30th Sunday in Ordinary Time

The Bible is the single best personal trainer that there is. That’s the message that St. Paul, or rather the Holy Spirit through St. Paul is trying to teach us.

I’ve known some people who work as personal trainers in gyms in various places and they are very busy. They’re busy because you and I live in a culture which is obsessed with looking good, with being in shape, with losing some weight, to trying to stay physically fit, which can be very important things.

Many people find a strange connection between prayer and exercise as prayer, like exercise, is more than just an opportunity to release some stress.

But as helpful as it is to be in shape, as good as it is to take care of our bodies, and while a personal trainer can be helpful to not only motivate us, to get us in shape or stay in shape but also to help teach us the things we need to do in order to stay fit, we have to be careful to not reduce life to external beauty or the physical fitness.

We have to instead be concerned with things of lasting significance, of ultimate significance. Because the happiest people in the world aren’t the ones with the beautiful bodies. The happiest people in the world are the ones with a beautiful soul. And in order for you and me to have a beautiful soul, we have to have our ears attuned to the voice of God who made us for happiness and for joy. And here, in His Word, is where He speaks to us, personally and directly.

Here, St. Paul tells us in the second reading we receive wisdom which enables us to see reality accurately and which leads us to salvation. Here, Paul tells us, is where we receive training for righteousness. Here, we learn God’s plan for our lives; the only plan which can lead to fulfillment and to satisfaction.

That’s why the Bible is the single best personal trainer that there is.

Now I routinely hear, “Catholics don’t need to read the Bible.” So if you get nothing else from my homily today, hear this loud and clear: READ THE BIBLE. All of us, every day, for at least five to 10 minutes. Doesn’t matter if you’ve never read it before, start. Start today.

Here is where our heavenly Father comes to us, His children, and makes known who we are and who He is. Here’s where He reveals to us that there is a path that leads to life and there’s a path that leads to death. Here’s where He reveals to us his love and his mercy which are beyond anything we could ever imagine.

Some of us who have never read the Bible, perhaps we don’t know where to start. I wouldn’t advise starting with Genesis and try to make your way through because all too often, the people who do that usually quit somewhere around Leviticus, which is not very far into the Bible.

My suggestion would be for us who have never really read the Scriptures or who are just beginning to read the Scriptures would be to read nothing but the Gospels over and over and over again for a year or so.

The reason for that is that so many people have a horribly distorted or at best, less than accurate view of Jesus.

Because our image or view of Jesus so often comes from movies or Time magazine or who knows what. That’s not Jesus.

Jesus reveals himself to us in the Gospels so we have to make sure we open them up and let Him tell us who He is. In short, just as you and I would seek out an expert for a part of life, like a personal trainer to get in shape, so we should, if we’re wise, seek out an expert for all of life.

Since God is the author of life, He’s the expert. Now having said all that, offering, what’s the training that it’s trying to instruct us in? What’s the wisdom the Scriptures are one insight leaps out to me, inspired by our reading last week?

In that first reading we heard a very powerful story of how Moses lifted up his hands in prayer while the Israelites were in battle. So as long as his hands we lifted up, all went well.

But when he grew tired, he dropped his hands, which is a poetic way of saying he stopped praying, the Israelites got mowed down.

The insight is one that is very basic and elementary but one that we need to put into practice and the insight is this: We can’t do this alone. We need each other, desperately.

We not only need each other for material help, we need each even more so for spiritual help. More specifically, you and I have to be men and women who regularly commit to pray for one another here at this parish.

Let me make this more concrete: just in the past few years of my ministry, I have sat down with numerous couples whose marriage are on the brink of breaking up. We live in a culture with an incredible disposable view of love and an increasingly far less understanding of marriage.

There are so many pressures, daily being exerted, upon our marriages and families. They are like the Israelites who were getting mowed down while Moses dropped his hands in prayer. In light of this, I would like to ask all of us to pray for vocations in this parish.

Vocations to the priesthood and religious life for sure, but also vocations to matrimony, to pray for those who are married in our parish. Those who are doing very well and seem to be strong and those who are not doing so well and are most in need of God’s help.

Let’s pray that they be quick to call out for and to trust in the grace that God promised them on the day of their wedding.

Let’s pray today in a special way for those who are facing some very difficult choices, whose wills need be strengthened so that they can forgive one another, they can not only model for each other and give to each other a tangible expression of the Lord’s love and mercy, but so they can give that example and expression to all of us as well.

Let’s also pray of course, for those who have gone through the deep pain of divorce or having lost a spouse to death. I pray to God that He will do for them what only He can do - bring healing and peace. This is the trainer for life but it doesn’t help, it can’t help unless we open it up. So let’s resolve to do that for ourselves and for our whole parish so that that we can truly be fit.

Sunday Mass begins at 11 a.m. with the Sacrament of Reconciliation at 10:15 a.m.

Come pray with us at St. Michael Catholic Church located at 1004 W. Gentry in Henryetta.