Power From the Sun (Son)

Amazing what you learn in Mass!  In the homily at today’s Mass I learned that Superman’s powers come from the sun.  I always thought Superman was just, well, super – that as an alien being he had all these powers in himself. But it turns out that (apparently since his home world orbited a red sun) when the young Kal-El reached Earth, the Earth’s sun gave him the powers he possesses.  So all that ability to fly, to leap tall buildings in a single bound, etc, all come from the Sun; without the Sun, Superman can’t do any of those super things.

A simple but effective analogy, and perfect for a Mass in which we celebrated the Baptism of a baby into the faith.  The priest observed that Baptism knit the new member of the community to the source of all of our strength – Christ.

And it is a source we need to go back to over and over again – in our prayer, in our Eucharistic celebrations, always.  The things we are asked to do as Christians – to love not only our friends, but our enemies; to proclaim the Gospel to the whole world, not just to our small circle of parishioners; to die to self and rise to Christ – are not things we can do on our own.  They are things that require that we be connected deeply to our source – the Son.

When we are so connected, in the words of Philippians: we can do all things through Christ, who strengthens us.

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