What wondrous things God has done for
us… what wondrous things! Before we were formed in the womb our Lord knew us.
Not only are we known, willed and loved by God who created us but at our baptism
we were claimed for Him. You and I are claimed for Christ, the Redeemer of the
world. No matter what this world throws at us we have the confidence of knowing
that we belong to Christ. How Blessed we are. What wondrous things God has done
for us.
Do we proclaim the great things of
the Lord? Do we stand up and boldly proclaim our faith? I think it is easy for
us to take the great gift of faith we have received for granted. Sure we are
good about going to Mass on Sundays and pray everyday. While going to Mass and
praying are very good and essential this is just the foundation. Viewing our
faith in terms of only our spiritual life is dangerous. It boxes our faith into
the four walls of this church. Yet we are called to be Catholic not just in church
but at our very core radiating our faith to the whole world.
We as Catholics are called to bring
our faith beyond these four walls to the public sector. Will we be persecuted
for this? Sure. Even our Lord warns us in the Gospel that no prophet is
accepted in his own native place. (Lk 4:24) Our Lord himself was put to death
by his own people. Some people will love us for the message we preach and
others will persecute us. In the end what difference does it make? Our hope is
placed in Christ and not the world. While worldly friends are good and
necessary our ultimate fulfillment comes from Christ and not from what others
think or say about us.
Bringing our beliefs to the public
sector is not really that foreign to us as Americans. Today many in our country
will gather to celebrate Super Bowl Sunday. How many people from across the
country are wearing either San Francisco 49’s jerseys or Baltimore Ravens
jerseys? … We have no problem pledging allegiance to our favorite sports team
by wearing their gear and cheering them on in public yet we have a fear of
proclaiming our faith in public. If I had to guess I would guess that more
people in our country are supporting their favorite team today than are
speaking about their faith.
Now I’m not saying we need to flash
our faith to the world in an arrogant way as we sometimes do with our favorite
sports teams. In fact this approach to sharing our faith can be dangerous. How
many fights break out across the world over people’s favorite teams. All we
have to do is look at international soccer to see the danger of this type of
evangelization.
As Christians I believe we often have
a desire to go to the mountain top to proclaim the truth and the beauty of our
faith. While our world is greatly in need of catechesis our world is often not disposed
to hear the truth. Our World needs witness of the truth not necessarily orators
of the truth. Jesus Christ needs us to be living catechists, living models of
our faith. Christ needs you and I to witness to our faith in an authentic way
at all times. Yet before we can become authentic witness, our faith needs to so
penetrate our lives so that as the psalmist says “our lives sing of the
salvation of the Lord.” (Psalm 71) When our faith becomes completely ingrained
in us we will naturally proclaim the greatness of the Lord and as our Collect
for fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time says we will honor God with all our mind and
love everyone in truth of heart. Allowing our faith to seep into us so that it
becomes a part of who we are is not easy … yet nothing in life worth pursuing
comes easy.
If you have ever watched a
professional football team up close this becomes clear. Watching these teams up
close one cannot help but be amazed at the sheer size, speed and athleticism of
the players. Yet more remarkable is watching how quick they react. In only a
matter of a split second they read a play to see what is unfolding in front of
them, realize what their responsibility to the team is on that play and react.
Seeing all of this unfold in a matter of seconds during a game I often ask
myself how can they do this? Anyone who has ever played any sport knows the
answer to this question lies in practice.
Practice can at times be very boring
because they seem to do the same thing over and over again. To an untrained eye
it is easy to ask why are they wasting all this time doing the same thing over
and over again. The players clearly understand what is expected of them why do
they have to waste time going over it so many times? Yet when you see these
athletes make plays during the game you realize not only do they have to know
what to do and have the ability to do it, their bodies must be so used to doing
it that it becomes second nature. These football instincts must become a part
of who the athlete is.
In many ways living our faith out in
public requires not only the grace of God but also work on our part. We come to
the liturgy to be nourished and strengthened to go out into the world and as
the deacon says at the end of Mass to announce the Gospel of the Lord. It can
at times be tempting to ask ourselves why do we continue to come to Mass and
say the same prayers over and over again? It is exactly in this repetition that
these prayers are seeped into our DNA. It is exactly in coming to the
regularity of the Mass that the Mass becomes a part of our life and in becoming
a part of our life we can carry it out to others.
We to Mass to nourish ourselves
through the reception of Jesus’ Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in Holy
Eucharist and through the prayers of the Mass so we can leave the four walls of
this Church and boldly proclaim Christ to the world in an authentic way by the
way we live our lives. We come to the liturgy to allow it to permeate our
entire lives, to become a part of our DNA so that it can shine forth from us in
all that we say and do.
