I was told that Saint Teresa of Ávila once said to the Lord, “Well, if this is the way you treat your friends, no wonder you have so few!” Saint Paul must have had the same feeling, but he, like Saint Teresa of Ávila, wouldn’t have wanted to change places with anyone.