Superpowers

 

“Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound! Look, up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's Superman!

Yes. It's Superman, strange visitor from another planet who came to Earth with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men.  Superman, who can change the course of mighty rivers, bend steel with his bare hands, and who, disguised as Clark Kent, mild mannered reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper, fights a never-ending battle for truth, justice and the American way.”

I’ve been able to recite this introduction to the old Superman TV show word for word since I was 5 years old.  Of course, at five years old, it was all about the ‘neat stuff’ Superman could do.  As I matured however, the most important words to me were not the abilities that Superman had—as impressive as they were—they were the last 11 words that left the biggest impression on me.

“…fights a never-ending battle for truth, justice, and the American way.”  I grew up believing that truth and justice truly are the American way.  And the older I get the more I realize it is, in fact, a never-ending battle to maintain this belief.

Truth and justice are taking a real beating in the United States and the American way is quickly becoming blurred, if not a joke, in the eyes of the world.  We can use more superheroes these days, to battle the ‘forces of evil’ in the form of relativism, racism, intolerance, and hatred.  The good news is that there are plenty of heroes to get the job done!

What’s your “superpower” or the special gift or talent we possess that might assist others?  We all have at least one superpower.  The Church calls them charisms.  They’re the graces and/or gifts and talents given to us by God, intended to build up the Body of Christ.  They’re given freely, but they do need to be ‘activated’ through Baptism, discernment, and prayer.

John the Baptist knew that his charism was to preach and proclaim the coming of the messiah.  He held fast to his gift of preaching and teaching and put his life on the line to speak the truth when it came to confronting Herod Antipas about his marriage to his brother’s wife when his brother was still living. While Herod, a “king” with “power” couldn’t stand up to the truth when his wife asked for the “head of John the Baptist”.  He couldn’t humble himself and say no to the request.  It would’ve been “humbling” for him to do so.  It may have made him seem weak.  What would people think of a king not keeping a promise? (Mark 6:17-29)   Probably the same thing we think of modern-day politicians who don’t keep theirs!

When given power we need to know what to do with it.  In the account of John the Baptist’s beheading we have two great examples of the choices we have in using our “power” or charism.  We can use it for a greater good and it may cost us friends, jobs, opportunities, or even our very lives, like John;  or we may use it to make us “king of the hill”, walking over others and ignoring the truth as we climb up to what we think is our goal, as Herod did.  It’s not always an easy choice when “human wisdom” and/or society tells us that it’s okay to climb our way up and if someone next to me is falling down well, too bad for them.  On the other hand, our faith says that we can all climb together helping each other to achieve our goals and giving glory and praise to God.  In doing so we build up the “Body of Christ” (1 Corinthians 1:26-31).