Deacon Mike Meyer / Sunday, January 23, 2022 / Categories: Blog, Homilies Body Building Homily for the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C 2022 In the category of “looks can be deceiving,” I have a confession to make—I am not, in fact, a body builder. I know, you’re shocked. This well-chiseled frame notwithstanding, I’ve never been much interested in sports or exercise for that matter. Of course, I know that exercise is good for me, and I know that I’m healthier and happier when I exercise regularly. But I don’t always do that. So, God in his wisdom has surrounded me with close friends who exercise a lot. Like Boston Marathon, Ironman Triathlon a lot. I had hoped that God did this so some of the benefits of their exercise might transfer to me, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. So why did God put these psychopaths, I mean these good people in my life? Well, they inspire me and encourage me to exercise, and they’ll even push me or drag me kicking and screaming when necessary. God puts these people in my life because he knows that my health and well-being rely heavily on the support of a loving community. That’s why God gave us the Church, too. It’s fairly common these days for people to identify themselves as “spiritual but not religious.” People who adopt this moniker usually mean that while they experience connections with other people, the world around them, and even with God, they don’t align themselves with a particular faith community, belief system, or set of doctrines. While I believe that people can be “spiritual but not religious,” I don’t recommend it. We’re all spiritual because we’re all created in the image and likeness of God, we have souls, and we’re all drawn to ultimate values that transcend us like, beauty, goodness, and truth. But without religion, we have nothing to help us interpret our spiritual experiences—nothing to help us answer the primordial questions that pervade human existence: Who am I? What’s my purpose in life? Why does evil exist? Is there life after death?[1] Religion offers us a support system made up of thousands of years of our ancestors’ thoughts, prayers, and struggles with spiritual experiences. Absent religion, our spiritual experiences have no foundation, and we run the risk of interpreting them according to our desired outcomes, rather than in the light of the universal truth they reflect. Absent religion, our spiritual lives become soft, and flabby, kind of like your deacon when he doesn’t exercise. That’s what happened to the Israelites in our first reading. You’ll recall that the Israelites were conquered and held captive by the Babylonians for almost 60 years during which time they had little access to their religious traditions and practices. As you can imagine, the people drifted slowly from the ways of the Lord and adopted the pagan practices that surrounded them.[2] When they returned to Jerusalem, one of the first things the high priest Ezra did was to gather all the people together and read the Torah to them. He did this to bring them back to the faith, to re-teach them God’s ways. He did this because their religion had convinced them that fidelity to God’s Commandments brings fulfillment, moral perfection, and happiness. It leads them to an encounter with God, the very goal of our spiritual life.[3] And that brings us to Church. Our second reading makes clear that we are the Body of Christ—all of us, together. Through the incarnation, Jesus gathered all people to himself, into his body, to reunite humanity with divinity. Through baptism, we accepted membership in the Body of Christ along with our mission as priest, prophet, and king (or queen, if you prefer). Just like the hand and the ear and the eye contribute to the well-being and proper functioning of the human body as a whole, we, too, play an indispensable role in carrying out the mission of the Body of Christ, the Church on earth, according our God-given gifts and talents. Well, if the Church is a body, then this body needs exercise. Catholicism isn’t a religion of a “written and mute word, but of the incarnate and living Word,”[4] Jesus Christ. As Jesus tells us in our Gospel, he is the divine Word that we celebrate on this Sunday of the Divine Word of God. He is the Word that spoke all of creation into being at the beginning; he is God’s revelation in Scripture, in the sacraments, and in human experience. That means that ours is a lived faith, a faith proclaimed through lives conformed to the Body of Christ, a faith that brings glad tidings to the poor, proclaims liberty to captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and lets the oppressed go free. Yes, we are saved by faith alone, but as Saint James tells us, faith without works is dead (James 2:17). If we want eternal life in Christ, we have work to do, and work, requires exercise. Let’s face it, two plus years of COVID has left the Body of Christ on earth a little flabby. Mass attendance dropped significantly, our ministries all but shut down, we lost some of the communion that calls us together as a faith community, and many have left the faith, now considering themselves “spiritual but not religious.” Well, it’s time to exercise the Body of Christ, and your clergy, staff, and ministry leaders are ready to help. In the words of Hans and Franz of Saturday Night Live fame, “We want to pump—you up!” At the end of Mass, we’re going to meet Jim Murray, who’s going to help us launch our youth ministry. We’re actively recruiting altar servers, lectors, Eucharistic ministers, ushers, and Family Mass support. We’re looking to start a young adult group and grow the membership of our Rosary Society, our Knights of Columbus Council, and Prayer Shawl Ministry. We’re going to kick off a Parish book club after First Friday Adoration on February 4, and our Pastoral Council and Stewardship Committee are working tirelessly to find new programs to help us grow spiritually and as a community. All of these activities exercise our minds and hearts; they tone our spiritual muscles. They build up the Body of Christ here at Saint Catherine’s and foster the fulfillment, moral perfection, and happiness that come with being disciples of Christ. About a year ago, a family approached me to tell me that they thought that the Church needed to reconsider its approach to liturgy. You see, this family enjoyed watching Mass on TV in their jammies on Sunday mornings during COVID and didn’t want to return to Mass in Church. Well, there’s always a Mass online or on TV somewhere, and maybe they found one, but we all know what happens when we sit around on the couch watching TV—we get soft and flabby, like the Israelites did. That’s not who we are as a Church. We’re a loving community that supports the physical and spiritual health and well-being of all. We exercise our faith through active presence, participation, and service. And that means that we’re all Body builders, even your flabby deacon. Readings: Nehemiah 8:2-4a, 5-6, 8-10; Psalm 19; 1 Corinthians 12:12-30; Luke 1:1-4, 4:14-21 [1] John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Fides et ratio (14 September 1998), (Boston: Pauline Books and Media, 1998) 1. [2] Jude Winkler, New Saint Joseph Handbook for Lectors & Proclaimers of the Word, Liturgical Year C, 2022 (New Jersey, Catholic Book Publishing, 2021), 74. [3] Jeffrey Cole, ed., The Didache Bible (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2014), 624n. [4] Benedict XVI, Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Verbum Domini (30 September 2010) 7, http://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_ben-xvi_exh_20100930_verbum-domini.html. A Holy Family Beyond Imagination Print 460 Please login or register to post comments.