Reflection/Homily: Thirtieth (30th) Sunday in Ordinary Time of the Year C (October 27 2013)

Reflection/Homily: Thirtieth (30^th) Sunday in Ordinary Time of the Year C (October 27 2013)

Theme: Humility: The Path to Righteousness

Today’s gospel reading (Luke 18:9-14) presents us with the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican who went to the Temple to pray. According to this parable, the Pharisee thanked God for his righteousness while the tax collector being mindful of his sins asked God for pardon. Surprisingly, Jesus approved only the prayer of the Publican and was dissatisfied with the prayer of the Pharisee. Ordinarily speaking, there is nothing wrong in thanking God for living a righteous life. This Pharisee is supposedly a devout Jew who lived even more than he was expected. He recognized the need for thanksgiving and went ahead to thank God. As the object of his thanksgiving, he presented his religious credentials.

However, there are a number of issues associated with his prayer. He was not wrong in his methodology but in his disposition. In his prayer, we see a feeling of superiority over others especially sinners. When we flaunt our religious credentials, we are no better than this Pharisee. Most often, we boast of how piously we have lived our lives. A catholic in the shoes of this Pharisee is likely to thank God for being a good catholic and not a protestant or non-Christian. He would boast of receiving communion, going for confession and fulfilling his financial obligations.

Reflection/Homily: Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper (Holy Thursday) 2012

Theme: The Eucharist: A communion and Summit of Love

 

In this liturgy of the evening mass of the Lord’s Supper, the Holy Mother Church commemorates three principal mysteries; the institution of the Eucharist, the institution of the priesthood and Christ’s commandment of brotherly love. Our reflection this evening will be based on these mysteries.

The Institution of the Eucharist: The first reading (Exodus 12:1-8, 11-14) gives us a pre-figure of the institution of the Eucharist which is the Christian Passover meal. In the second reading (1 Cor. 11:23-26), St. Paul narrates the manner with which Christ instituted this great sacrament and gave his apostles the mandate to celebrate it in his memory.

The Eucharist is a topic that can never be exhausted because it is a theology about God which cannot be fully comprehended. For want of time and space, we shall concentrate on the Eucharist as a communion. 

Bishop John Okoye in his Lenten pastoral letter for 2012 describes the celebration of the Eucharist as the highest expression of the identity of the Church as a communion. This is because it maintains the communion between the Church and the Triune God, the communion between the Church and the faithful and the communion between the faithful themselves. 

Pope John Paul II points out that celebrating the Eucharist however, cannot be the starting point of this communion, it presupposes that communion already exists, a communion it seeks to consolidate and bring to perfection (Ecclesia de Euchariatia, no. 35).

Beloved brothers and sisters, today we experience rancor and discord not just among Christians but

Reflection/Homily: Palm/Passion Sunday Year B (April 1 2012)

                                     Theme: Learning to obey through humility and suffering

In our world today, one comes to discover that obedience as a virtue is only practiced when it is convenient and favourable for the individual. Most of us prefer to obey not just when it is easier but when we have something to gain from it. Obedience is a difficult virtue to cultivate otherwise there would not be incessant cases of people breaking civil and moral laws every day. Obedience involves self-emptying (kenosis) because it is the offering up of one’s will to do the will of another. It is the letting go of our ideologies, intentions and actions to adopt those of the other and sometimes, unpleasant ones.

Today being the last Sunday of lent which we traditionally call Palm/Passion Sunday, the Church presents to us through the readings, the examples of Christ who learnt to obey through humility and suffering. In the first part of today’s liturgy (the blessing and procession with palms), we see Jesus’ great obedience to the will of his Father by triumphantly entering the Holy City. Jesus was not just triumphant in the manner with which he entered Jerusalem, he was more triumphant in his obedience to accept death, death on a cross, even against the wish of his special friend Peter (cf. Mk 8:33).

That is to say that we can regard ourselves as being successful not when we win a legal battle or an