This is homily is a revision of a homily I gave in 2013.
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, extraordinary works 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. 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, not just rare graces
you might receive at charismatic prayer meetings. 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 building-up the Church..
First, Paul listed Wisdom. 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, and wise.
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. Not simply to make a lot of money or to show
off? Not 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.
I met a gentleman the other day, with a background in
mechanical engineering and pipe fitting.
He is now helping poor Hispanic communities bring their buildings up to
code. 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 you 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.
There non-believers languishing outside of the Church because
of our failure to exercise the gift of faith. So we must become more open and
more practiced in exercising faith, that the power of this gift may be
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. 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. If you have this
gift, you are meant to share it.
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 to 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.
Each of us do well, to go home today and reflect upon the
gifts God has given me that are going unutilized, and to ask the Holy Spirit to
help us put those gifts into practice. May the Spirit who bestows us with so
many gifts help us to discover them, grow in them, and utilize them for the
building up of the Church, the glory of God and salvation of souls.
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