Second Sunday in Ordinary Time (Homily)
January 17, 2021 11:30 am · Sergio Muñoz Fita
We begin Ordinary Time with the desire to walk with Christ. In the first Sundays of this second cycle, we find in the readings two threads that intersect, so to speak, as we progress. In the Gospels, we hear the call of the first disciples and the beginning of the public ministry of Jesus. This Sunday and the next, we contemplate the calling of Andrew, and his brother Simon Peter; as well as James and John, the sons of Zebedee. The first reading is always related to the Holy Gospel and serves to better manifest or understand what happens in the New Testament. Today, for example, we have heard the call of Samuel, whom Yahweh chose for his service. This story is connected with the Gospel, where the same God who once called mysteriously in the night, now in broad daylight, without veils, openly invites in the person of Jesus Christ.
In the second reading, however, we listen to the first letter of Saint Paul to the Corinthians, specifically the part in which the Apostle to the Gentiles speaks of fidelity to God in our bodies. Today he reminds us that we are the Temple of the Holy Spirit and that is why we must treat our bodies as holy. Next Sunday, Saint Paul will say "let those having wives act as not having them ... for the world in its present form is passing away”. In two weeks, we will hear him recommend virginity as a way of life directly consecrated to God.
These two threads that we referred to earlier may seem independent at first glance, but they are actually linked. We could express it this way: in the Gospels, Christ invites us to follow him, to walk with him, to share a story with him, to take a journey and in the second reading, we are told that this following of Jesus Christ has a bodily dimension as well.
Dear brothers and sisters, we no longer belong to ourselves. We are Christ's, who, as Saint Paul said, “purchased us at a price”. We call Jesus Lord. He is truly our Lord only if he is also Lord of our body! But, the Apostle goes on, we not only belong to Christ, we are his body! We are the Body of Christ, members of his body, and when we sin in the body, we profane the Body of the Lord. Notice how forceful this way of thinking is: Saint Paul tells us that through Baptism, we have become one with Jesus. We have become temples of the Holy Spirit. I am the body of Christ! And when I sin in my body, I make the Body of Christ sin! The Body of Christ cannot sin in its Head, who is most holy, but it sins in its members. How do we dare to do that? How can we outrage Our Lord in this way? We have a God who has become flesh - human flesh since the Incarnation is a divine reality - which we have no right to taint.
Please allow me one last thought. If we are the body of Christ, then He continues to walk in history through us in the same way that we must walk following Jesus in our body. Sometimes it seems that purity is understood as a "not to do", as a list of prohibitions, but the truth is that chastity is an open path by which we follow Jesus. Today we read the Gospel and we are tempted to think: "How lucky were those first disciples who were able to physically meet and follow Christ!" You know what? We can, too! Christian purity helps us to physically follow the Lord on a path of freedom, a path that turns life into the most extraordinary adventure. We follow Christ physically through chastity, and we follow Christ physically in the Church. I have physically followed Christ: my body has brought me here, to Arizona, away from my family and my loved ones. It is not a spiritual, interior, imaginary following. It is real! It's physical! Christ has taken me out of my home as he took John and Andrew in today’s Gospel! And something similar happens in marriage: it is a physical following of Christ, in the Church!
That is why gender ideology is truly satanic. Instead of telling man that his body is for glory and eternity, that the body and sexuality are a gift from God, and that at the same time it belongs to Christ who has given us this gift as a way to reach him, instead tells him: “Your body is not for glory, nor is your body a gift, nor is sexuality something you are, it is something you choose to be". In the background, behind it is the old temptation of wanting to be gods, wanting to create ourselves, reject sexuality as a gift and make it the object of our own decision.
For this reason, in the face of this hopeless culture, I say to all of you: never be discouraged by our weaknesses. Glorify God! Let us follow the Lord Jesus in our body! I say to the children: glorify the Lord in your body in the joy of purity. I say to the elderly: glorify the Lord in your body in chastity. I say to young people: glorify the Lord in your body in abstinence, which is a school of authentic love. I say to women: glorify God by joyfully receiving the beautiful gift of your feminine body. I say to men: glorify God in your body by submitting your passions to true love. I say to married people: glorify God in your body through conjugal chastity. I say to consecrated people: glorify God in your body in virginity. I say to those who are attracted to people of the same sex: glorify God in your body in union with the crucified Christ who loves you. I say to people who have sexual identity problems: glorify the Lord in your body and do not reject the gift that your body is for you and for all of us.
And so let us follow Jesus. Let us live trusting in his mercy, which lifts us up whenever we fall and strengthens us to achieve victory over the world so that he will one day crown us if we are faithful to his covenant in our body and soul.
