Friday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time

The Rock of Cashel
viewed from the ruins of
Hore Monastery, Ireland

 Be mindful of prisoners as if sharing their imprisonment,

and of the ill-treated as of yourselves, for you also are in the body.

We can suppose the prisoners are those Christians who had been arrested for their religious practices. Political and religious prisoners often suffer dreadful isolation. Surrounded by guards who have no sympathy for their cause, they feel utterly abandoned. They needed the financial and prayerful support of the Church.

Exhorting his people to remember the prisoners, the Author of Hebrews reminds them, “for you also are in the body.” Our fellowship is not simply a fraternal organization of like minded souls. It is not a political party, a hobby club or a society of mutual interests. In fact we’re often divided by our social, political and economic opinions and even our religious beliefs fail to bring us together. Our unity is “in the body.”

Ordinarily, that expression refers to the baptized but this morning I might stretch the envelope a bit and consider the body of all human beings and of all creatures. The grace of Jesus, who is the word made flesh, has created a mystical union – if I may dare to use such an imprecise expression – of all flesh.

As the choir sings in Handel’s Messiah, "And all flesh shall see it together..."

The Incarnation is more than an invitation to come to God through Jesus. It is also God’s passage to us, a “two way street.” In this “way” God embraces his entire creation, human, animal, vegetable and mineral. All of these elements meet in the body of Jesus, of course, as they do in our bodies. God has become a living creature of the earth, breathing our air, drinking our water, and eating our food.

The flesh of Jesus then becomes a bond, a covenant, with all flesh; and all the more powerful for its being sanctified on the cross. Just as the rivers of Egypt became blood beneath Moses’ wooden staff, so does Earth’s water become sacred beneath Jesus’ wooden cross. His blood flowed from his cross and mingled with the springs of life beneath us and the clouds overhead to consecrate all living things.

The church honors the Incarnation of Jesus wherever we discover it, and especially in those who are imprisoned for the faith. They are closer to the original experience of Jesus than just about anyone. Finding ourselves in his body, we pray for their deliverance.