__ Click Here for Audio of Homily __
Homily – Jan. 23, 2022 / 3rd Sunday
● Nehemiah
8:2-4a, 5-6, 8-10 ● Psalm 19 ● 1 Corinthians 12:12-30 ● + Luke 1:1-4; 4:14-21 ●
Title: Getting the Name Right…
[__00-a_] [Gospel of Luke, Salutation]
Luke,
the Evangelist, is 1 of the 4 Gospel writers and in 2022 we read – on the
Sundays of Ordinary Time from his Gospel. This is what “ordinary time” means –
to read “in order” and sequence – until
the end of the Gospel book at year end.
What is new/distinctive about Luke’s Gospel is that it starts out as a “letter” (remember letters? ) and addressed to a person named “Theophilus” which is a 2 part name in which THEO = God and PHILUS = friend/beloved. Theophilus is the beloved of God.
But we could also translate “Theophilus” to be addressed to you as the beloved of God. The Gospel of Luke is addressed to you and to me. Luke is writing it down in an “orderly sequence for you” and “so that you may realize the certainty of the teachings of Jesus. ” (Luke 1:3-4) So the Gospel is addressed to both to WHO WE ARE – by name and what we are. We are the beloved of God.
I'd like to make a distinction in this in this homily about who we are and what we are. Here's an example of a difference between who we are and what we are.
[__00-b_] [GETTING THE NAME RIGHT]
For a few months, I had a
college roommate who I realized later did not even know for certain what may
last name was.
I realized this one day not because he called me by the wrong
name but because there was some mail delivered to our building. He was going
through the envelopes and found one addressed to some named “James….” And then
he asked me … “is this your last name?”
It was not my last name. At the time, I will admit, I felt
not sorry for him, but kind of hurt and sorry for myself… although I do see the
humor in it now, that he was sharing a room with me – we were roommates and he
only was sure of my “first name”, not my last name. That was strange to me.
It made feel – for at least a little while – somewhat
insignificant.
He did not know who I was … this surprised me…because
“what” I
was – i.e., his roommate … seemed to determine that he should have known
my name… it does not always work out !
It was not surprising to me when he moved out and it was a
very temporary roommate situation. I suppose he could took what I was or who I
was.
[St.
Paul wants to get your name right.]
This is the message of St. Paul in his
1st Letter to the Corinthians that no matter how small or
insignificant a role we may feel we have or how weak or disabled or
disenfranchised we may feel, we still have a role to play.
Paul wrote: “Now the body is not a single part, but many.
If a foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body, it
does not for this reason belong any less to the body…”
Is it not true that we want and need
our whole body to be functioning in order for us to feel whole and to function.
And, while we may go to RetroFitness
or PlanetFitness or any gym or any place to exercise in order to work out or
strengthen certain part of our body, for stronger legs or back, or healthier
heart rate… we really are not in the gym in order to exercise parts of the body, but to
exercise the whole body. It’s
not about WHAT we are but who we are.
St. Paul’s message also reminds you
that your role in church, in the parish of Our Lady of Lourdes, is not
determined by WHAT particular label or title or official role or capacity
I am blessed – we are blessed by the
service of everyone in church. Yes, we are blessed by every lector / reader
through whom the word of God is proclaimed. They help us to hear what is
READ. (PRAYER)
We are blessed by every usher who
helps with hospitality and to assist in taking up the collection of and gifts
of our community. They us to recognize what we RECEIVE and that we are RECEIVED
by God in this church. (FASTING…)
We are blessed by every volunteer
through whom our current “Souper Bowl” soup can drive and other fundraising
drives are performed (ALMSGIVING). Yes,
we are blessed by all of these individuals.
Yet, we are also blessed by you - everyone of you here at Sunday Mass – and
also blessed by those who participate remotely or from home due to health or
other reasons.
For you are the Body of Christ and while you
may feel you are hidden or concealed, you also of critical importance to the
health of the whole body. This is both WHAT YOU ARE AND WHO YOU ARE… Perhaps,
you do not read at this microphone, but you do have a responsibility to read
and receive the word of God.
Perhaps you do not stand as an usher, but you
do have a responsibility as an ambassador for Christ wherever you are.
Perhaps, you do not supervise the collection
of donations or perhaps you cannot even afford to make a donation to poor, your
charitable giving – of any amount – and your prayers and petitions are gifts
back to God.
We need you.
While we may have to “social distance”, we are not in church to pray as separate individuals but to pray with and for each other. We are also here to exercise the WHOLE BODY – there is no minimum monthly fee like at RetroFitness
[GETTING THE NAME RIGHT]
When
my sister was born in the late 1970s, my father had the opportunity of being
not just in the hospital building, while my sister was born, but in the
delivery room with my mother and with my sister for her birth. And my father
told me how he watched carefully after delivery after the delivery of my baby
sister how the nurse and doctor would put the name and ID tag on the child's
ankle, that ankle bracelet on the child to identify who is who. He certainly
wanted – we all wanted - to get both the first
name and last name
right in this instance.
He also told me how we observed that there was
a momentary mix up. And the nurses and doctors had to correct themselves to be
sure that my sister was correctly named, tagged, identified relative to another
child, there was in fact, no mix up.
My
father didn't even need to intervene. But he remembered that and told us about
it. My father was not in the delivery room, for me are my two brothers. But since
we all kind of look and talk alike, we figure we're good. That we are one body,
we're all one were identified. With regard to a child, we would go to great
lengths to protect that one body, that one person's body who is connected to us
to ensure a child is identified safe. And in the clear.
In a
book about both Christian ethics and the philosophy of true happiness, Jesuit
Father Robert Spitzer wrote:
“I
would not purport to tell you who you are. The who of the person is unique,
holistic, intangible, and difficult to get a hold of. [And, these days, I would add there is so
much “identity politics” that we cannot agree….]
But, Father Spitzer writes, I would like to get at the “what” i.e., what a
person is… ”
And,
so, this is just my offering to you – on this anniversary of the Roe v. Wade
Supreme Court decision about the right to abortion and why Catholic Christian
faith takes a stand for “what a person is”
For
with the benefit of not just spiritual ideas of the soul and the fact that we
can experience ourselves as both a body and a soul…we also now have benefit of significant scientific
endeavors to tell us what the unborn child is. We may not know who the child
is, or who the child will be named after.
But,
we can know – now – not only what the child is – in a developing state but also
what the child will be and also that the child in the womb and mother truly
two-in-one. They are a unity.
[] So the reason we are called to teach and profess our faith in the sanctity of
life is so that we will remember this human dignity. And this human dignity
also extends to us to remember that what there are certain things about us that
cannot be changed what we are in terms of our biological sex, our gender, this
is what we are. And there's a genius to how we are made. And we are called to
respect how we are made and to help others respect how they are made as well.
[][][]
Also,
while we are separated into many identities and ideologies, do we not agree
that our human dignity is not attached to any of these identities or
ideologies.
Human
dignity – whether we are talking about the right to life, to liberty or the
pursuit happiness – belongs to “what we are” even though there may be divisions
that determine “who we are”.
You
have the same right to happiness as I do.
While
you may have experienced or been touched in some way by abortion, it is also
important to remember that “mercy” and compassion are what and who God
his. There is no sin beyond God’s
absolution after your repentance. This
is what and who God is.
We
are many parts. We are all one body. This is who we are and what we are.
No comments:
Post a Comment