Saturday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time
Our first reading from the Letter of St Paul to the Ephesians paints a beautiful picture of the living, loving Body of Christ as each member fulfills its God-designed function. Today, may we each gratefully celebrate the charisms God has given us, and may we offer them in service to others, seeking to “live the truth in love” as vibrant members of Christ’s Body.
I have a deep-rooted connection to Ephesians 4:7-16. Prior to my conversion, I served in pastoral ministry as a non-Catholic Christian pastor in a variety of contexts. A large part of my career focused on “Equipping Ministry,” helping pastors and church leaders recognize and embrace their role as “equippers of the saints” (Ephesians 4:12) and inspiring “the saints” to come alive in their charisms and find meaningful ways to serve God according to their giftedness. Scriptures like these help folks to understand their unique role: “Like good stewards of the manifold grace of God, serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received” (1 Peter 4:10) and “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good . . . For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ” (1 Corinthians 12:7, 12). It’s important that each member of Christ’s Body gain self-awareness around how God uniquely created and gifted them and to discern the particular vocation to which God calls them.
As I approached this text from Ephesians today, it was verses 15 and 16 that captured my attention. “But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love” [NRSVCE]. The NAB translation renders verse 15 “living the truth in love,” but the Greek word literally means to speak the truth, to be true – to go about “truthing.” In the context of these verses, as a Christian “grows up in every way into him who is the head,” and “works properly, promoting the body’s growth building itself up in love,” the result of that conversion will be to live the truth! We live the truth of the Gospel “out loud” as we display a healthy Body of Christ to the world.
St Paul’s metaphor of a living body immediately evokes an organism – alive, vibrant, composed of members each performing their unique function and contributing to a healthy whole being. The Church is no mere body! She is Christ’s Body, with our Lord as the Head and we, the baptized, as members of him, with him, and in him. I have a friend who broke her foot and had surgery back in September. It was such a serious injury that she cannot be weight-bearing until after Thanksgiving, even though her surgery was successful and she’s healing well. She must be “side-lined,” if you will for a season, and this is for her good. A real tragedy, in contrast, is the Christian who “side-lines” himself, neglecting his charisms and ignoring his place in the Body of Christ. The Body of Christ suffers in its wounded members – the poor, oppressed, the infirm, the mistreated, the marginalized . . . the Body suffers too when a member is sidelined. Like my friend’s body – the whole body suffers because she’s lost the use of her foot; so it is in the Body of Christ when a “foot” isn’t functioning as God gifts and intends.
St Paul tells us we must no longer be children in our faith (vs 14) but rather “come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.” Speaking the truth in love (by how we live our lives) involves seeking unity within this Body of which we are members, gaining knowledge of scripture and Church teaching so that we are not “tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming,” and seeking daily conversion so that we might be perfected in God’s love. As one member grows and becomes healthier, the entire Body matures and attains greater health. Let us seek, by God’s grace, to grow in maturity as Christian disciples, “living the truth in love,” and doing our part to be a vibrant member of this one Body of Christ.
In the Body and Blood of Christ,
Elizabeth Wells