Almighty and merciful God
by whose gift Your faithful offer You
right and praiseworthy service,
grant we pray that we may hasten without stumbling
to receive the things You have promised.
1. What is my attitude when I attend Mass?
2. What is the gift I offer God this week at Mass?
3. How does God's gift of right and praiseworthy service be shown in my worship and in my life this coming week?
4. What are the things God has promised?
5. Do you want to receive the things God has promised?
6. What are the things in my life that may cause me to stumble in receiving the things God has promised?
7. What action/s will I take this coming week to move forward towards God and to erase one or two areas of stumbling with God's help.
Today’s readings fit in well with the two aspects of
observation of pretending to be something or someone
and remembering those who really know who they were (All Saints). Or there are
two messages: one concerns our attitudes
towards others, and the other is about truth.
As we heard from the Prophet Malachi and Jesus in today’s
readings, speakss challenging words to those
leaders who have been pretenders. These leaders were given a sacred trust. Instead
of serving others, they demanded service from others. They put on costumes of importance and respect so that
others will notice what they are doing. Jesus warns against this sort of behaviour to the Church leaders not to be
actors or hypocrites but is also speaking to us as well. We too need to show our love for God and value the sacred trust God gives us by serving others.
The problem of the Pharisees, as Jesus describes in
the Gospel, is not about their words but their actions. The Lord says, “Do everything
they tell you,” but be careful, not to follow their examples. In other words,
they taught more truth than they actually lived. They didn’t practice what they
preached. The Gospel remembers Jesus’ criticism of the Pharisees because it shows
what can happen to all of us too. Sometimes the way we speak goes against the
way we act. Often we become like Pharisees in our lives. We turn to ignore the
truth as long as we gain people’s attention. We all have a gap between what we
say and what we do. Sometimes we just ignore the real truth that we should
practice. We need to ask why. We need to ask the Holy Spirit to shed light, so that we can through His help, become authentic Christians.
The Lord says, “They tie up heavy burdens hard to
carry, and do not lift a figure to help.” We embrace our leaders to high
standards, but we make many exceptions for ourselves. We expect to do well from
salespeople, professionals, and fellow
workers but excuse ourselves many times. We may write
abusive letters of complaint to others but we ourselves easily disrespect other people. We question others’ motives and good faith,
but we ourselves ready to disagree if anybody challenges to question our own.
We excuse little in anybody else but will always find an excuse for ourselves.
How deeply do we let the truth sink into our life? Are
we good at all the outward signs of devotion yet within us is a very different
world, a darker world, a world of anger, jealousy, and self-righteousness? How
deep does our faith go?
The saints are the good examples for us to imitate in
order to follow Christ because their
deeds match with their words. Saints are virtuous, kind, and patient people. God shows to us, a
clear way, His presence and His face in the lives of the saints in the human
condition who are more perfectly transformed into the image of Christ. They are the
living reflection of the face of Christ.
It is important to remember that the saints were like us. They suffered the same faults/sins, weaknesses and chose to work through perseverance to change- day by day, moment by moment. They chose to work on them and persevere moment by moment because they loved God and had a desire to change their faults/sins/weaknesses. The saints were like us but perhaps, unlike us at times, their love for God was strong and they desired to change their behavior so that it was in keeping with God intended- we are made in the image and likeness of God. However, mostly our behavior does not conform perfectly to that, as the saints realized in their lives. They set out through God's help to change it and persevered daily.
Maybe there’s a bit of the Pharisees in each of us.
Finally, the Lord says the Pharisees like titles of respect father, teacher. We
like titles too and are proud of titles
like Australian, Catholic, a parish
member, partner, friend, confidant. But do we abide by the responsibilities, service, a dedication that go with titles such as father,
mother, citizen, partner, confidant?
This should give us a good description of humility.
One thing that is central to the lives of all saints is humility when we
acknowledge that we all fall short of the
glory of God and are all in continuing need of grace. What conclusions would people
draw about Jesus from us, if there were no written Gospels and the only source
from which people could learn about Christ was ourselves?
Every time we come to Mass, Jesus calls us to take off
our masks and costumes and to let the word of God work within us, to make our
life a living Gospel for all people to hear and to see. To grow in Christ, we
never have to be afraid of the truth about ourselves. We only have to be afraid
of the masks we wear. When we use the sacrament of Reconciliation, we can take of our masks, ask sincerely for forgiveness from God, and receive absolution from Him through the priest.
If there is a little
bit of the Pharisee in each of us, there also is a little bit (hopefully a lot more) of Christ in each
of us. We pray today and ask God to help us to grow in a very honest way so
that our words and deeds may fruitful to other
people’s lives.
So who will you choose to be this week
a Pharisee or a Saint in progress?
This homily was given on 5th November at St Dominic's East Camberwell by
Deacon Lawrence Bosekana OP.
New Horizons contributed in the process of editing.
No comments:
Post a Comment