Homily for January 19, 2003
Year B - Cycle I
2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time 

It’s good to be wearing green again. This is Ordinary time. 52 weeks in the year. In the church year, 33 of those weeks are called Ordinary. The rest of the weeks are Lent, Advent, Easter, and Christmas season. But it’s during Ordinary time when we really work on our salvation. In other times we do, as well, but there are special themes of the masses and seasons. But in Ordinary time, it’s just the day to day life that we live, which is how we become saints. It’s how we are sanctified, in doing the best we can in the vocation we are called to. Whether that be mother or father, single person, or a priest or religious, or scientist or doctor or plumber, whatever it is. That’s where we are going to find our salvation. This is a time to seek holiness. And we all want to be holy. We do. And we’re trying.

Ordinary time is a time to listen, especially listen to the scriptures Sunday after Sunday after Sunday. There are three cycles of readings, according to the year. There’s years A, B, and C. In A we hear from Matthew, B we hear from Mark, and in C we hear from Luke. And this year, St. Mark will take us through the teachings of Christ. In a systematic way, over 33 weeks, we will hear most of what Jesus taught. We need to listen attentively, and then act on what we hear. We are going to hear the word of God.

Now today, we hear John’s gospel, introducing this year. John begins with asking the question, "What are you looking for?" You can’t find it if you don’t know what you’re looking for. "What are you looking for?" Why do you come here week after week? I am reminded of a friend of mine, Paul Callan, I served in the Army with. Paul was from Boston. And you probably know that if you don’t get out of Boston by the time you are ten, you’ll never lose the accent. And he used to call me "Cairney", Boston for Carney. And he’d say, "Cairney, when you become a priest, would you please just tell the people something to help them get through the week. Don’t get too complicated. Just to get through the week. Cause I sit there week after week, and I say ‘tell me something that will help me understand my wife, well, my family.’"

Why are you here? I’m here partially to obey God’s commandment to honor Him on the Sabbath. Jesus said "Do this in memory of me." The Holy Eucharist. I think we’re here to seek comfort and peace, and understanding. We’re here to confess our sins and ask God’s pardon. To worship and to praise God. All of the above. And I know some of you are here because if you don’t come, your mother will kill you. But I’m glad you’re here too.

So, to find what we’re looking for, we need to listen to the scriptures and listen to the words of God, and Paul gives us the first lesson this year. Paul, in this short reading we heard from the 1^st Letter to the Corinthians, gives us the beginning of the Christian teaching of sexual morality. Now, this scripture uses the words morality and immorality. The older translations talked about fornication, which is sexual relations between two people who are not married. The church’s teaching, as begun by Paul, on sexuality is very positive. Sometimes we are accused of being negative on sexuality. That’s not true, it is very positive. And Paul explained that we are one person, body and soul. We are not two different people. Paul was talking to people in Corinth. Corinth was a rough city. It was a sea city, a trading city, and it was known for its licentiousness. It was filled with houses of prostitution. And the Greeks had a philosophy of the body and soul that goes something like this, "The body is bad, it is evil; the soul is good, it is sacred." One of the Greek philosophers said, "I am a poor soul shackled to a corpse." Talk about lack of respect for the human body. Many of the Greeks considered the body as a tomb for the soul. And because of this duality, the Greeks went to one of two extremes often times. Either they were rigorous with their bodies and lived a very aesthetic life and punished the body. Or more often, especially in Corinth, they let the body do whatever it felt like. "If it feels good, do it." And that was the situation that Paul was addressing in Corinth. Trying to explain to the Christian that the body is sacred. You heard the reading. He is saying that the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. He says, "Do you not know your bodies are members of Christ? Whoever is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with Him. Do you not know your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, and that you are not your own?" So, Paul is teaching this body and soul, that’s you. Yes, we’re separated at death, the body and soul, but we will be rejoined on the resurrection on the last day. Your body is sacred. And therefore you must use it in a sacred way, in terms of sexuality.

When two people who are married have sexual relations, not only their bodies are joined, their souls are joined. Think about that. Their souls are joined in Christ. So powerful and sacred is that union, that new life is created. Mothers and fathers create babies. God does too, but God cannot create a child without a mother and father. That’s the way He planned it. So, therefore, sexual relations are something that is incredibly sacred. I’ve mentioned this speaking to teenagers, and its like they’ve never heard it before. That your body is sacred. This baby will be baptized and this baby will become Christ. Christ cannot sleep around. Christ cannot give in to His pleasures. It’s a simple message, and a Holy, Holy message. A message the people of Corinth needed to hear, and a message we need to hear today.

I’ve counseled couples who are living together, not in marriage. They have told me that they don’t trust each other enough to share their checkbook, but they’re sharing their bodies. There’s no such thing as casual sex that’s not sinful. Because you’re betraying the Christ that’s in you. Isn’t that clear? And yet, many Christians say, "That doesn’t work for me. I’m different. I’m more progressive than St. Paul." "I know what the Christian church teaches, and I’m Christian, but I think I’m going to go on with this affair, or this relationship, because it feels right for me. I’ve never been happier in my life." Have you ever heard people say those things? It reminds me of Psalm 36, "Sin speaks to the sinner in the depth of his heart. There is no fear of God before his eyes. He so flatters himself in his mind that he knows not his guilt. In his mouth are mischief and deceit, all wisdom is gone." If you are a Christian, you must follow Christ’s teaching. This week, it’s on sexual morality. We won’t talk about that for the 33 weeks. There’s lots of things we need to discuss, lots of things we need to work on. But Paul begins us with this important subject.

Some people just won’t listen. Or they hear, but they just don’t listen. There’s a difference. You hear a plane passing over, but you don’t listen to it. You listen to good music. We need to hear the word of God, and listen to it in our hearts. And the reason some people know what the teaching is of Christ, claim to be Christian, and still don’t follow it, is, ultimately, an ego problem. They think they’re better than the scriptures. George Custer had an ego problem. He could hear, but he couldn’t listen. George Custer knew what he knew, and thought he knew more than everyone else. You all know what happened to George Custer. He was warned not to go to the Little Big Horn, that thousands of Indians had gathered there. But he went anyway, and he and his troops were slaughtered. An historian, Evan Cornell, tells a story, that after the battle two Cheyenne women found Custer’s corpse. They asked the other braves not to desecrate the body any further. They took sewing awls, sewing needles, and punctured Custer’s eardrums. And the reason they did that, was, in their way of thinking, he was unable to hear and listen to the warnings of this life, and they wanted him to be able to hear in the next world. Dramatic example. By the way, they did that not to desecrate his remains, because Custer had a good relationship with the Cheyenne’s. And they were doing him a favor, helping him not to make the same mistakes.

Well, I hope our ears are open to the word of God. And I hope we are able to listen, week after week, and to take what we hear from the scripture, bring it home, think about it, and grow in holiness. The truth will set you free, and if you obey the word of God, it will also make you holy. And that’s what we want to be, don’t we? We want to be holy, because we know only when we are holy do we fully please God. And only when we are holy are we truly happy. For this year, may we all become holy. That’s our prayer today.