[Howdy, Church fans! Today, Deacon Mick took us on a very good meditation on some various aspects of discipleship as presented in the Sunday readings. As always, you can see the video of the Mass by clicking here.
Our readings today are about calls to discipleship.
They focus on the dynamics,
the dignity and the drama
of living and being a follower of Christ.
The first reading
from the Old Testament Book of Samuel
describes God calling young Samuel
in the middle of the night.
In the Gospel,
Jesus calls Andrew
and it’s Andrew who brings Peter to Jesus
for the first time.
Here we see something the dynamics of discipleship
that still continues today.
Some people
are called directly by God like Samuel.
They can say,
“Here I am Lord, I have heard you calling in the night.”
Most of us, however,
have been brought to the Lord
by people like Andrew in today’s Gospel reading.
We were baptized as infants
and brought to the church by others.
We grew up in the Church
and were taught truths of the faith by others.
We were encouraged
to follow Christ in everything we do by others.
The Lord called us through others
just as surely as he called Samuel in the middle the night.
There was an ‘Andrew’ in our life that
the Lord used to reach us, to teach us and to guide us.
That’s something of the dynamics of discipleship,
how people receive the call.
Some receive it directly in the middle of the night;
most receive it through others.
Then —— there is the dignity of discipleship.
What prompted Jesus to call Andrew & Peter?
What did Jesus see in Peter and in Andrew?
Of course, Jesus saw them as they were but
I believe — he also saw what they could become.
When we look at people,
we often see them only for what they are right now.
Jesus saw more.
He saw their potential.
Show a entrepreneur an empty city corner
and he sees a future store.
Show a sculptor a stone
and he visualizes the image it can be.
That’s how the Lord looked at people.
The Lord does the same today.
He looks at each of us
and through the Church ——
he shows us what we can become.
That’s the dignity of our discipleship.
Finally there is the drama of discipleship
in how we give witness to the teachings of Christ.
St. Paul is writing about this in today’s second reading.
Unfortunately, we live, as did the Corinthians,
in a sex-saturated society,
a society that trivializes the sacrament of marriage
a culture —— uncaring for the lives the unborn and the elderly.
Today, I want join with St. Paul
to focus on the dignity of the body,
of how sexuality gets trivialized.
Now, some say that the Catholic Church is preoccupied with sex.
In fact, it’s our society that is preoccupied with sex.
Sex is a subject of humor, discussion, gossip,
entertainment, novels, movies, news,
all the media and advertisements.
A person can’t watch television
for a brief period of time
without encountering sexual innuendo in some form.
And let’s not even begin the discussion
about the excess of pornography on the internet.
The proliferation of “secular experts”
and books about so-called “sexual liberation”
have all left society in shambles
and families broken apart.
This liberation has taken down politicians,
religious leaders, and the average man and woman.
This liberation has made multiple marriages & divorces acceptable
and living together before marriage
the common reality in this sex addicted world.
My brothers and sisters,
St. Paul is teaching us about
sexual responsibility and sexual integrity.
Sex is not a demon.
It’s part of human life,
but only a part.
There are other,
more important dimensions to what a person is
and the most important is our baptism in faith,
our vocation to our life as Christians,
and our call to discipleship.
Every part of our life
needs to be integrated in our vocation as a Catholic Christians.
Our commitment has to be complete and total.
Our Catholic faith, belief and teachings
are not a Catholic cafeteria or buffet line
where we can pick and choose what we like
because a secular society says it’s OK!
If Jesus is not Lord of every part of our life,
we can end up as a spiritual Jekyll and Hyde.
We pray one way and live another.
Our witness to the world today
must be that the seal of love,
the expression of love
belongs to those who have made a public
lifelong commitment to each other
that we call marriage.
Outside of marriage,
the sexual expression of love is irresponsible and wrong.
That’s the immorality to which St. Paul refers
and it’s as common today as in Corinth.
My brothers and sisters,
the key to happiness – to maturity
comes not from sexual experience alone
but from the commitment, the fidelity,
the loyalty, and the family life
it was designed by God to imply.
Not only has sex without marriage not brought happiness,
it has led to the use, abuse and distortion of people’s lives.
And history has shown us that
a degeneration of morality
has lead to the downfall of almost every major empire or civilization.
In this kind of world,
we disciples of Christ
must bring a message of hope
and respect for sexuality.
We must believe and profess that
our bodies are more than biological units.
They are temples of the HolySpirit.
Here, at Mass,
the Church calls us to the truth that
we don’t have to settle for the lowest
but can aspire to the highest.
Every Sunday,
the Lord calls us to live in the image of God
we were created to be.
We can be peacemakers,
we can respect the commitment of marriage
(our own and that of others),
we can honor the sanctity of human life and love,
we can learn to reconcile, to forgive,
to build a civilization based on the Gospel.
At ever Mass,
the Lord looks at us, as he did Peter and Andrew.
He sees us as we are
and each Sunday,
he shows us once more what we can become.
The dignity and drama of our discipleship
is not to settle for what we are
but to aspire
to what each of us can become in Christ.