Thursday, July 29, 2010

HOMILY FOR EIGHTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME,

Our Liturgy today seems to present us with a rather gloomy picture of the human situation. It brings out forcefully the issue of self-dependence and condemns it. Holy Mother, the Church draws our attention to the fact we do not own our lives; God does. He is the only one who owns the key unlock our future. The psalmist puts it beautifully what the Church desires for her members when he says “Lord make us know the shortness of our lives so that we may gain a wisdom of heart.” Sir Edwyn Hoskyns used to say that Ecclesiastes was the most Christian book in the Old Testament. What he meant was that Ecclesiastes is a ruthless exposure of what the human life is apart from God and if taken really seriously, prepares the way for a hearing of the Gospel of Christ. What therefore “Vanity of Vanities” means is that all of human life is ultimately futile and meaningless if viewed in itself, apart from God. Most of our translations use the word ‘Vanity’, but that word has the meaning today of excessive self-love, especially of our physical appearance. The original word used in Hebrew “hebel” is ‘something that is transitory or passing, and has no substance’, and so the real sense of this passage is that the transitory things of the world are not to be chased after, but only the thing that lasts – the eternal God – is worth chasing after. The readings for today’s Liturgy bring out four issues for our consideration.
To begin with, one of the issues is the role of poverty in the life of the Christian. The point of today’s parable is that man is a fool who thinks he can secure his life by amassing worldly possessions. Jesus does not say that such goods are bad; nor does he say that man in question has lost his eternal soul because of his concern to increase his wealth: he merely points out the stupidity of planning one’s life without reckoning with what God has in store for us. This passage reiterates Luke 9:25 “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and suffers the loss of his own soul?”
Secondly, do we try to plan our lives without God? We who live in an era of affluence, counselors, contraceptives, scientific advancement (Humanism) and the like have the tendency to think that the human being is the centre of the world. Our reason for being on earth is for God and God only. Our basic Catechesis teaches us that God created us to know him; to love him and to serve Him. The folly of the man presented to us by our Lord in today’s parable is that he thought he could plan without God. Little did he realize that that very night, while he was making grand plans for the future, God was going to call him from this life to the next life where he will have to give an account of his stewardship. How many of us try to do the same thing? The life that we have is not our own; it has been loaned to us by God for a short period of time. “But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be? So is he who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich towards God” (Luke 12:21).
Thirdly, we are called upon to reject the works of darkness. In this age of permissiveness, we should listen attentively to Paul when he tells us, “Put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you: immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, covetousness, which is idolatry” (Colossians 3:5). This is as true now as it was then. We are to reject the works of darkness and be light to the world through the shining example of our Christian love.
Finally, the readings brings to the fore the fact that Christians should not place their hope in worldly possessions. A faithful Christian needs them in order to lead a full human life, in order to secure his own personal freedom, in order to provide for his family. But the Old Testament and the New Testament tell us over and over again that we are not to place our security and happiness in these things because they are all passing away. Our confidence is in the name of the Lord who is immovable as Mount Zion, who is more firm than Gibraltar.
Jesus invites us to ponder what the true riches are in human life. In the story Jesus tells, the man whose barn is bursting with an abundant harvest, plans on building bigger barns. He believes he's totally self-sufficient with all that stored-up wealth. The man has virtually shut out everyone else from his life and his thoughts for he says “This is what I will do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to myself, ‘You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry” (Luke 12:18-19).
Jesus teaches that those who rely solely on material goods, and allow them to control their existence to the point of greed and possessiveness are storing up treasures that will not last. It's being "rich in what matters to God" that is true wealth in the Kingdom. Examine your heart this Sunday. Have you focused on material goods, treasures that will not last? Or have you allowed God to fill you with love—with wealth of the "richest kind?"
St. Augustine puts it succinctly when he says “Lord, you created us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they rest in God.” We are more dignified than material possessions because we have been created in the image and likeness of God. “Therefore, I tell you do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns and yet your heavenly father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they (Matthew 6:25-26)?

Friday, July 23, 2010

HOMILY FOR SEVENTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME,

GENESIS 18:20-32/ PSALM 138/COL 2:12-14/ LUKE 11:1-13
THEME: DEVELOPING A DEEP PRAYER LIFE THROUGH PERSISTENCE SND PERSEVERANCE
“LORD, TEACH US TO PRAY.” This is the request of the Disciples in today’s Gospel. And, through the sacred liturgy, Holy Mother Church places upon our lips this same request: "Lord, teach us to pray." It’s a request we make willingly, however, because so few of us have mastered the art of prayer; so few of us can be called people of prayer. Yet we know that to advance in the Christian life, we must pray, and we must pray well.
The First Reading of today narrates the PERSISTENT attitude of Abraham in accessing the Mercy of God on behalf of the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. The reading gives us the opportunity to reflect on divine justice and casts its reflections in the form of a dialogue between Abraham and Yahweh. Abraham is the mouthpiece of the conviction that, as a God of justice, Yahweh would not destroy Sodom if it also meant the destruction of a few righteous men with the guilty majority. As it turned out, the dialogue came to an abrupt end because God could not find even ten righteous people.
Again, Abraham was again sensitive to the plight of the people of Sodom and Gomorrah and anticipated their need of God’s Mercy.
Abraham in last Sunday’s First Reading waited upon the Lord and so he was rewarded with been privy to God’s counsel (God’s decision to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah). When we wait upon the Lord he rewards us with knowing his future plans for us and that of others. Like Abraham, when we meet with God’s favour, let us not be selfish but to intercede for others. So God said “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, seeing that Abraham shall become a great and mighty nation and all nations of the earth shall be blessed in him. No, for I have chosen him, that he may charge his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice; so that the Lord may bring about for Abraham what he has promised him” ( Genesis 18:17-19).
Again, the encounter between Abraham and God shows that our God is an approachable God who is ready always to dialogue with his Children. This is a God who tells us that come let us reason together (Isaiah 1:18). Although Abraham showed a lot of persistence in asking the Lord to spare the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, there was something he lacked, something which was only fully revealed in the coming of Christ: it was that attitude of filial trust. God is not just the fearful Creator and Master of the universe, distant and unapproachable. He is our loving Father, eager to give good things to his children.
In the Gospel reading, Jesus gives some examples from human parenting: "What father among you would hand his son a snake when he asks for a fish? Or hand him a scorpion when he asks for an egg?" We know better than to play cruel tricks on our children, giving them something harmful in place of something they need. How much more will our Father in heaven give us the good things we need. In fact, he will give us the best gift of all: his Holy Spirit (Luke 11:11-13).
So, what do we learn from the Gospel? How does our Lord respond to this simple, yet profound and utterly essential request? He answers his Disciples in two ways. First, he teaches them what they should pray for: the content of prayer. Second, he teaches how they should pray: the attitude or spirit of prayer. Let’s look at both of these.
This is important to remember because, while it is certainly good to repeat these words as Jesus gave them to us, we should never let our prayer become thoughtless and mechanical: mere repetition of formulas which have lost their meaning for us. Rather, when we say the Our Father, we should say it as if we mean it and we should let it inform and guide all our prayer. So let’s look at these four petitions:
"Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come." From this we learn that when we approach God in prayer, we do so as devoted children coming to speak with a loving Father; and that, even before we mention a single personal request, our first concern is with the honor and glory of God and that His reign of love and peace extend throughout all the world and all of time.
The first personal request we make is "Give us each day our daily bread," and here we show our complete dependence upon God’s providence for the most basic needs of human life: our daily sustenance. But the Church has always understood this to mean, not only our physical needs, but our spiritual needs as well, and that "daily bread" refers primarily to the Bread of Life—the Body of Christ—given to us in the Holy Eucharist. And, if we avail ourselves of it, we do indeed have the privilege of receiving this wonderful food every day.
The next petition is, "forgive us our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us." Here we ask for forgiveness—another basic spiritual need—but only to the degree we have shown forgiveness. Not because God’s mercy is conditional, but as a reminder to us that we have no right to expect God’s forgiveness if we have refused to forgive others.
The last petition, "and do not subject us to the final test," is more commonly translated, "and lead us not into temptation." The Greek word rendered "test" or "temptation" is also used by Saint Luke in the fourth chapter of his Gospel to signify Satan’s temptations of our Lord after he was led by the Spirit into the desert. Here, Jesus seems to be saying, "Pray that God will never allow you to endure the kind of temptation I had to suffer; but if he does, he will always supply you with the grace you need to conquer the devil just as I did."
The rest of today’s Gospel is a lesson in how we should pray—our attitude in prayer. And that attitude has two characteristics: it is an attitude of persistence and it is an attitude of filial trust—the kind of trust a small child has in its daddy. Jesus tells us the reason why we must persist in our prayer. The reason being that God is our Father. To drive home the point about persistence, our Lord gives a little parable about a man who needs to borrow some bread from his neighbor. The neighbor gives an unbelievably lame excuse for why he can’t help: "Do not bother me; the door has already been locked and my children and I are already in bed. I cannot get up to give you anything” (Luke 11:7). But in the end he does help simply because of the man’s persistence. The point is this: if persistence works with a stubborn, selfish human being, think how effective it will be with our heavenly Father, who never sleeps and who is always ready to hear his children when they pray. And how do we show persistence in prayer? By a willingness to put some effort into prayer. "Ask and you will receive;" says our Lord, "seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you." Notice how the level of effort increases from asking to seeking to knock. The triple sayings “Ask, seek, knock” offers us the assurance that ours is a God who gives, opens and allows us to find Him (Jeremiah 29:13-14). The danger comes when in our asking, knocking and seeking, we do not become selfish in our request. Jesus assured his followers that God answers prayer but he did not guarantee that they would receive whatever they requested. The assurance that follows the Lord’s Prayer assume that those who ask, seek and knock are asking from their need and for God’s will. An example is the man who knocks at the door of his friend at night. This is real persistence.
We may be anxious about the necessities of life but Jesus calls us to a higher pursuit: “ Seek his kingdom, and these things shall be yours as well for it is the father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12: 31-32). Our praying should be consistent with our seeking. Then, when we pray as Jesus taught us, the assurance that God answers is hardly needed.
Jesus’ teaching on prayer, therefore, require that the one who prays will pray as one aware of desperate self-need of God. Jesus’ teachings assures us that prayer is effective not because of our cajoling, or because we have found the right words, but because of God’s nature as a father who loves his own and wants to give to those in need. Both the model prayer and parables elsewhere in the Gospel underscore the related point that prayer is ultimately the worship of God as father, acknowledging God’s holiness and devoting ourselves to the coming of God’s kingdom. Prayer is, therefore, where we bring our need to God’s love in faith."Lord, teach us to pray." There is much more we can learn about prayer—to become proficient in prayer is really the work of a lifetime. But the basic truths our Lord teaches us today are all we really need to know. May God help us to pray for what we truly need, with persistence and with childlike trust?

Thursday, July 15, 2010

THE MASS AS AN ENCOUNTER WITH GOD

INTRODUCTION
In Deus Caritas Est, Pope Benedict speaks about every "encounter" with Christ as one "which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction." I would like to propose that the Mass is an Epiphany; an opportunity to encounter a God who always reveals himself to those who seek him with all their hearts (Jeremiah 29:13).
Like you and me, Jesus Christ has a transformative effect in our lives when we encounter Him (speak to Him, listen to Him) and so often after a search, the perennial search that marks our own epiphany journeys each and every day of our lives. The challenge is to allow that transformative effect, in the power of the Holy Spirit, to draw each one of us more closely to Him each and every day and to share with others the saving power of our God. We can never exactly retrace our paths in life. There is always a new path for us, a new star that leads us ever anew, to the Christ born for us, born to make us holy and the grace to help us grow in holiness. Hahn Scott in his book, “The Lamb’s Supper” describes the Mass Heaven on Earth. If this definition is apt, then it is an undeniable fact that the Mass is really an encounter with God. The Mass is not merely a ritual, but an event, a point of contact where Jesus Christ approaches you to change your life. I wish in this paper from time to time to you pull into the parking lot for Mass, until you walk out the doors after the final blessing. I will examine the three aspect of the Mass to unravel this mystery namely sacrifice, the Word of God and prayerful reading of scripture and forgiveness and mission.
First, like the Magi, the Mass is holy exchanges of gifts .We are called to pay Him homage, to worship Him. "Lord, every nation on earth will adore you." This happens every time we worship Him at holy Mass—each and every Sunday without exception and during the week. They brought gold, frankincense and myrrh. We bring ourselves. And there is a holy exchange of gifts. The Mass is about an exchange of gifts. We exchange gifts each time we offer ourselves at Mass, gifts represented by the bread and wine--work of human hands--gifts which are then transformed into His body and blood at the Eucharist, truly a wondrous exchange of gifts, an exchange which transforms us into Him and challenges us to live more love-filled lives by His enduring and real presence in the Eucharist. If Jesus will transform mere bread and wine into his own Body and Blood, then during our encounter with him in the Eucharist, he wants to transform us into holy instruments because we are more dignified than mere bread and wine for we have been created in the image and likeness of God. This is replicated in the ITE MISSA EST (GO THE MASS IS ENDED). When we are transformed by him, he sends us out to be instruments of transformation in our society.
Second, His Word pinpointed the exact place of His birth-- "in Bethlehem of Judea." His living Word always and continually reveals God and His presence to us. We encounter the living God in our daily and prayerful study of Sacred Scripture. His Word transforms us into Him and we speak that word and are challenged daily to live that word and give witness courageously to that Word in the power of the Holy Spirit. (Deuteronomy 30:10-14).
Thirdly, the Mass is an encounter with a Holy God. Our presence at Mass immediately evokes a feeling of our unworthiness. That is why the only Sacrifice that is acceptable to God is the Sacrifice of Jesus himself, a re-presentation of the sacrifice on the cross of Calvary. We live in a world that needs Jesus than ever. Pope Benedict XVI says that the solution to the problems of humanity today is Jesus. He says again that "all the more, since the society in which [we live] has become more complex and the threats to [our] personal and moral integrity have become more insidious." wrenching and persistent pull away from God has become the order of the day. We call it sin, the occasion of sin. For you and me, now is time this year to accept ever anew Jesus as our Lord and Savior, to admit at the core of our existence the need for Jesus in our daily lives, to become more and more children of the light and welcome daily His light. To encounter Him means to allow Him to save us from ourselves, our selfishness, our sinfulness, yes, to admit to our sinfulness for "If we acknowledge our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive our sins." It means to allow Him to heal us frequently in the great sacrament of healing, the sacrament of confession. “If God’s covenant makes us his family, then sin means more than a broken law. It means broken lives and a broken home. Sin comes from our refusal to keep the covenant, our refusal to love God as much as he loves us. Through sin, we abandon our status as children of God. Sin kills the divine life in life in us.” He is the Savior of the world and the world needs a Savior, the same Savior the Magi adored and we adore, and it begins with each one of us.
Finally, this feast of the Epiphany has a clear missionary dimension. They came in three and they left together in three albeit "by another way." Each of us is challenged by this feast to share the faith with one another each and every day. We never walk alone. The Good News is not a private venture, but by its very nature, news is meant to be shared, especially good news, and shared with a sense of zeal. "They were overjoyed at seeing the star and on entering the house they saw the child with Mary his mother." Joy is meant to be shared with a world, with concrete individuals, in a world so much in need of joy, a world in need of unity, reconciliation and love. That is our faith pure and simple. The more we share it, the more we live it with deep joy. Blessed Teresa of Calcutta says that when we encounter Jesus, we cannot afford to keep him to ourselves. A true encounter with Jesus leads us towards Christian action namely to tell people about Jesus and the salvation he brings to us.

CONCLUSION
In each of these four ways—through the Eucharist, the Word of God in scripture, the sacrament of confession and the call to evangelization--this great Sacrifice of the Son of God himself can have a lasting effect in our lives.

Thursday, July 1, 2010

FACING THE REALITIES OF LIFE

“As for me, I am full of joy in the Lord, now that at last your consideration for me has blossomed again; though I recognize that you really did have consideration before, but had no opportunity to show it. I do not say this because I have lacked anything: I have learnt to manage with whatever I have.” (Philippians 4:10-11)
The above words of Paul bring to sharp focus the attitude of the stoics to life. The basic tenet of the stoicism as a school of Philosophy is “Learn to be indifferent to external influences like torture, imprisonment and the like. According to Epicletus, an influential Stoic who began his life as a Roman slave and rose to be a Roman official, virtues reside in the will; only the will is good or bad. If one has a good will by remaining indifferent to external happenings, one’s essential character cannot be destroyed by one’s external event in one’s life.” It is against this background that this article seeks to bring to the fore the numerous opportunities that life offers us by considering the following points: search for treasures in the darkness, accept pain with open hands not fists, and avoid bringing attention to yourself in moments of difficulties.
To start with, one of the numerous ways of remaining indifferent especially to situations you cannot change is to search for God in the darkest moment of your life. People who choose to follow the Lord will experience frequent disappointments of great magnitude if they do not develop this discipline of disillusionment- a discipline that life is not at all rosy. Unfortunately, many of us in Christian community live by certain illusions or misconceptions about life. Too many of us simply have not done our homework to understand the facts of who we are as human beings and our inclinations to good or evil. Moreover, we have illusions concerning God as well and when our knowledge of God and how he works is insufficient, it is not uncommon to fall into deep disappointment when he does not perform quiet as we, in our ignorance anticipate. We need to learn obedience even in our suffering as Christ our model did. While in the garden of Gethsemane, in pain and in agony, he prayed that his father’s will be done in his life and the puzzle that will remain unanswered is that his father’s will for him was that he should die for us” “…The Spirit of God provides a special grace to the person in pain that may not be experienced or even visualized by those looking on” . This was true of Jesus. “Then an angel appeared to him, coming from heaven to give him strength. In his anguish, he prayed even more earnestly and his sweat fell to the ground like drops of blood.” (Luke 22: 43-44). This was the moment Jesus closer to his father than ever. For the writer to compare Jesus’ sweat to a drop of blood showed the extent of his dependence on his father at that material moment. At what moment of your life have you felt closer to the Lord?
Secondly, in facing the realities of life, we must accept pain with open hands, not fists. Pain tempts us to be angry at whomever we think is the source of our problem. Perhaps that is why so many people get angry with God when they go through the pain of a loved one’s death or the loss of a job or a serious illness. Sometimes, we are faced with so many temptations and the question that often comes to mind is “ If God is such a loving God, why can’t he take better care of me?” “Our thoughts are only based only on how we are feeling now; they do not take on God’s infinite view very easily.” (St. Augustine). Michael Quoist has this to say:
As long as a child plays quietly, his mother remains in the kitchen preparing dinner. But if he does something naughty and hurts himself, his screams will bring the mother running to help him. Despite his behavior, she is there, attentive and loving than ever. But the child, nonetheless can rebel against his hurt. He can throw himself on the floor; he can kick the piece of furniture on which he hurt himself: he can strike out at this mother who is trying to help him. But if he loves his mother, he goes beyond his pain and throws himself into his arms. She does not take the hurt away but in holding her child, she bears the hurt with him.
Like the mother, that is what exactly Jesus does for us whenever we are in difficulties. He shares in our pain without necessarily taking away our pain. Thus, he tells us “Take my yoke upon yourself for my yoke is light and not burdensome.” In precisely the same way we can choose in our pain an attitude that further separates us from the father or that draws us closer to him. Our attitude must be like that of Job who even in pain said “… If we take happiness from God’s hands, must we not take sorrow too?” (Job 2:10). Like the Stoics, Job knew that it was not in his power to change his situation but to change his attitude by remaining indifferent to his situation.
Finally, one must as much as possible avoid bringing attention to himself in moment s of difficulties. When one feels the pain of some kind of fall, there is an overwhelming temptation to look around to see who is noticing and who will come along to offer attention. If the person comes, the temptation is to reveal everything that is on our mind to him: our anger, our frustration and our cries about injustice. This tendency to call for attention from other people may cause us to forfeit what we could have received from God. In times of doubts and pain, one needs a deep reflective moment to count the blessings of the Lord one by one; in moments like these, we must begin to ponder anew what the almighty God has done and can do and above all lift up holy hands in prayer and say Lord we love you, teach us Lord to be docile. In our trying moments, we are tempted to compare our righteousness with that of other people. Like Job, let us individually learn to say in difficult moments that: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, naked I shall return again. Yahweh gave, Yahweh has taken back. Blessed be the name of the Yahweh” (Job 1:21).
In conclusion, whenever we are in pain or trouble of any kind, we should not compare ourselves to any standard but the perfection of Christ otherwise we will always put ourselves in a scary place. Thomas a Kempis wrote it nicely when he said: “It will not hurt you at all to consider yourself less righteous than others, but it will be disastrous for you to consider yourself better than even one person”
The Akans have a song “ Oben me kyen m’damfo.” Always remember that Jesus Christ is nearer to you than your friend is and in facing the realities of life, one must, among other things search for treasures in darkness, accept pain with open hands not fists and avoid bringing attention to oneself. Thus, in times like these our prayer should be, “Lord grant us the serenity of mind to accept those things that we cannot change; the courage to change those we can and the wisdom to know the difference.”