am I sensitive?

Homily

4th Sunday of Ordinary Time A1

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

29 January 2023  Kansas Day

AMDG

Am I sensitive?

The longer I pray with the beatitudes, the more I'm convinced happiness lies in sensitivity?  How sensitive am I?  How in touch am I with what I am seeing, tasting, feeling, smelling, hearing?  If we look at Jesus's ministry, it affected the flesh as much as the spirit, for the incarnation involves the salvation not of angels, but of persons, who are a unity of body and soul.

The happiness described in the beatitudes counters the numbness and coping that deadens the senses.  Happy are those who can feel everything, the good and the bad.  Only for such people who are sensitive, can the truth that the best is yet to come be realized, and felt.

Blessed are those who are poor, and weeping, and meek, and hungry, and repentant, and chaste, who don't have to be right, and who are unpopular, for such people are feeling things that many people avoid and hide from.  Woe to those who have things, and comfort, and status, who get away with things, who have to be right, are lustful, who use others and who are popular, for such people cannot be alive because they are insulated from the full human experience of feeling.

Only the empty, the vulnerable, the ready, the faithful can feel not only the bad, but even more importantly, the good that God has in store for those who love him.  Only the sensitive can live the truth of our faith that the best is yet to come.

Jesus came not to anesthetize the senses, but to redeem them?   Am I sensitive.  Answering the question is key to real happiness.