Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time Readings

How can you pick a Christian out of a crowd and people? How is a Christian different from the many people gathered in a place? What distinctive features does a Christian have that no one else has?

The answer to the question is that we cannot pick a Christian out of crowd of people because Christians look the same as all other people.

What makes a Christian different from non-believers? Christians believe.

Christians believe that for our sake God the Son was born to a virgin and took on our mortal bodies and looked just like us in everyway except sin.

He gave Himself up for our sins and suffered and died on a cross for the forgiveness of our sins and for reconciliation to the Father. Jesus died once for all and each time we gather as a community around the table of the Lord we enter into Good Friday and the eternal sacrifice that Jesus made, and we remember, we celebrate, we believe.

Like, Elijah in the first reading today, we are called to believe to the fullest extent of our being. Some can believe deeply, and others may be only able to believe a little, but our belief is not a quantitative measurement, like pounds and ounces. Our belief is qualitative and subjective based upon how much we have to offer. If we think ourselves to be well off in spiritual gifts, then those who have the greater gifts are to give more. Those who have a lesser number of gifts, give to the extent that they are able. However, unlike the pharisees in today’s Gospel, we must never hold our spiritual gifts over other people because they are gift and freely received and freely given. All of us must consider others more greatly endowed in spiritual gifts than ourselves and be willing to learn from them.

Many times, in counseling, I have encountered extremely broken people who were greatly weighed down by their own sins or the sins of others. I could have had tremendous sympathy for them and their suffering but if I pitied them, then I could not help them. I learned to have empathy for the other, feel their burden and their pain, but not cross the line and make it my own. In these experiences, in the most broken of the people, I was occasionally rewarded by being given a glimpse into their souls and seeing the light of Christ burning brightly within. In those moments, I was extremely humbled and thankful that God had ministered to me through the brokenness of another’s life. These experiences also gave me hope that Christ’s sacrifice on the cross was universal and not reserved for a few. And how fortunate I was that God loved me first.

Today, let’s get in touch with who we are and stop trying to be what we are not. Today, let’s remember that we are beneficiaries of Jesus’ passion and death and our only contribution to our salvation is to say yes to the grace and allow God to love us more today than yesterday.

May God continue to bless us,

Deacon Phil