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“Passion Sunday”: Suffering is Christian! Isaiah 50:4-7; Philippians 2:6-11; Lk 22:14-23:56 or 23:1-49 Today, a name matters. Our Sunday is called “Passion Sunday” to teach us that suffering is Christian and normal/natural. In order to tell us the importance of “Passion,” we read a “Passion Narrative,” the story of the suffering, betrayal, and agony of Jesus. In fact, all three readings of today qualify as “Passion Narratives”. In our first reading, we read the agony of Jesus in the prophecy of Isaiah, how the Messiah’s beard becomes an instrument of torture; his face, a toilet for spittle; and his back, a punching bag. Imagine whenRead More →

Acquittal Sunday Isaiah 43:16-21; Philippians 3:8-14; John 8:1-11 This morning, I was sitting on a bench next to a homeless man, I asked him how he ended up this way. He said: “Up until this last week, I still had it all!!! A cook cooked my meals, my room was cleaned, my clothes were washed, pressed, I had a roof over my head, I had TV, Internet, I went to the gym, the pool, the library, I could still go to school.” I asked him, “What happened? Drugs? Alcohol? Divorce?” “Oh No, nothing like that he said. No, no … I got out of prison!”Read More →

Salvific Prodigality Sunday Joshua 5:9a. 10-12; 2 Corinthians 5:17-21; Luke 15:1-3, 11-32 Growing up in rural Nigerian State of Kaduna brought me close to the importance of milk – breast milk. Whether human or animal, neonates/new born babies need milk for survival, and what a pride Nigerian women take in displaying both their motherhood and generosity in breastfeeding their babies. The African celebration of feminineness extends to a God who is proudly human in his identification with the attributes of both genders, masculine and feminine. Today, the feminine aspect of our God comes to play – he feeds his children with pride, just as anRead More →

Charity or Almsgiving Sunday Exodus 3:1-8a, 13-15; 1 Corinthians 10:1-6, 10-12; Luke 13:1-9 Wow, the third Sunday of Lent is already upon us! How much of a host of the past three weeks of Lent have we been? What are the achievements so far in our warfare against discriminations, selfishness, maliciousness, anger, gluttony, gossip? Yes, how charitable have we been in the past three weeks of Lent? It may surprise you that charity summarizes our journey of Lent so far; but it shouldn’t. The three readings of this Sunday are pointing in the direction of charity or sharing what we have with others – unlessRead More →

“Our citizenship is in Heaven”: Preserve it! Genesis 15:5-12, 17-18; Philippians 3:17-4:1; Luke 9:28b-36 For those of us who travel often, international passports are not equally respected. For once, black is powerful, perhaps Africans should be proud of this, because it shows that Caucasians are not a bunch of racists – their passports are largely black, and respected; how Africans and Asians end up with greenish and reddish international passports is a tale for another day. The power of black passports derives from human contrivances, and history shows that their powers have fluctuated with good and bad fortunes. The issue, though, is that earthly citizenshipsRead More →

Diet to Overcome Indifference Deuteronomy 26:4-10; Romans 10:8-13; Luke 4:1-13 The Lenten season calls us to fasting, almsgiving, and prayer—three perennial spiritual disciplines. However, in light of Pope Francis’ 2015 Lenten message, we are invited to expand our understanding of fasting as a means to overcome indifference. The Pope warns that “indifference to our neighbor and to God represents a real temptation for us Christians.” This indifference often stems from an attitude of exceptionalism, where individuals separate themselves from the struggles of others, believing that societal issues do not concern them directly. A Nigerian man, who had sent his two sons to the United StatesRead More →

A Journey to Acquire Immortality Joel 2:12-18; 2 Corinthians 5:20-6:2; Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18 Life is a journey that starts in the maternal womb and ends in the womb of the earth, but with a guarantee of resurrection for the children of God. The journey of life takes two vehicles, the body and the soul. To keep the vehicle of the body going, we need to work and eat every day. To keep the wolf from the door, we study hard in school to obtain degrees, and our degrees obtain jobs that require hard work in order to be paid salaries and all forms of remunerations.Read More →

S-O-S Sunday! Sirach 27:4-7; 1 Corinthians 15:54-58; Luke 6:39-42 If ships in distress usually send out S-O-S (Save Our Ship) distress call, it is not a bad idea for Christians to send out Save-our-Souls distress call because the practice of Christianity is in distress and needs salvaging. The reality, though, is not the search for a rescue ship or a rescue holy Christian; on the contrary, sinful and weak Christians are the ones to redeem themselves alongside other bad Christians because no one is good but God alone! Three ironies go through each of the three readings of this Sunday and require close reading forRead More →

Walking out of the Cemetery to Live with God 1 Samuel 26:2, 7-9, 12-13, 22-231 Corinthians 15:45-49; Luke 6:27-38 Driving by a cemetery with a friend, he said to me: “look over there, what do you see?” I replied, “that is a cemetery”; and he said to me, “they are dying to enter there”! The pun dawned on me that one needs to die to be an inmate of a cemetery – dying to get in, indeed! However, the challenge today, from our readings, is: how does one become a child of God? The answer is simple: dying to material life; that is, we needRead More →

Morality Sunday / Freedom-of-Choice Sunday (Between a Blessing and a Curse) Jeremiah 17:5-8; 1 Corinthians 15:12, 16-20; Luke 6:17, 20-26 The prophet Jeremiah, in our first reading, presents a striking picture of human society—one that remains just as relevant today as it was 2,500 years ago. He categorizes people into two groups: those who bring blessings and those who manifest curses. In modern terms, we might say society is divided into good and bad citizens, faithful friends and traitors, the righteous and the unrighteous. This Sunday, God calls us to reflect on the ultimate consequences of our moral choices, the destinies of the unrighteous andRead More →