Homilies (Page 41)

When Sharing is the Miracle we Need!  2 Kings 4:42-44; Ephesians 4:1-6; John 6:1-15 In our capitalistic world of today, the mentality is that of “I Before Others.” Today, the protectionism of the Trump’s administration is seen in this light – “I Before Others” – Americans first, before others. The near extinction of the other, especially when the other has no capitalistic value, draws contemporary society into the culture of death, death of the other; it further leads to the collapse of the human community, and the indifference with which societal needs are met is deafening. Take the instance of hunger, disease and poverty ravagingRead More →

Compassionate as the Heavenly Father: Only a Sinner Understands it Jeremiah 23:1-6; Ephesians 2:13-18; Mark 6:30-34 Any praises of shepherds and herdsmen is out of sync with Nigerians, with the continuous  murderous escapades of herdsmen in Nigeria. Family after family bury their loved ones murdered in cold blood. The question on every lips is “when will this end,” and “what have we done to merit this”? The more the questions asked, the less the answers received – as the saying goes, “the more you look, the less you see”. Not even the readings of today praise cattle-herdsmen or shepherds. God himself is disappointed with theirRead More →

God needs Missionaries NOT Mercenaries: When Collaboration marks us out as God’s Children Amos 7:12-15; Ephesians 1:3-14; Mark 6:7-13 Every human being is a potential slave to his/her desires. The moment one distances oneself from God and surrounds oneself with all that make one different from the other, one puts on a  self-made chain. According to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, “Man is born free but everywhere he is in chains.” The chains in question are human-made. At birth, a child comes into the world carrying nothing, as a sign of freedom and dependence on God. For the Yoruba of South-Western Nigeria, every childbirth affords human beings theRead More →

What you need is Fidelity NOT Success: Coping with Failure Ezekiel 2:2-5; 2 Corinthians 12:7-10; Mark 6:1-6 In our age of stars and celebrities, thanks to the Oscars and pageant contests, to be famous, one needs to receive human approbations and ovations simply by playing in accordance with earthly rules, especially by being seen to oppose the Christian way of life. To preach the awfulness of sin is to be out of sync with contemporary culture; to promote virginity up until marriage is considered a sign of mental derangement; and to manifest one’s faith in the public squares and spaces is seen as a signRead More →

More of Divine Wisdom, Less of Human Science: It takes Just a Touch of Jesus! Wisdom 1:13-15; 2:23-24; 2 Corinthians 8:7, 9, 13-15; Mark 5:21-43 or 5:21-24, 35b-43 Human beings have conquered and dominated the earth, little wonder the earth is on edge, and science is leading the way towards conquering other planets as alternative habitations. Human beings are good at destroying, but have not learnt the wisdom of living and helping others to live. We plan our vacations in distant places, we spend our time far away from familiar territories; like Ulysses, in our explorations, “we seek to find and not to yield!” LordRead More →

Stop that Killing, Be a Defender of Human Lives! Isaiah 49:1-6; Acts 13:22-26; Luke 1:57-66, 80 To have to celebrate the Solemnity of the Nativity of St. John-the-Baptist on a Sunday, the Day-of-the-Lord, instead of the Resurrection of Christ, maybe considered nothing less than a scandal: how can the feast day of a saint topple and replace that of God himself, Jesus Christ, whose resurrection from the dead we celebrate every Sunday? Well, when we understand that the Day-of-the-Sun, Sunday, is inferior to every human life, and that the Defence of human life is far superior to every obligation given to human beings, then theRead More →

I Give Hope to Life, When I keep Hope Alive: Your Life is the Difference that Matters Ezekiel 17:22-24; 2 Corinthians 5:6-10; Mark 4:26-35 Albert Camus, that Algerian-French novelist and existentialist philosopher, has this as the opening sentence and thesis of his book, The Myth of Sisyphus: “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy.” “Suicide” is the termination of earthly existence; despite the reasons adduced for that decision, Albert Camus found those reasons absurd. For us and our liturgical readings of this Sunday,Read More →

Dwelling with the Lord, Despite Sin: “I am Naked” is NOT the Last Word! Genesis 3:9-15; 2 Cor 4:13-5:1; Mark 3:20-35 Today, an African proverb explains our homily: reculer pour mieux sauter – to draw back in order to jump better! The etymology of this proverb is derived from animal fight by butting, where an animal needs to back up (draw back) to gather speed before an attack. For us, we return to Genesis, in our first reading, and the creation account of the Fall of humanity, for the purposes of learning how to live life better. Our first reading is not meant to make usRead More →

Becoming One with the Lord, through what I Eat and Drink: The Meaning of Corpus et Sanguis Christi Ex 24:3-8; Hebrews 9:11-15; Mark 14:12-16, 22-26 There is a physical dimension to our residency of the planet earth. Neither the physical is the enemy of the spiritual nor is the mundane necessarily against the spiritual. Having dealt with the metaphysical and spiritual, the Pentecost and the Holy Spirit, last Sunday we dealt with the mystery of the Trinity, today we concern ourselves with food and drink, the physical and mundane components of human life. The spiritual and the physical both have the imprint of God, andRead More →