14th Sunday in Ordinary Time

 Occasionally, in order to ensure we have our priorities in the right order, we need to apply a "litmus test." Such a test shows us without ambiguity what is most important in a world that can be confusing and complex. The greatest "litmus test" for how anyone encounters reality is: "Did Jesus rise from the dead on Easter Sunday or not?" Since the resurrection is the centre of history and the meaning of the universe the conquest of Jesus over sin and death is the matter of supreme importance not just for Christians but everyone: "... Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth." (Rev 1: 5) Reflecting on the Roe vs Wade legal decision in the United States of America, which is primarily about the endless tussle between federal rights and state rights, I think that the "litmus test" is surely: "Is abortion  the killing of an innocent human life or not?" Again, the answer to that question determines the rest of the debate. Likewise, in the Second Reading for today, St Paul tells his Galatian congregation: "For neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything; but a new creation is everything!" (Gal 6:15) He also told the Corinthians: "So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!" (2 Cor 5: 17) If we substitute circumcision with any number of issues we face in the Catholic Church, for example, standing or kneeling during the Eucharistic Prayer, where to put statues in the church, to use Latin or not, etc, we find that we have a "litmus test" for us, too, in 2022. We can argue about all of those and other matters till the cows come home but if the Gospel has not transformed us it is all a waste of time. If we are so transformed by Christ and conformed to his example and life of service and self-sacrifice in the Holy Spirit then the answer to all of these other questions will come more easily and they may well fade into insignificance. St Paul also gave us the "litmus test" of love which can guide us in our day to day trials so that we do not lose sight of our Christian calling: "If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries ad all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing." (1 Cor 13: 1-3)