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beauty, body of Christ, Corinthians, folk mass, function, gifts, harmony, miraculous, physical body, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, united in God
Group of business people assembling jigsaw puzzle and represent team support and help concept
Today’s second reading from the lectionary (1 COR 12:12-30) is the one that uses the analogy of the human body when speaking of “the body of Christ.” I think of the familiar “folk Mass” hymn that we used to sing often when I was teaching school and playing guitar that still shows up in a more refined iteration in church some Sundays (probably today!). The refrain says that we are many parts; we are all one body and the gifts we have, we are given to share. May the Spirit of Love make us one indeed: one the love that we share, one our hope in despair, one the cross that we bear…The verses sing of joys as well as pain and how everything works better if we are all united in God.
I was thinking a little more elementally when that song popped up. My question was: Picturing the whole physical body, if you were only one part, which part would you be?
While you’re reflecting on your answer and considering all the possible responses (no jumping to conclusions, please – or dismissal of the question!) my suggestion is that you bless each part of your body as miraculous as it arises to your mind. Then when you know who you are, remember Paul’s caution that if an ear should say, “because I am not an eye I do not belong to the body,” it does not for this reason belong any less to the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be…?
How wonderful the world would be if each of us could accept the gifts and function of all of us as the harmony and beauty that animates us in this vast and marvelous created universe!
The Sophia Center for Spirituality 