The Central Mystery of Our Existence
by Fr. David M. Knight
Tuesday, September 17, 2024
Twenty-Fourth Week of the Year
Saint Robert Bellarmine, Bishop and Doctor of the Church; Saint Hildegard of Bingen, Virgin and Doctor of the Church
Lectionary 444
1 Cor 12:12-14, 27-31a/Lk 7:11-17
1Corinthians 12:12-31: Paul is facing us with the central mystery of our own existence: that by Baptism we have “become Christ” in a sense so true and so deep that, like every mystery, it “invites endless exploration”: we are one body with Jesus and each other.
Paul saw that a false perception of the “distinction of roles” was destroying the community’s sense of unity. We see this at Mass. People think the presider is doing something so proper to him that they have no part in it. So they just watch. Some more liturgically aware may try to make their own prayer “follow” his; for example, by paying attention to the words of the Eucharistic Prayer and trying to absorb their meaning. This is good. But they are still assuming the presiding priest is doing his thing and they are “following” it.
Paul says the diversity of roles in the Church is like the different functions of the body. In a love letter, can the words on the page be understood except as marks made by a hand guided by a brain, expressing the love of a heart? The action of no single part makes any sense at all except as united with the others in the indivisible self-expression of a whole person. Any “distinction of roles” that does not see each part sharing in the action of every other part is misleading.
That is what happens at Mass when all in the congregation don’t see themselves as saying and doing what the presider is saying and doing and what every other minister and person at Mass is. The words read aloud by the lectors in the Liturgy of the Word do not make sense except as the vocalization of the words of the whole community: God’s words, written in their hearts already by faith, that the community is calling to mind and relishing with love. The people who bring up the bread and wine at the Presentation of Gifts cannot be understood except as the whole community coming forward to place themselves on the altar again in reaffirmation of their Baptism and of their inclusion in the offering about to take place. At Mass, nothing done by anyone makes sense except as the action of the whole community expressing itself through one particular member. Any separation of one member’s action from the action of the rest destroys the reality and intelligibility of the Mass.
Even in ministries that seem to be distinct—the exercise of authority by administrators, the call to attention by prophets, the healing love of caregivers—it is Christ who lives and acts in all, expressing the love of all and serving the good of all.
Luke 7:11-17: No “part” of Jesus healed: the whole Jesus did. And still does in any “touch” of his body.
Initiative: Pray in the presider at Mass; not just with him.
Reflections brought to you by the Immersed in Christ Ministry
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