SECOND SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME - JANUARY 14, 2024

SECOND SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

You are not your own. This claim made by Paul in this Sunday’s second reading from his first letter to the Corinthians flies in the face of everything we are told in modern society. In a culture that supports individuality and autonomy above all else, we might find it difficult to hear from someone telling us that we are actually part of a greater whole. In this context, though, Paul is specifically referring to the physical body. Many early heresies within Christianity believed that the body was corrupt and that only our spirits were holy; the modern heresy of humanity is that we are just our bodies, our bodies are the sole property of our individual selves, and (ironically) it doesn’t matter what we do with our bodies. In reality, the person of Jesus Christ not only sanctified the human body in a new way through the Resurrection, he took on a body himself to teach us that our physical selves have always been a valuable and necessary part of who we are.

READ THIS SUNDAY'S MESSAGE

On this Second Sunday of Ordinary Time, the readings at Mass reveal to us the link between our physical bodies and our creator; we learn of this by witnessing the different components of the make-up of God. St. Thomas Aquinas taught and argued that God as the Supreme Being of the Universe is not complex, but rather divinely simple. He is One. The intricacy of God is found in His creation, because it is through His creation that He gets to reveal every facet of His nature with us. Consider the complexity of the simplest item of His creation and you will recognize His infinite Intellect and Wisdom. His creation is an instrument through which He reveals Himself, and the first moment He revealed Himself to us was through His Word, when He spoke the things of this world into existence. This is the same Word that called out to Samuel in the Temple; with nothing but his hearing, Samuel sought after God even though we are told he was not yet familiar with the Lord. The Word of God became flesh and dwelt among us, as John the Evangelist tells us, in the person of Jesus Christ. In other words, the Word of God took on a physical body, revealing Himself in an entirely new and tangible way that spoke to our senses. The reason why Paul tells the Corinthians that we, as human beings, are not our own is because we “have been purchased at a price.” That price was the physical sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Sacrifices are not mental, or spiritual; they are physical. And God, making Himself physical for us, sacrificed Himself for us.

The physical component of God, that which can be found in His creation, did not end with the Ascension of Jesus into Heaven; why would God only reveal Himself physically for a mere 33 years? He became one of us so that we can be physically united with Him here on earth for the rest of our earthly existence. He spent His public ministry passionately teaching this truth, and His presence now remains with us through the sacrament of the Eucharist (if you have a hard time believing that this is how Christ wanted to be with us physically, reread chapter 6 of John’s Gospel). Now, every time we are about to unite our physical bodies with God’s, we hear the words of John the Baptist from this Sunday’s Gospel: “Behold, the Lamb of God.” To be members of the Body of Christ is not some esoteric or spiritual concept; if it were, it would directly contradict Paul’s message to the Corinthians. So if our bodies are for the Lord, and we make up the Body of Christ, what does this mean? How would this work? Through a physical union - when all of us at once consume the physical presence of God in the Eucharist and physically become united with one another through the Lord and for the Lord.