We are made holy

Seventh Sunday of Easter – B

It’s not unusual to hear some version of “I come to Mass to get away from the world for one hour.” It comes sometimes as homiletic critique: “We shouldn’t be hearing about politics or the news at church. I get enough of that at home.” Or a warning to kids: “Don’t touch that.” “Don’t go there.” “That’s only for priests.” It’s saddest in its most subtle form: “I’m not holy enough for that.”

Comments like these protect the holy from human contamination. However, the church long ago condemned gnosticism, which claimed that everything earthly, including our human bodies, was evil.

Still, we continue to ignore what both creation and the Incarnation teach us: that the world and all of us in it are good—very good, in fact—good enough for God’s Word to dwell within. Ultimately these comments are excuses from doing Christ’s mission.

Jesus’s prayer today in verses 18 and 19 assert that we have been consecrated, that is, made holy as Christ is holy. And holy not for safeguarding but for service in and to the world. We are made holy for the purpose of making the world holy. We can’t do that by withdrawing from it but only by drawing all that is human, our griefs and joys, our sins and our saintliness, into the sanctifying life of the Trinity.

This post was first published in “GIA Quarterly: A Liturgical Music Journal.”

Image credit: Photo by Carlo Alberto Burato on Unsplash.

Read more reflections on the Sunday readings here:

• Restraint and Generosity
• Going Further
• Can we be salt and light?
• Who is advocating for those in need?
• Bonded to Christ’s Mission