Homily: 2nd Sunday of Ordinary Time - One Spirit, Many Gifts

This Sunday we enter once again into Ordinary Time.  We completed the sacred seasons of Advent and Christmas; and we are still a few weeks away from Lent and Easter; and so, during ordinary time we focus on the ordinary life of the Church, our everyday life as followers of Christ.

As a Christian, what should ordinary life as Christians look like?  Mary, in today’s Gospel puts it very clearly: “Do whatever he tells you.”  There’s the ordinary task of the Christian, there’s a summary of the work of the Church: “Do whatever he tells you.” Obey Christ.  Fulfill the mission he’s given.  Do his work.  Follow his will.  

And when we do that, Jesus is able to transform water into wine—he is able to transform the ordinary works and words of our life, into the rich, intoxicating stuff of God.  

The trouble is, of course, that we all too often obey our own desires, do our own work, follow our own will, and the water remains water, the ordinary remains ordinary.  And sometimes we don’t recognize the gifts that God has given us.

Saint Paul enumerates in our second reading these many spiritual gifts God has given which make our ordinary Christian life quite extraordinary.

“To each individual, the manifestation of the Spirit is given to some benefit.”  God gives every baptized member of the Church special gifts to make them fit and ready to undertake the renewal and building up of the Church.  These gifts are not just for the clergy, not just for people formally involved in missionary activity.  But to you and me and every baptized member of the Church, gifts for bringing others more deeply into His divine life and the life of the Church.  
Saint Paul enumerates these gifts: wisdom, knowledge, faith, gifts of healing, mighty deeds, prophecy, discernment of spirits, varieties of tongues, interpretation of tongues all meant for build-up the Church. 

First, Paul listed Wisdom—what’s that?  Saint Thomas Aquinas called wisdom, “the view from the hilltop”.  The wise person sees life from the high vantage point.  He’s put his life in order, his priorities are straight, and helps us do the same.  
When there’s a conflict, or confusion, we do well to seek the counsel of the wise person to help us make the changes we need in our life that they might better reflect the Gospel.  We should pray every day that our bishops and those in authority will be prudent, practical, rational, sensitive, judicious.  

Second, Paul lists the gift of “knowledge”.  Are you knowledgeable in science, math, history, philosophy, theology, sports?  If you are, share that knowledge!  Your knowledge has been given to you as a gift.  To make a lot of money or to show off?  No.  To lord it over others? No.  Knowledge is meant for service.  

The Catholic faith has produced the greatest thinkers of all time: Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Dante, John Henry Newman, not to mention great scientists like Louis Pasteur, Alexander Fleming inventor of Penicillin, Galileo, Copernicus, Marie Curie, not to mention that Catholicism produced the first Universities.  It was a Roman Catholic priest, George Lamaitre  who first proposed the Big Bang Theory!

These men and women remind us that our knowledge is meant to be at the service of the Church and the human race. So each of us must reflect upon whether we are using our knowledge for ourselves or for others.  

The next spiritual gift Paul mentions is “faith”. All of us here have faith; we’ll all stand and profess the Creed after the homily.  So, when Paul lists faith as a unique charismatic gift, I think of that person who is gifted with that sort of contagious faith; you talk with them and they draw you deeper into the life of the Church, they speak about prayer and want to go home and pray, they speak about their guardian angel, and you think, yeah, I need to become better friends with my guardian angel, or they speak about confession, and you think, yeah, it’s been a while.  

If you have this gift of faith, the Church needs you to share it, to draw others to the Church, to Christ
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Are there people languishing outside of the Church because those with this gift have not exercised it?  Yes.  So we must become more open and more practiced in exercising these gifts because we need the power of gifts which are not being used to become unleashed for building up of the Church.  

Paul mentions next, “gifts of healing”.  All of the baptized are empowered to pray for healing.  Every Sunday we always have a petition for the sick and the suffering, and each of us instinctively turns to God when we are sick or have a sick family member.  

Yet, throughout the centuries God has given some the gift of miraculous healing—like Christ in the Gospels.  

The Spirit might wish to work miraculous spiritual healing through someone here in this parish.  I think there are a lot of people in the Church who have been given the gift of psychological healing: people who almost naturally bring calm and peace, who can sooth inner turmoil, who can calm troubled psyches and souls.  If you have it, you are meant to share it.
The Lord might be calling you to help someone who is grieving, or suffering from an emotional trauma, or to help someone who suffers from an addiction.  

I think the gift of healing particularly can become unlocked when we ourselves have received healing.  The person who has overcome an addiction often finds that he can help others still struggling.  The gift is meant to be shared.

Finally, the gift of discernment is very important.  You might not have the gift of healing, wisdom, knowledge, but discernment is meant help others discover their gifts.  To discern the work of the Spirit in others, is no small thing.  You are the one God wants to use to help others identify their gifts and put them into practice.  

The one with discernment is also able to act like a bridge.  You detect someone who is suffering emotional turmoil and you lead them to the one with the gift of healing.  You detect someone who is doubting the faith, and you bring them to the one with the gift of faith or knowledge.  You detect a family situation that requires outside help, perhaps a troubled marriage, and you get that troubled marriage the help it needs.  You detect that a particular young person is being called to religious life or to the priesthood, or that a fellow parishioner should consider joining the choir or becoming a lector or Eucharistic minister or deacon or catechist, you help point them in the right direction, and that is invaluable.  The person with discernment helps me to see something about myself that I cannot see.

Every baptized Christian is tasked with building up the Church, but we don’t have to do it on our own.  And with the authentic exercise of the charismatic gifts, a parish can be renewed and a community riddled with division can become unified.

May the Spirit who bestows us with so many gifts help us to discover them, grow in them, and utilize them for the glory of God and salvation of souls.