Tuesday 17 September 2024

Today is Tuesday the 17th of September, the feast of Saint Robert Bellarmine SJ, in the 24th week of Ordinary Time. Josh Garrels, with The Porter’s Gate, sings ‘Christ Has No Body Now But Yours’. Christ has no body now but yours, no hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes with which He sees, Yours are the feet with which He walks, Yours are the hands with which He blesses all the world: Yours are the hands. Today’s reading is from Saint Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians. 1 Corinthians 12:12-14, 27 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. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.  Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. How does it feel to be part of a group? Included? Valued? Needed? What are the gifts you bring to the community around you? It’s sometimes difficult to work together. How can we rise above that, making sure we function well as a whole? As you hear the passage again, picture your role in the Body of Christ. What do you need to do to feel included or, just as importantly, to draw in someone else? Perhaps you are longing to play your part in the Body of Christ. Or perhaps you’re aware of someone who needs to be recognised. What do you want to say to Jesus, to the very Body of Christ? Do that now as honestly as you can… Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.