The Second Sunday in Ordinary Time – January 15, 2012

In the second reading, Saint Paul asks the Corinthians to “avoid immorality.” Corinth was a great and populous city. The port of Corinth was one of the most important in the Roman Empire. It was a very cosmopolitan city, a great center of culture, attracting every sort of philosophy and religion. It was also a notorious center of immorality. Corinth was known for its debauchery and licentiousness.

What Corinth was is more or less what our world is today. However, Saint Paul says that Christians should be different. He says that our faith introduces a new way of understanding the human body, a more beautiful and greater way of seeing the body. Saint Paul is not against the body. On the contrary, what he says is a defense of the true value of the body.

No doubt, Saint Paul’s words are very current. Nowadays, for many Catholics it seems that their faith does not have anything to do with a moral way of living. In the end, what everybody does and thinks in society seems to be the rule. What the Church teaches is ignored or considered outdated.

When I was in my former parish, I was invited by a high school philosophy teacher to dialogue with his students about religious values. When I entered the class, I was assailed by the students with many questions, such as why I was not married, why the Church teaches things about sexuality from the Middle Ages etc. When I could speak, I only asked them two questions: “Do you like to be loved?” They answered: “Yes!” Then I asked: “Do you like to be used?” After a moment of silence, some of them lowered their gaze and said: “No.” I said: “What the Church defends has to do with being loved and not being used. We are persons and we are not objects.” After that, there was a great silence in the classroom.

Saint Paul affirms that an immoral way of living deeply affects our relationship with Christ. He reminds us that the body is a “temple of the Holy Spirit” and we are not our own property. One of the most important truths of our faith is that we belong.

What does it mean to be moral? We immediately identify this with obedience to rules or commandments. However, it is much more than that. To be moral is to accept that everything belongs to Christ. To be moral is to look at everything with gratitude, to understand everything as given and not as possession. To be moral does not mean to be a Puritan. Christian purity is not a rejection of anything but an acceptance of everything as a gift from God.

Our body is a gift and we are called to be a gift to others. When we forget that we are a gift and we are not giving ourselves to the others, we are immoral.

To be moral is a deeper way of loving. It is to love in the way that Jesus loved.

The source of morality is to discover that God knows us by name. In the first reading, Samuel was called by name. It is in the discovery of the love that God has for us that we find the strength and reasons to be moral. It is the experience of God’s mercy that frees us from the slavery of instinct.

In the Gospel, Jesus asked his disciples: “What are you looking for?” Psalm 119 says: “How can a young man keep his way pure? By living according to your word. I seek you with all my heart.”

What allows us to be pure is to keep the search for God within us alive. It is to have a great heart open to the infinite.

Let us ask Our Lady to preserve in us a loving heart, a pure and clean heart—like spring water.

Amen.

The Epiphany of the Lord – January 8, 2012

Today we are celebrating the Epiphany of the Lord. In Jesus’ manifestation to the Magi, we can see the universality of salvation. The light that shone in Bethlehem’s sky was destined to reach all the nations, all the peoples of the earth.

In today’s celebration, we remember the Journey of the Wise Men to meet Jesus. They came from the distant East in search of the truth, in order to adore the true God made man. They came from their own wisdom to the contemplation of Wisdom made flesh. The long journey that they took following the star symbolizes the journey toward God that all humanity is called upon to take.

When the star shone brightly in the sky, many people could see it. However only the Magi saw the star and followed it.

Why did the others not see the star? They were distracted by superficial things. They were distracted by many things, including what the poet T. S. Eliot called “usury, lust and power.” They were attached to what belongs to the earth. They were not looking at the sky. They were not waiting for anything more than what they could grasp with their hands. They were distracted.

The Magi were looking at the sky. They were waiting for a sign from Heaven. They were not satisfied by appearances and normalcy. They were not centered on themselves. They were centered on something greater that had to happen. They hungered and thirsted for the infinite. They were waiting for the star. They had the curiosity of children and the resolve of adults. They were fully attentive because they had a deep desire in their hearts.

If we go to the airport and wait for someone who is coming from a trip, if we are waiting for someone we love, we are at full attention. We look at the electronic boards. We check and recheck if the flight has already arrived. We look at the people, trying to find the face we are seeking. We are not distracted; we are only focused on identifying the person we are waiting for among the crowd passing through the door. We experience great joy when at long last we find the face we are expecting. Finally we can embrace the person we were waiting for.

The Magi teach us two fundamental attitudes for understanding the signs by which God calls us: attentiveness and acceptance. They found the star and they accepted the invitation to follow it. The Wise Men responded to God’s call.

We are not lacking in signs from God. What we are lacking is attentiveness and acceptance. We need to be educated in this, which requires two things: prayer and judgment.

We need to have a solid spiritual life based on prayer and sacramental life (Eucharist and confession). However, that is not enough. What we find in our spiritual life, the light that comes from our relationship with Christ, in order to judge ourselves and what is around us. The Blessed John Paul II said that faith needs to become culture. Faith is a vision of everything, concerns everything: the beloved face, our job and what is going on in the world.

Let us ask the Holy Family for the light that conquers our distractions and allows us to accept and follow the signs that God gives us.

Amen.