Monday of the Twenty-second Week in Ordinary Time

 Lectionary: 431

I came to you in weakness and fear and much trembling,
and my message and my proclamation
were not with persuasive words of wisdom,
but with a demonstration of spirit and power,
so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom
but on the power of God.

The Buddhists have a saying: "Quit trying; quit trying not to try; quit quitting." I understood the expression at one time, and still have some grasp of it. 

It has to do with trying to make something happen without the conviction that this is good, necessary, and beautiful. That kind of trying is planning to fail because it lacks the spiritual quality of obedience. It is a sailboat without sails, drifting with the current despite the breezes that would propel it. 

I know little of sailing but I assembled a Revel model of a clipper once, and an insight came to me. The vessel with its masts and ropes is bound tightly to its sails; and moves easily with its sails, immersed as they are in the fluid air. There is no hesitation between the sails, ropes, and masts and the laden boat. With its taut lines of communication above and below, the vessel floats upon the wind. The entire assembly is one thing. 

So is the Christian who is baptized and is one with the Lord by the mystery of the Eucharist. There is no hesitation between the Spirit which impels Jesus and the communicant. As Jesus lies in his mother's arms, or walks to Jerusalem, or carries his cross, or waits on the cross for the mercy of death, so does the Church move with and in him. It is all good. 

But the one who tries forces his alien flesh to do something that we don't want to do. The we being the hands, feet, arms, legs, torso, and head of the one who tries and fails. The body is not one; the team is not playing together; and the failure is inevitable. 

Jesus found his disciples sleeping in Gethsemane even as he heard the approaching mob, and observed, "The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak." Despite their years of tutelage, the miles they had walked, and his rebukes of their quarrelsome ambitions, their flesh had not yet received that spirit which would impel the body to immediate, willing compliance. When the mob grabbed Jesus his disciples, too tired to stay awake only minutes before fled into the night. 

The body remembers. I've also heard it said, "God forgives; people sometimes forgive; the body never forgives." Meaning: if the body has not learned that compliance which moves immediately with the spirit, it moves sluggishly. It is not "a tight ship." 

If the body does not remember years of willing obedience it will not comply with the Spirit of Jesus. It may have lay willingly in Mary's arms, but it does not remember the hardship of walking uphill toward Mount Zion. And so the smokers', drinkers', dieters', and idlers' good intentions fail. 

Labor Day in the United States signals a return to the schedules of work and study. It so happens on this Monday that the Church's weekday congregants will set out with Saint Paul into his letters to the Corinthians, and with Saint Luke on the Lord's journey to Jerusalem. This is a day of beginnings. 

Hopefully, we have grown weary of the summer's indolence. We are relaxed and ready to go; our bodies are ready to resume a disciplined, tighter schedule of work, prayer, and study. Our bodies become a prayer as we move

"Through him, and with him, and in him,

O God, almighty Father,

in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

all glory and honor is yours,

for ever and ever."