July 12, 2009: 15th Sunday Ordinary (B)

How can you tell a Catholic among a crowd of people? If you are a nun or a priest, it's easy to spot them. Our children in Catholic schools know immediately what nuns and priests look like. Although kids know that nuns wear veils and priests wear collar with clerical shirt, they haven't been told what exactly the veil and the collar symbolize. A priest was talking to a group of Catholic school children. He popped out the white collar tab from his shirt and asked the children, "What is this?" A child raised his hand and answered, "A flea collar!"

The children see priests celebrating mass, visiting their families, and class rooms.And many little boys probably had their share of playing priest in their room with a cup, bread, and a book. It's a more rare sight now, but children used to see nuns teaching them and helping them to learn how to pray. But being Catholic means more than being a nun or a priest, isn't it? The other day, I was asked, "When some Catholics are asked, 'Are you a Christian,' why do they reply, 'No, I'm a Catholic?" I know why some Catholics reply that way; it's because they assumed they were being asked which denomination they belonged to.

What sets us apart? St. Paul tells us in our Second Reading who we are: "[God the Father] chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before him. In love he destined us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ...In him we have redemption by his blood, the forgiveness of transgressions, in accord with the riches of his grace that he lavished upon us." So is it just our appearance that sets us apart? No. It's something deeper. Our inmost being has changed--through baptism we have been redeemed, forgiven, made anew, and adopted as children of the Heavenly Father.

Not only that, we have been given a mission. We are ordinary folks from all walks of life, just as Prophet Amos and the twelve Apostles that Jesus assembled. We are to spread the Good News, that the Kingdom of God is at hand, all the while being in the world but not of the world, with one feet on this earth and the other in the Heavenly realm. Some of us are out there in front of abortion clinics praying for the healing of women, some of us are out there in the poverty stricken countries helping to run humanitarian missions, some of us wear habits and veils--taking no food, no money, no sack, other than a pair of sandals and a tunic--secluded in monasteries interceding on behalf of the world through their prayers. But most of us are in the ordinary world, raising children with values not of this natural world but values of the supernatural Kingdom of Heaven, working in ordinary work places spreading a glimpse of heaven to those we work with.

The one thing that folks will notice different about us is what we do here in the church. Unlike other Christian denominations, we wait daily and weekly for what we call the "source and summit of Christian life"--the Eucharist. Few days ago, one of our staff members reminisced about when her son was only 4 years old. At the communion time his daddy was on the altar as a Eucharistic minister. Seeing his dad handing out something white, the 4-year old turned to his mama and said, "Daddy's got cookies," and was bolting out of the pews to get his cookie. Luckily his mama grabbed him just in time. For little children and those who are not Catholic, these white hosts are simply symbolic bread. But we know it is more than that. It is Jesus the Lamb of God, who "[God] set forth in him as a plan for the fullness of times, to sum up all things in Christ, in heaven and on earth." And hence Jesus in the Eucharist is the source and summit of our life. Jesus in the Eucharist is the one and the same with him from whom we have heard the word of truth, the gospel of our salvation...who sealed us with the promised Holy Spirit. Whether we wear a white collar, a veil, or a pair of Levis jeans, we are set apart to be holy and to be ordinary prophets to our ordinary surroundings.