Fr. Bob’s Homily – 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Today we read about how Jesus summoned the twelve and sent them out. They were the most unlikely cast of characters for anyone to choose to be the cornerstone of a worldwide movement: poor, uneducated fishermen; a tax collector who would be considered a crook; people with no influence or social connections. But Christ sent them out to be extensions of Himself.

Perhaps the scary thing is that, like it or not, we are their successors. St. Paul tells us that God chose us; that we should be holy. The word “holy” is the Greek word “hagious,” which has the idea of difference of separation. A church is holy because it is different from other buildings. The Sabbath is holy because it is different from other days.

There is the challenge that modern Christians have been slow to face: in the early Church, the Christians never had any doubt that they must be different from those around them. They knew that they must be so different that they would probably die for it. The tendency nowadays is to play down the difference between the Church and the world.

We Christians do not always think of ourselves as different from the world. Yet Christ insists on a difference. It should be possible to identify the Christian in school, the office, everywhere. And the difference is that the Christian behaves not as any human laws compel, but as the law of Christ compels.

A Christian workman is out to satisfy the regulations not of the union or management, but those of Christ, and that will make him a different kind of workman. A Christian nurse or doctor will never regard a sick person as a case, but always as a person. A Christian employer will be concerned with far more than the payment of minimum wages or the creation of minimum working conditions.

It is a simple fact that if all Christians became “hagious,” holy, different, we would revolutionize society. The twelve that Jesus sent out were very ordinary people, yet they dared to be different, to be holy.

So many of us are afraid to be what we are called to be – saints. Sanctity is your Christian calling simply because to be a saint, to be holy, is basically to be one with God. It means that you try to live the two great commandments of the law: Love God and your brothers and sisters as much as you love yourself.

My friends, simply be what you are called to be: saints. Live like saints. You are called to greatness, therefore be great, and help make our Church like a country where no one is a stranger, and no one is rejected. Remember, Christ told us what we are: He said, you are the salt of the earth; you are the light of the world.