Monday of the Thirtieth Week in Ordinary Time

 Lectionary: 479

Be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and handed himself over for us as a sacrificial offering to God for a fragrant aroma. Immorality or any impurity or greed must not even be mentioned among you, as is fitting among holy ones, no obscenity or silly or suggestive talk, which is out of place, but instead, thanksgiving.

Ever since Eve hoped that eating the forbidden fruit might make her godlike, we human beings have created ourselves in the image of our gods. The god we choose is the god we would become. 

Saint Paul tells us in today's reading from Ephesians, by the choice of Christianity, we "become imitators of God," and especially of Jesus Christ. He evoked that principle as he introduced his song in Philippians about the humility of Christ: 

"Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God did not consider equality with God something to be grasped..." 

In today's reading from Ephesians, the Apostle urges us to "live in love as Christ loved us." Any parent of several children will readily recognize this impulse. They want their children to love and support and watch over one another when they are gone. They should live in their mother's and father's love. There is nothing unnatural or odd about Saint Paul's religious commandment; it is as natural as childbirth. The same children, gathering for the funeral of their parent, will invoke their memory as they set aside any differences. 

He goes on to urge his disciples to practice safety in their common life. No one should feel threatened or offended by "immorality, impurity, or greed." Obscenity, silly, and suggestive talk are "out of place" among us.

I have noticed how maturity eventually frees us of inane, adolescent humor; but I've also noticed how reluctantly some people are to grow up. Even in serious conversation they cannot control the impulse to double entendres, and to laugh loudly at scatological or sexual inuendos that were funny in high school. They're still smirking at the jokes that would have offended "Aunt Harriet," although she died a half-century ago, and only pretended to be offended at the time. This immaturity is sometimes associated with alcoholism and its culture, but it can readily persist in many subcultures. 

Saint Paul urges us to create a climate and culture in which we habitually respect one another's sensibilities and pious affections. We should be able to speak without emberrassment or self-consciousness of our devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, angels, and particular saints. Our religious habits and practices are on full display in this place, and among these people. If we're not all fascinated by the same psalms, saints, or shrines we can nonetheless appreciate the delight that others find in them. 

This is the benefit that religious communities, parishes, and organizations offer to new members. Entering this fellowship they can shed their reservations as people shed their raingear upon entering a dry shelter. They can exercise that lack of guile that Jesus admired in Nathaniel. 

Imitating God as beloved children, we fulfill Saint Paul's aspirations in Ephesians 5:19:

...but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another [in] psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and playing to the Lord in your hearts, giving thanks always and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father.