One of the most powerful images used in Scripture and Theology to describe the Church is the metaphor that St. Paul offers us today in his Letter to the Corinthians.  The metaphor of the body.  And it’s actually more than a metaphor.  It’s more real than that.  We know that we are made members of the body of Christ by our baptism.  He is the head, we are the other members.  We’re that close to Christ; we’re that connected to him, as connected as your head and your left arm.  They affect each other, they respond to each other.  Your head suggests to your arm what it might do at a particular moment.  Sometimes your arm malfunctions, has a bruise, or doesn’t work quite right.  But most of the time it follows instructions and helps the whole person to do what it’s supposed to do.  Each one of us has a different role and function in the Body of Christ.  Your body wouldn’t be much good to you if every member in it were an arm, and you didn’t have hands or eyes or lungs.  The diversity of organs and members of the body are what make it work so wondrously and in such a versatile way.  Your eyes and your arms do very different things, but it’s nice to have both.  And they are tied together, and can work together, because of the head, and what’s contained in there.  That’s how the body of Christ works, and on more than just a symbolic level. 

St. Paul reminds us that we don’t need to act superior and judgmental if other people lack the abilities that we happen to have.  It’s ok that an arm is incapable of seeing.  Because an arm can do other stuff: an arm can saw through a piece of wood; an eye cannot.  Although of course both the eye and the arm are necessary to that activity.  That’s the case so often.  You might get the credit for doing something noteworthy, but you’re standing on the shoulders of someone else’s work.  Or someone else might get the credit, but they couldn’t have done it without you.  Someone else might have done the actual sawing and therefore gets the credit, but maybe you were the one who scoped it out.  The eye and the arm don’t need to envy each other.  They rely on each other, sometimes in very subtle ways.  And that’s the other side of this.  We don’t need to act superior if others lack our abilities, but we don’t need to be insecure about the abilities of others either.  If we’re comfortable with our position in the body of Christ; if we’re ok with what the Lord is asking of us in our life, then we can be ok just playing our part, just trying to help.  St. Paul summarizes this so beautifully: God has so constructed the body, so that there may be no division in the body, but that the parts may have the same concern for one another.  If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it; if one part is honored, all the parts share its joy.  We’re all in this together; we’re on the same team.  When one of us is seriously hurting; it’s like when you have a more serious injury or illness: it’s not just the particular organ or limb that hurts; your whole body feels off.  What affects one of us, affects us all.  On the positive side of things, when any one of us succeeds in some way, or anyone grows in virtue a little bit, or overcomes some sin or temptation, or performs a great act of charity or selflessness; that’s good for all of us.  That wonderful old saying: the high tide raises all ships:  It’s nowhere more true than in the body of Christ.  What’s good for any of us, is good for all of us.  We’re not a bunch of lone rangers who happen to come together every once in a while for a common purpose.  We are a unified diversity.  Our diverse backgrounds, skills, abilities, talents: these things are all brought into unity by our common Faith in Christ, by that central truth which unites us all.  That Jesus Christ is Lord.  That he is the Son of God.  That he is our Savior.  That he rose from the dead.  That he is the fulfillment of all Scripture and Prophecy: that he is the one anointed to bring glad tidings to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.  And together, a body united by our Head, we can do great things in the world and for Our Lord.