On the feast of the Epiphany, we considered Magi from the East bringing gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh in worship and adoration of the Christ child. These physical, earthly gifts very much foreshadowed the sacrifices that each Christian is to make to Christ, as described by St. Paul in the epistle for this Epiphany-tide ferial day.
“I urge you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship.” Christians are called to serve the Lord in all circumstances, so that every action is a sacrifice that renders homage to God, and every thought is conformed to the knowledge of his will.
Paul’s vision of Christian living isn’t a head-trip or an intellectual pursuit. Rather as God truly took human flesh in the incarnation, the Christian life is incarnational—how we use our bodies, matters, the choices we make, how we treat people, how we treat our bodies and the bodies of others, matters. We are to glorify God with our bodies, engage in bodily--corporal--works of mercy, and put to death the works of the flesh. Daily Christian sacrifice involves outward action that engages the whole person, body and spirit.
In these verses, Paul, too, links liturgy and life—bodily living and spiritual worship. Our Christian worship is bodily, incarnational, involving sights, and smells, and sounds, and bodily gestures, and vocalized prayers, and physical embraces, and the reception of the body and blood of Christ. All the bodily senses are involved in our spiritual worship, because all is to be conformed by our worship to Christ. We build beautiful churches, with beautiful stained glass windows, and beautiful art to aid us in worshiping the Beautiful One and becoming like Him.
Bodily existence, as we well know, offers its challenges and temptations. So Paul, challenges us to conform ourselves not to this age, but to Christ, the timeless one—the one whose goodness, truth, and beauty transcends, but also speaks to every age. We can’t just use our bodies in the same way as non-believers, we can’t worship the same things, and use our bodies to pursue the same ends. Rather, the Christian is always counter-cultural.
Where the culture worships comfortable lies, physical pleasures, and selfish ends, Christians worship and conform our lives to the one who is truth, goodness, and beauty incarnate.
So during this age, this new year, renew your minds through daily prayer, daily meditation on the Gospel and the timeless truths of our faith, bodily--corporal works of charity--that you may discern what is good, and pleasing, and perfect for the glory of God and salvation of souls.
A reading from the epistle of St. Paul to the Romans
I urge you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship. Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect. For by the grace given to me I tell everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than one ought to think, but to think soberly, each according to the measure of faith that God has apportioned. For as in one body we have many parts, and all the parts do not have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ and individually parts of one another.
A continuation of the Holy Gospel according to St. Luke
Each year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the feast of Passover, and when he was twelve years old,
they went up according to festival custom. After they had completed its days, as they were returning, the boy Jesus remained behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it. Thinking that he was in the caravan, they journeyed for a day and looked for him among their relatives and acquaintances,
but not finding him, they returned to Jerusalem to look for him. After three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions, and all who heard him were astounded at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him, they were astonished, and his mother said to him, “Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety.” And he said to them, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” But they did not understand what he said to them. He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them; and his mother kept all these things in her heart. And Jesus advanced in wisdom and age and favor before God and man.
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