January 16, 2022

Second Sunday in Ordinary Time Cycle C

Isaiah 62:1-5; 1 Corinthians 12:4-11; John 2:1-11

When I was a young man, not many years after getting out of the Navy, I visited a good friend up in North Carolina. We had been shipmates and have remained good friends to this day. I was visiting one time, and the church where his parents attended and to which he went as a child was having a service followed by a big picnic out back. As I knew his family well from prior visits, I agreed to attend. Although I knew that he was not Catholic, what he didn’t tell me was that this church was Pentecostal, which is to say that they believed in speaking in tongues, faith healing, and other what I thought of as very non-Catholic practices. I was tremendously uncomfortable at the service – all of the Catholic services I had ever been to were liturgically based, which is to say that they are very scripted about what is to happen and what is to be said. This speaking unintelligible words and having spotters around to catch people when they fell in a fit were completely foreign to me.

Fast forward to my time spent in formation to enter the diaconate. As part of my classes presenting the various teachings and ministries of the Church, we were introduced to several people involved in what is called the “charismatic movement.” They are Roman Catholics in every sense, and they also practice many of the same traditions that the Pentecostal church that I attended did, such as faith healings and speaking in tongues. And while I still would not be very comfortable with being an active part of these rites, I am comfortable – more than comfortable, I am very proud – that I am a part of a Church that accommodates such practices. If the name of Catholic is to mean what it originally meant, as a synonym for the word “universal,” then it must include all practices which Christians have always used which are not found to be counter to any of God's teachings. And here we have, right there in today’s second reading, Saint Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, that the early churches he established in Corinth, as well as in other places, practiced faith healings, speaking in tongues, prophecy, and other manifestations of the Spirit. So clearly, someone who wanted to deny that they have any part in our faith would not have biblical support for that belief, and indeed quite the opposite.

I have also been in other protestant churches, mostly for funerals of people that I’ve met through work, that have very different styles of worship, including boisterous singing and very vocal amens to agree when a preacher says something that particularly strikes home with them. But again, we have Catholic churches with these same practices, again the charismatic churches as well as predominantly Black Catholic Churches. One member of this congregation shared a story: after moving to this area from a city where she attended another Catholic Church which was predominantly African American, she was scolded by a member of Saint James for singing too loudly and for saying “Amen” aloud when she agreed with something. I’ll be the first to admit that I internalize most of my opinions, generally wanting to mull over and think about what has been said when other people make speeches or homilies, but I can appreciate that some people feel a need to vocalize their reactions in the moment and share them with others. In this unfortunate situation, I think someone appointed themselves the Mass Police and empowered themselves to enforce the standards that they themselves like, rather than what is really required by our Church, and more importantly by our God.

If our Saint James Parish vision statement is real and truly mean something, we should be joyful disciples and welcome that others are able to connect with God and worship him in our faith community here. If our Saint James Parish mission statement is real and truly mean something, we should make more disciples by meeting them where they are and not forcing them to come to where we are. This is what Saint Paul is getting at in the second reading. We all have our own individual strengths and gifts, and we should all contribute to the body using these abilities. Just as all the parts of the body have different functions and they come together to form a whole person, the parts of this body, Christ's body, the Church, come together to form a whole community.

Monday is the feast of Saint Anthony the Abbott. This saint is called the Father of Monks, since he established the first group of aesthetics into what we would recognize today as a monastery. Saint Anthony ate only bread and salt, and drank water, and usually only once per day, although he fasted for days at a time. He lived alone in the desert of Egypt in an old Roman fort, and had food thrown over a wall for him to eat. Most modern monasteries do not have rules that are this strict, but almost all are based on the practices that Anthony and his fellow aesthetics developed: praying the Liturgy of the Hours throughout the day and night, remaining silent or nearly silent, and practicing self-denial. Now I bring up this because I think it speaks to what we have been discussing. I am glad I belong to a Church that has holy people, monks and nuns, who devote themselves to almost continual prayer for all of us. But I'm also glad that I am not one, since I would make a horrible monk. And if we all became monks and nuns, the world would cease to function. We need a diversity of people to make the world, and diversity of people to make a healthy Church.

This is not to say that our Church should be a free-for-all. We need a common core of teachings and community worship that we all accept – God made us as social beings, and worship has always had a communal aspect to it from time immemorial. So we have a Mass, and we have a catechism, which are the basic core upon which we all acknowledge are part of the minimum that we hold in common. However, they are not enough to have a truly deep spiritual life, and what is done in additional the Church gives us latitude. We should not only make sure that we nourish ourselves spiritually through engaging in many of the rich traditions our Church has to offer outside of the Mass, but we must also accommodate the practices of others which are not, so to speak, our cup of tea.

As we continue with the Mass, we will once again celebrate that most significant core belief and shared practice of our faith: the Eucharist, or the name we use that emphasizes its communal aspect, Communion. May it bring our community together and help us to grow in spiritual health ourselves and to appreciate the spiritual practices of others. Let us pray to Saint Anthony the Abbott to intercede for us, that we might suffer the hardships in this life humbly and as an offering to God, including dealing with those people we find difficult or bothersome. May our differences be a sign of strength in this community and not a cause of division.