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In our second reading today you heard a
letter from Paul to the Corinthians, and I would not be surprised if you
knew absolutely nothing about the city of Corinth. Corinth was a
cosmopolitan city. People flocked there from all regions of the Roman
Empire. It was a center of government, of trade, of sports, and was also
known as sin city.
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To live like a Corinthian came to mean
“wallow in immorality.” At a recent excavation of the city they
uncovered in one small area 33 taverns. What happened in Corinth, stayed
in Corinth.
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This was the city to which Paul brought
Christianity, and five years later, he writes them the letter we have
just heard. And we hear that this Corinthian church is divided, torn
into four factions following different leaders all going their own way.
Paul writes to them to try to heal the divisions. He likens the Church
to the human body with its many parts where no single part is
insignificant, without worth or value, and he tells them that is what
the church should be like: all different parts working together with
Christ as the head and every part of the body linked to Christ and to
each other.
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When we look at our Church today I suspect
that we could recognize ourselves in some of the conflicts of the
Corinthian Christians. Roman Catholics no longer all think the same way,
and we have all been hurt by recent scandals: we now have contrasting
opinions on almost everything. But, in spite of any differences we may
have, we cannot lose sight of the fact that we form a single body
because we are linked to the Risen Christ and we call ourselves His
body.
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You and I are linked to Him by our baptism.
And in St. Paul’s words, because there is one bread, many as we are in
number, we are one body for we share the one bread. When we approach to
receive Holy Communion we become what we receive: the Body of Christ.
Not that dogma and morality, how we think and what we do, are
unimportant. Only that, even more importantly, God’s water and God’s
bread transforms us, changes us from isolated individuals to a single
body that Christ claims as His own. And His command to us is love one
another. How? As I have loved you.
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It was in the 1980s that I worked part time
as a prison chaplain. There was a large HIV/ AIDS population in the
prison hospital: isolated, cut off from the rest of the world, these
AIDS patients all were very sick, thin and weak. The ward was a large
room lined with beds. There was always noise, even during Mass as the
nurses had to take care of the men, but I will always remember the
silence that befell the ward the day we read the Gospel of Jesus
reaching out, touching the leper.
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Some of the men tried to decorate the card
table that was used as an altar. They made paper flowers, and painted a
cross to hang in front of the table. One made a banner that said, “Love
is all we have for now. What we don’t have is time.”
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When we look around our world, at the war,
famine, the violence, we may not see much love. But when it is a
question of what it means to be human, to be Christian, what makes the
difference is love.
St. Paul put it another way to the
Corinthians in our first reading. He said, “In the end, only faith, hope
and love are left. But the greatest of these is love.”
Love, after
all, is the one gift that can make our world more human than Corinth.
Other gifts can help, economics and education, health and housing. But
without love, unless deep down we care, and yes, unless we live Christ’s
command, love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, love your
neighbor as yourself, we will be little more than a contemporary
Corinth.
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As a Church, as a parish, as an individual, I
may indeed go to Mass and receive Christ, but without love the rest is a
charade, playacting. And when the final judgment is passed on me it
will rest on one four-letter word. Did you really love?
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With that question goes the second line of
the banner: what we do not have is time. That is true not only of those
who have a serious illness, but it harasses all of us. No one can
promise themselves time, however young, however strong. I have never
forgotten a sign I read years ago in a convent chapel. It said, “Priest
of God, say this Mass as if it were your first Mass. As if it were your
last Mass. As if it were your only Mass.” Something similar can be said
to each of you. Live this day as if it were your first day. As if it
were your last day. As if it were your only day. Each new day is a
chance to be more Christ-like.
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My friends, a well-known singer and
bandleader wrote in his autobiography, “Women, horses, cars, clothes: I
did it all. And do you know what that is called, ladies and gentlemen?
It is called living.”
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Wouldn’t it be more satisfying if someday
you could say this about yourself? People, those I liked and those I
didn’t, all people but especially the homeless and the hopeless, the
naked, and the hungry, the lonely and the unloved, those who are
different from me, drug addicted and the AIDS afflicted, I did not do it
all, but I did what I could. And, do you know what that is called,
ladies and gentlemen? It is called loving. Love is all we have for now,
what we do not have is time.
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| Yours in Christ, |
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| Fr. Bob Warren, SA |
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