Body matters

Some scholars consider the fifteenth chapter of the First Letter of Paul to the Corinthians to be an earlier Pauline composition inserted into the present letter. Luis Rodriguez, S.J. comments that we may see the only link between the texts today from the Roman Catholic Lectionary to be that the first mentions the Apostle James, the second the Apostle Philip, who are both celebrated with a feast day. Friar Jude Winkler reminds us that Paul declares a kerygma, a basic teaching about Jesus in this seemingly out of context part of the letter. This action to direct the audience to the person of Jesus through the story of His life on earth is what Luis Rodriguez reminds us about our need to distinguish between Christianity and Christology. We live in a relationship with the Person Jesus. His life, death and resurrection are His experience which we contemplate to know Him. As the Evangelist John describes today through the questions of Philip, to know Jesus is to know the Father, to whom the psalmist gives great praise as the source of the heavens and the firmament which astound our senses. The difficulty of the Greeks to hear Paul is likely based in an idea which lives on today that we are spiritual souls in corrupt bodies. Jesus experience which comes to us through the witness of the Apostles is that the body is resurrected in a transformed way so our whole being is connected to the Way in which we know and follow Jesus.