Brothers and sisters: 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 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. (1 Cor. 12:12-13)
To be baptized is to be in the Body of Christ, to be part of a community of faith that we call the Church. This Body of Christ, this Church can sometimes be regarded as an organized institution with its beliefs and practices. For most of us, however, what offers us life in this Body of Christ is the community of persons that surround us. They welcome us, support us, accompany us and nurture us in our journey of faith together. One might say that for most of us, Church, the Body of Christ has a face, or faces. It is most often in our memories that we see these faces that are Church for us.
I grew up in the Cathedral Parish in Saint John. At that time, it was a large parish with lots of people. It was a downtown parish, and the neighbourhood was one in which virtually everyone could walk to Mass on Sunday morning. Our family was not notably active in the parish, but we were regulars. I remember that my father, as we walked to church, would give each of us a nickel to put into the collection. He would say: “This is for God.”
On one Sunday, as we sat in the front seat, the gentleman who took up the collection (they always seemed to be the same elderly gentlemen) came along to our seat. He passed the long-handled basket in front of us. As he did so, my brother (probably about 4 years old), clutched his nickel tightly, looked up at the gentleman and asked in a loud voice: “Are you God?”
I do not recall what the gentleman said or did, if anything. And I do not remember if “God” ever got my brother’s nickel. But I do recall that this Sunday Mass routine was a regular event in our family, a kind of “family ritual” after which we had breakfast at home. As we grew older, we kids went to a different Mass from our parents and here the ritual changed a bit. In our early teens, we usually traveled in a herd and the Mass ritual consisted in sitting together and then, after Mass, walking around town with our herd. Whether it was with family or with friends, I cannot help thinking this Mass ritual was an important experience of community.
In early days of the Christianity, St. Paul traveled from one little community of believers to another. As he did so he seemed acutely aware that these early churches were families of believers, Christian communities. Though made up of many very different persons, they shared a common Spirit and were called to live in love and support of one another. He expressed something of this when he wrote to a person named Philemon, whom he had converted to Christianity at Colossae: When I remember you in my prayers, I always thank my God because I hear of your love for all the saints and your faith toward the Lord Jesus. (Philemon v.4-5)
The Body of Christ into which we have been baptized and which has conferred on us a share in that one Spirit touches us most in the coming together as a community of believers – real persons, with faces. To the Corinthian community Paul wrote that they were one body, gifted with one Spirit.
Can you recall some of the faces who have been part of your faith journey?
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