Eighteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time Cycle B August 4, 2024

 Eighteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time   Cycle B    August 4, 2024

 There is a very old saying, going all the way back to ancient Roman times: “Clothes make the man.”   Now we would say, "Clothes make the person."  And this staying has been around so long because there is truth in that statement. 

So, do you like to dress up?   Every Sunday for Mass I dress up.  What do you think of my vesture???  [show vestment]   

It used to be that everyone dressed up for Sunday Mass.  Which I rather like.  I just cannot imagine myself going to Sunday Mass in a T-shirt, shorts and flip flops.  It just would not feel right.  But that’s me. 

In our Second reading today from St. Paul to the Ephesians he tells us: “be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new self….”   “the new self, created in God’s way in righteousness and holiness of truth.” 

Paul’s image of putting on the new self is one of putting on clothes.  

The New Revised Standard Version makes this clearer.   It translates this passage as: “clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”  

This clothing with the new self is not just a temporary wearing of a fancy outfit, but really a very radical change.  Paul declares to us: “you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds;..”  The desires that motivate us when we do not follow Christ lead to futility, to emptiness, to meaninglessness.  And it is not hard to see that all around us.

So, Paul urges us: “You should put away the old self of your former way of life, corrupted through deceitful desires, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new self, created in God’s way in righteousness and holiness of truth.” 

 To live this life of righteousness and holiness of truth is not stuffy, / nor stuck up, / nor feeling superior to others:  those are the ways of the Gentiles that Paul tells us to take off.

Rather, to put on the new self is to put on the works of the Holy Spirit: charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, generosity, gentleness, faithfulness, modesty, self-control, chastity.

To wear these virtues is what St Paul means when he urges us to “Put on Christ”.    So, I urge you to dress up.  Not physically, but spiritually, to “clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”

You will feel like a million!  

AMEN.