If you read both the letters of St. Paul and any Catholic teaching, you learn one simple fact. You are the body of Christ. Indeed, in 1 Corinthians St. Paul takes this teaching to the point of showing that each of us have different roles in the body of Christ, just as different organs have different roles for the function of the whole body. But whom do people say we are? Some say we are protectors of criminals, some say we are naive, superstitious, hypocritical, foolish, ignorant, uneducated, unsophisticated, the list goes on. Would they say anything less than this about Jesus whom they called demonic, a drunkard and crazy?

The problem is that all those who said this about Jesus are gone. Yet, in the millenia since Jesus spoke these words, we learn that His words are truth. That we hang on every word today and what we learn about him is that a personal relationship with him is not only a worthy investment of our time, but our lives. However, as I said at the beginning of this homily, what is being said about Jesus is also being said about us, because we are the body of Christ. Let us ask whom we are because you and I have a vocation to be the Body of Christ in a world that has lost its own way.

Let me give you a thought. There are certain things that I absolutely cannot understand. For example, I know a priest who made a fortune investing in the Ecuadorian debt and used the money to fund a project to bring running water to a former communist enclave in Quito. Yet, no matter how many times people have explained to me how one makes a fortune investing in debt, I just cannot comprehend it.

I knew, but don’t fully understand why you cannot make a vehicle that makes its own energy. Every vehicle, including you and I, needs some outside forces of energy in order to operate. We use food. So, for example, you cannot put a generator into a car that when the car is put into motion creates electrical energy that then powers the car. It does not work. Don’t ask me why, I just know it does not.

Humans do not have the ability to be their own divinity or to successfully follow divinities of their own making. We have no hope in this world or the next living in a way that we rely exclusively on our own intelligence or projections of it. This is the reason why God prohibited worshiping false gods, to do so is to live based on projections of human intelligence exclusively. It is the human equivalent of running a car that makes it own energy. It may appear to work in theory, it does not work in practice. When we reject God, we open ourselves to falling as a society to our flaws. It is like a genetic version  of intermarriage. We can only perpetuate the very flaws that are at the core or our being; when you reject God and seek to worship the gods of your own making. This is why Jesus is so important, for He is the God who comes to us to teach us what humans cannot figure out on their own. This is why God in his word reminds us throughout the bible that He teaches us wisdom: divine wisdom.

Human society has turned from God in the belief that we can live on our own wisdom. I know a man who before the crisis foresaw trouble coming our way both in the faith and in the nation. This was many years ago, prior to 9/11. He saw that what was at the center of this would be a sense of pride that would overtake us and make us believe that we were smart enough to run the world without God. When he first experienced this insight, he did not understand it. Today, he understands it fully and sees this is at the center of our society. Yes, pride, has indeed, been the source of many of our troubles in our world and will continue to be so.

This brings me back to you. You and I are the body of Christ. You and I have the central role, as I learned in Rome, of being the prophets the world. Priests are prophets to their parishes and laity are prophets to the world. We are those who have the vocation to be in relationship to Christ so that we may point the world to the truth who is Christ, for without Christ the world has no hope. This is our vocation. However, we must remember, as the Pope teaches, there are those forces that seek to destroy humanity leading people away from Christ. These are the forces that will seek to trash the body of Christ by any means possible. Indeed, I once explained to Mike Gallagher on his radio program, that much of the scandals in the Catholic Church come from bishops lacking a sense of that dynamic of evil that seeks to destroy the Church and humanity. I think bishops have since learned their lesson and are more attuned to the realities of these evil forces.

Who do these forces say we are? Protectors of criminals, some say we are naive, superstitious, hypocritical, foolish, ignorant, uneducated, unsophisticated, the list goes on  Who are we? Baptized disciples of He who is the way, the truth and the life. Without us living our faith as called to, the world is lost. For it does not matter who they say we are, it matters who Christ is and that we are His disciples. Likewise, it did not matter who they say Jesus is; it matters who He is indeed is. For we follow Christ who is, not the Christ whom the world especially those seeking to live on their own wisdom foolishly, say Christ is. We need to be His servants that they may know the way, the truth and the life. We do that be being in relationship with Christ, allowing him to transform us and becoming the creations of the Father through the Son and Holy Spirit. Without this, the world has no direction except that which comes from their own pride. Be the prophets you have the calling at your baptism to be because that is who you are.

God bless you,

Fr. Robert J. Carr

Fr. Carr is an alliance member of the New Song Community (Canção Nova). He is the pastor of St. Benedict Parish in Somerville, MA is the editor of this blog.

Photocredits:

Top Granitepeeker via BigStockPhoto.com

Bottom Middle: Cancao Nova

Others: Fr. Robert J. Carr