Reflection for Tuesday of the Thirty-first Week in Ordinary Time
We, though many, are one Body in Christ
and individually parts of each other.
Since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us,
let’s practice them:
if it is a question of prophecy, in proportion to faith;
if ministry, in the ministry;
if one is a teacher, in teaching;
if one exhorts, in exhortation;
if we contribute, generously;
if one is above others, with diligence;
if we perform acts of mercy, with cheerfulness. (Rom. 12:5-8)
Find today’s readings here.
Today, many seemingly “new” versions of Christianity are being proposed, and their various merits are often acrimoniously disputed on social media. How could this first century faith be divided into so many variations?
It is a familiar weakness to try to compose a faith that pleases us most. We seem to prefer a Christianity that doesn’t ask too much of us – not a Christianity of Mother Teresa or Dorothy Day. Perhaps we prefer one that better meets our standards of comfort and autonomy. Our expectations and desires have clouded interpretations of what it means to be Christian.
Today’s Gospel includes a broad invitation to join in the divine banquet, to co-create the kingdom of God, and directions for reaching the feast at the end of the world are included in today’s first reading today.
Paul has laid it all out for us in an overview that is as clear and vivid today as it should have been for those early Christians he spoke to. These directions hope to add the flesh of our daily works and intentions to this new faith and encourage relationships and mutuality, not the closed individuality of a self-serving spirituality.
Do your best in serving other members of the body of Christ and let your love be sincere; hate what is evil and cling to what is good.
Accept the party invitation, he insists: here’s how to do it. Do your best in serving other members of the body of Christ and let your love be sincere; hate what is evil and cling to what is good.
The Letter to the Romans includes a framework that would empower 19th-century Christian socialists before degrading into a threat in the 20th century, an allusion to “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”
Of course, Paul’s version is not entirely locked in the material world. It is an exhortation to a mystical reality, the effort of individuals who are part of one divine body. It is a relationship beyond class, nation or culture. Unity in one divine body is a metaphysical truth that should still guide us in our participation in our society today, at the level of our family, our community, our nation and the world.
Jesus told parables that implored those who gathered to hear Him to do the best they could with the gifts they were given, to excel and to co-create with the Father. Paul recommends the same thing, shaping the beginnings of these early Christian communities.
But we can return to this founding Scripture and rediscover the genius and divinity of a relationship with all men it implores, to “cling to that which is good,” so as to be ready to accept the invitation on the great feast of Christ. Kingdom of God.
