The other night I watched a new animated movie called “Encanto.”  My sister told me that I had to watch it, so I trusted her judgment and watched it, despite that being out of the norm for me to watch anything that isn’t sports, but, actually, I really enjoyed it.

 

Now if you haven’t watched it, I am probably going to ruin it for you, but I want to explain the story.  Basically, Grandma in this movie had a huge tragedy happen to her when she was a young mom and because of that, she received a gift that appeared out of thin air.

 

The gift that Grandma received was this magic candle that never burned out, and that candle produced this magical protected place where she could live safely, and a house that was essentially magic.  Then, when each of her children grew up, they received a gift as well, some sort of a skill that would benefit the family and community.  

 

Her one daughter received a gift of controlling the weather.  Her son received a gift of prophecy, he could see the future.  Her other daughter received a gift of healing, she could just bake some bread and the person would eat it and they’d be healed.  

 

Both of her daughters went on to get married and have children, and each of the grandchildren received gifts, except for one granddaughter named Mirabel.  So the two main characters were Grandma and Mirabel, the only one in the family who didn’t receive a gift when the appointed time came.

 

It was interesting to watch Mirabel interact with those who had gifts, and vice versa.  In particular, and this is the real spoiler alert here, Mirabel started to realize that Grandma treated all of the kids with gifts differently, focusing on the gifts, defining the people by their gifts, and because of that, the family house started to fall apart, and the magic candle started to flicker and go out.

 

It was then that Mirabel recognized that it wasn’t about the gifts, it was about them just being a member of the family. Grandma had almost treated her as nothing because of her lack of a gift.  Mirabel pointed this out to Grandma.   Grandma needed to see her granddaughter without a gift in order to recognize that it wasn’t about the gift, it was about her being an important part of the family, with or without a supernatural gift.

 

Yes, the gifts helped them to get through life and to bless the family and really to bless the whole community who had grown up around them, but they needed everyone’s gifts to survive, and they even needed this little girl that didn’t have a gift in order to recognize that it wasn’t about the gift, it was more important to recognize that she was a beloved daughter of this family.

 

I saw this obviously as a very Catholic Christian message that goes along with our second reading: “Now you are Christ’s body, and individually parts of it. Some people God has designated in the church to be, first, apostles; second, prophets; third, teachers; then, mighty deeds; then gifts of healing, assistance, administration, and varieties of tongues.”

 

Then Paul goes on to question, “Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work mighty deeds? Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret?” And the obvious answer is no.  We don’t all have these gifts of the Spirit, but the gift that we do have is important to use for the body of Christ.

 

That’s how the reading started, “As a body is one though it has many parts, and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body, so also Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body…, and we were all given to drink of one Spirit.”

 

We all matter, we are all important parts of the Body of Christ.  The problem is that we sometimes think that we don’t have valuable gifts to offer, that we aren’t valued members, that God doesn’t have something for us to do in His body, the Church.  And we put ourselves on the sideline.

 

This is kind of what happened in the first reading, everybody put themselves on the sideline, they didn’t know of God’s Word, so in this first reading they are reading the bible, seemingly for the first time, reading what they had at that time, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

 

Ezra stood up to read the Torah, the books that had been disregarded for a time, and the people were sad because they realized they had not upheld the Law of God.  Furthermore they hadn’t heard about the mighty works that He had done to show that throughout history, in which God showed just how much He loved their family, but they didn’t know of His love and violated the Law.

 

But God wasn’t looking to punish them.  He didn’t even tell them to go and repent.  God told them to go and celebrate.  Ezra told the people, “Today is holy to the LORD your God. Do not be sad, and do not weep”— for all the people were weeping as they heard the words of the law. He said further: “Go, eat rich foods and drink sweet drinks, and allot portions to those who had nothing prepared; for today is holy to our LORD. Do not be saddened this day, for rejoicing in the LORD must be your strength!”

 

God was just so thankful that the people went to hear the Word of God proclaimed, so He didn’t want them to look back in anger or to be afraid of the punishment, but to look forward, to move forward knowing that they were beloved children of God, rejoicing in the Lord who gives them strength.

 

In the Gospel, “Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit,” and He read this scroll, much in the same way Ezra stood and read the scroll to the people, and He chose to read this, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me 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 He says to them, ““Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.””

 

Because this is a new time, Jesus was proclaiming the Kingdom is at hand, a new thing is happening now, and He has these gifts, these spiritual gifts that we have been hearing about and we will continue to hear about, He has them all and He is freeing people from their sins, from their state of slavery to addictions and the oppression of the evil one which causes us to suffer.

 

God wants us to be free of these things, not to look back in anger, but to repent and forgive ourselves for what we’ve done of course, and then to move forward in full confidence that we are beloved children of God, rejoicing in the Holy Spirit who gives us good gifts.

 

God is going to be with us to bless us going forward, to give us good gifts, but He needs us to believe, believe in His word that we are free, believe in His love, believe in His desire to give us gifts, and then believe that we need to do something with these gifts we have been given, not just sit on the sideline.

 

We are part of this family and we are important, and so we have something that only we can do in this world.  God created us for a purpose, and we must go out and do that, whatever it is, we must go out and do that thing that only we can do.

 

It is important to take stock of our lives… are we living as part of the body of Christ?  

Are we doing our part in what God is calling us to do in this family? 

Are there gifts out there that we have been given, we just haven’t activated? 

 

It might be the simplest thing, but there is a purpose, a mission for each of us, if we are willing to listen to God, to open our hearts, to ask for and activate these gifts, and then to respond in faith and trust to use these gifts to build up the Body of Christ. 

 

Each of us is an important part of God’s family, and we need to be present and do our part in order to be the strongest and healthiest parish that we can be.