7th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Cathedral of Mary Our Queen
February 18, 2023
The Need to Belong
It is said that we human beings are “social animals”. Some are more outgoing than others, but almost no one wishes to be isolated. A sense of belonging is an in-built part of our humanity. In fact, we often identify ourselves as members of a group, especially our family. We may also identify ourselves as a member of a prayer group, or a committee, or a professional organization. In Baltimore, people often identify themselves by the high schools they attended. The point is all of us need to belong.
Belonging to Christ
St. Paul refers this truth about our human nature in our second reading. He tells us that, in the Church, we do not belong to a particular faction or “party”. Rather, we belong to Christ and Christ belongs to God. But what does it mean to say that we “belong” to Christ?
Well, Christ doesn’t “own” us the way we own a watch or a car. No, we belong to Christ more like a husband and wife belong to one another in love. Nor does belonging to Christ merely mean that we are part of a loose association of like-minded people who happen to be enthusiastic about Jesus. No, St. Paul teaches that being “in Christ” means we are united so closely to him, that we are members of his Body the Church–individually and collectively (1 Cor 2:27).
So, to say that we belong to Christ means he loves us, and that his love has a claim on our hearts, and that, in Christ, we also belong to one another in the Church. Thanks to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit Christ and his redeeming love dwell in the very heart of the Church and dwell also in the depth of our hearts. Through the Word of God, prayer, and the sacraments, most especially the Eucharist, we participate deeply in the mystery of Christ, and by so doing we are united one to another in the Church.
You Are the Temple of God
Well, what does this mean concretely? What should differentiate membership in the Church from membership in other organizations that we belong to? Paul answers that question in our reading from First Corinthians: “Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? And Paul warns, If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person!”
What, then, is St. Paul teaching us? That rivalries, factions, ideological divisions in the Church are serious business. They tear down the temple of God, where Christ dwells with us and in us, and where we are to dwell with one another in love because we all belong to Christ. We know only too well how easily the Church can be divided, and simply reflect the polarization engrained into our current culture. These divisions represent a failure to love one another in Christ, and those failures hamper the Church’s mission to proclaim Christ love to the world.
Loving as Christ Loved Us First
What can be done? What can we do? Sometimes we think the Church is so big and complex that there’s nothing we can do, but the Gospel reading from St. Matthew tells us a different story: it tells us how we are to love in the Church and beyond the Church.
In a word, we are to love one another as Christ has first loved us. If we belong to Christ, we must be Christ-like, that is, we must love as he loves: Jesus who died for us while we were still enemies of God, Jesus who offered no resistance when he was scourged and mocked, Jesus who was led to the Cross as a lamb is led to slaughter.
Our Gospel gives us some idea how to translate Jesus’ love into real-life terms. The Lord tells us not to demand “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”, but instead to offer no resistance to those who would do us harm. Turn the other cheek. If your tunic is demanded, give your cloak as well. Go the extra mile. Give to those who want to borrow. Love, not just your friends, but your enemies as well. This is the magnanimous love that should characterize our relationships in the Church. When we love one another in Christ, there is no room for rivalry and competitiveness, and certainly not for enmity. Our whole way of life, as individual Christians, and as members of the Church is to be shaped and molded by living contact with Christ and his saving love. To quote a folk hymn from the 1960’s: “They’ll know we are Christians by our love!”
Love, it is said, diffuses itself. Its nature is to reach out beyond itself. When we are rooted in Christ’s love and love one another in the Church, we will be part of a community of faith that reaches out beyond itself to the unchurched, the perplexed, the troubled, the poor, and the vulnerable. We will be a church made up of members who are ready to the extra mile, members who are willing to love not only the fellow parishioners and friends, but those who belong to other parishes, those who live in other communities, those whose life-experience may be very different from our own. If we are rooted in Christ’s love, we – as individuals and as a Church – will love even those who feel the Church is an unworthy institution, and want it to see it silenced and diminished. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to defend the Church in appropriate ways, always aiming to meet hatred with love and evil with good – hard as that is to do. We also need to listen to our critics, not assuming that they are always wrong or evil, but instead, discerning what we may learn from them, as individuals and as a Church.
A Most Ample Love
St. Thomas Aquinas wrote: “The perfection of God consists in the most ample love of people, good and bad. It consists in gentleness, patience, moderation, and temperance of the appetites, and what follows therefrom: the highest peace and tranquility of soul, so that no injury, wrath, or revenge can affect it; so that one is imperturbable and without passions.”
Let us ask God the Father to pour out the Holy Spirit upon us, that we may be belong to Christ and in the Church belong to one another in Christ, and that our love might bring peace to the Church and thus overflow abundantly. How grateful, how joyful should we be that we are Christ’s and Christ is God’s! May God bless us and keep us always in his love!